Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Football, Football and more Football
It’s here, CAN 2008! No, the Cup of African Nations (CAN) wasn’t my reason to come to Ghana, but it was a marvellous coincidence that it was being staged whilst we are here! Anyone who knows me knows that my biggest passion in life is football, (after Diane of course!). The build up naturally, went on for a while. But whereas in Europe, the build up is slick and timed with military precision, in Africa… well let’s just say it isn’t!
The nearest games to Tumu were being played in Tamale. Roughly 8 to 9 hours away if you do it in one go on public transport. Group D was there, the delights of Angola, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia. So my main aim was to see at least a game live. Accommodation in Tamale on a normal day is sparse, but for CAN it was ‘finished’. Fortunately, there’s a VSO couple there called Rik and Dinie, and they agreed to put us up. So the next task was to get a ticket. Cutting a long story short I acquired a ticket in a Post Office in Bolgatanga when on a visit for a meeting conveniently arranged just before the tournament started. I also encountered my first journalist there. He wanted a ‘white man’ to take part in a phone-in to a radio station in Accra. He didn’t have to ask twice. The only trouble was he wanted to know what ‘paraphernalia’ I was buying – for paraphernalia read merchandise – from a makeshift washing line I was having a look at. I wasn’t. When I told everyone listening to City FM that I was only here to buy tickets and that they should also be selling them in places like Tumu, he bid me a curt ‘thank you’ and moved on to his next interviewee. So my time on the Ghanaian airwaves was short-lived – but at least I had my ticket.
Diane and I booked time off so that we could spend around a week in Tamale, ‘like a short holiday’ said Di. More importantly that meant by my calculations I could get two more matches in, including the once mighty Cameroon – the (indomitable) Lions of Africa, Roger Milla, Old man Billeck (not spelt like that, but that’s what we called him), a glorious 3-2 defeat to England in Italia 90 …sorry I’ve come over all nostalgic! So off to Tamale we set.
Now, I hadn’t just bought one ticket in Bolgatanga, I’d bought two! And those of you that know Diane, will know how much she loves football…not! But she can’t spend two years here and not see a CAN game, can she? So Senegal vs Angola became the first live, in the flesh football match Diane had seen in our 26 years of marriage. The only time she’d ever been to Anfield was to see Billy Graham. As it happened on the day of the first game, Rik and Dinie’s house became a meeting point for dozens of people from all over the area. There were more VSO’s, other Dutch volunteers, an American Doctor, a Dutch Priest, the Archbishop of Tamale (who we sat next to) and brilliantly there were dozens of Ghanaian children and young adults from orphanages and schools who were all being taken to the game. So we bought two of their job lot of tickets so we could sit with all these people and gave our tickets to the watchmen at Rik and Dinie’s house, Mr Ibrahim and Mr John who were delighted to be able to go to the match. Then off we set. The house is very close to the new stadium, lying on the newly imaginatively renamed Stadium Road!
We all made our way to the ground, (The Tamale Sports Stadium) there was a real carnival atmosphere. As someone who has attended countless games, the scene inside was as nothing I’d encountered before. The noise was deafening – that wasn’t new – but the fans appeared happy to blow trumpets, bang Pepsi sticks or dance whilst paying relatively little attention to the football. It became a four hour people watching exercise. We saw: the proverbial African witchdoctor dressed in bra and knickers (supporting South Africa); the man with a football balanced on his head all game (Angolan); the Zoom Lions moving efficiently along rows picking up litter as the games were being played; countless vendors doing the same with different products balanced on their heads; riot policemen with shields and stun guns standing emotionless in the middle of celebrating fans; and fire officers complete with helmets showing people to seats – even late into the second half of the second game! In all honesty it was well into the second half of both games before I actually tried to concentrate on the football! At one point I too found myself sitting with my Pepsi sticks rhythmically banging them together almost trance-like!
For the record Angola came from behind to beat Senegal 3-1, all the goals in the opposite end, and Tunisia beat South Africa 3-1, all the goals in our end.
As the week moved on our (my) plan worked out perfectly. We got tickets and watched (the legendary) Cameroon v Sudan – treating Dinie to her first ever match. Then watched Tunisia v Angola in the final Group D match on the Thursday. The atmosphere was much the same for both games, except the Pepsi sticks were replaced with MTN yellow blow up hands! And while the trumpets remained we had the pleasure of sitting next to the official Tunisian fan club with their array of musical instruments – well, a selection of drums! The conclusion reached – give an African something that makes a noise and he’s happy! I must mention for those football fans reading this that we also witnessed Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon break the record as the all time top goal scorer in African Nation Finals – and he did it right in front of us!
We (I) would have loved to stayed for the Quarter Final on the following Monday, but it was necessary to travel back to Tumu and resume work by then, so we bid our farewells to Rik and Dinie and made the long journey home to Tumu.
To digress momentarily, the stadium truly is a marvellous structure, and my football head loved it, but the fact that it was constructed slap bang in the middle of communities that had neither electricity nor running water before or after its construction makes my social and political head question its worth. Even as an economist I saw little evidence to justify its existence. But hey! Let’s not get too deep about it, you try asking the bloke sitting in front of us at the Cameroon game who was making his MTN hands break the sound barrier, whether it is worth it or not! If he can still hear, he’d have no doubts!
So all this football talk and not a mention of the hosts Ghana! Well we didn’t forget about them either. Before we left for Tamale, Ghana had played two games. They beat Guinea 2-1 in the opener, and we watched this at the Danes on their TV that had a light snowfall on it. It was the perfect ending though with Ghana scoring the winner in the last minute, and we all joined Dr Zak, Dinladi and Abraham (the Ghanaian contingent) in celebration. Then we watched outside on the roadside, as they defeated Namibia on a better screen at Kuburu Enterprise, the butchers, to the delight of the locals. Morrocco succumbed while we were in Tamale. On our return to Tumu we watched the Quarter Final against Nigeria at the trusty Kuburu (not before we’d fleetingly popped into Jolly Friends, our local drinking spot, for the start of the game, but their TV lasted until 3 minutes into the game before dying!). Nigeria is a massive rival. It’s the Liverpool v Everton, or Man Utd v Arsenal of the international scene. The scenes after a dramatic win for Ghana were tremendous. As the fifty or so viewers, mostly men and Diane, went wild outside the shop, others set off round Tumu on their motos beeping horns. On returning to our house Jolly Friends had an excuse to put their music on full blast, it was a long, loud but enjoyable evening.
Cameroon met Ghana in the semi final. Alas the anticipated celebrations at Kuburu didn’t materialise. We all ‘ayeeeeed’ and ‘ooooohed’ and ‘abbaed’ as much as we could, but to no avail. And at the final whistle our 1-0 defeat saw people depart in a subdued manner, that meant no beeping horns or mega sounds from Jolly Friends – the party well and truly stopped! A philosophical inquest took place in work the next day – the consensus being ‘Ah well, life has its downs as well as its ups, and there’s not a lot you can do, is there?’
Still, there was the 3rd & 4th place play off to look forward to on the Saturday, and against the Ivory Coast at that. So as Diane had a nice sortie up to Leo, Burkina Faso, with the ‘girls’, I looked forward to a relaxing afternoon ready for the kick off at 5.00pm. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. It wouldn’t be Ghana without some flaw in the proceedings. At 11.00am lights went out in Tumu (i.e. the electricity went off)! And when did the power come back? Just before Ghana scored their 4th goal in a 4-2 win. That was about 10 minutes from the end of the game, a wee bit too late for me to get up to Kuburu’s to see the dying moments! Well the powers that be at least gave us lights on the Sunday for the final between Egypt & Cameroon, so I renewed my acquaintance with Kuburu for one last time in the CAN, and watched with a surprisingly big crowd. Egypt win 1-0. The final whistle was greeted with a polite ripple of applause for the Egyptians.
To finish off, I stayed around outside the butchers to see the presentation of the trophy. After roughly 30 minutes of quite impressive pomp and ceremony, as Egypt were about to go up to collect the trophy… the TV signal failed! A rather sudden end to a quite marvellous three weeks. And in those three weeks we saw some quite impressive football, met lots of excited and happy football supporters from all over Africa, stayed in Ghana’s third largest city, bought ourselves some cheese, (kraft cheddar cheese in a tin!) and Di got to see her first live football game – her comments on the experience – ‘well I did enjoy myself, I liked seeing all the crowds and the stadium wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, but I don’t think I’ll be going to the footy at home.’ Thank goodness….
It’s here, CAN 2008! No, the Cup of African Nations (CAN) wasn’t my reason to come to Ghana, but it was a marvellous coincidence that it was being staged whilst we are here! Anyone who knows me knows that my biggest passion in life is football, (after Diane of course!). The build up naturally, went on for a while. But whereas in Europe, the build up is slick and timed with military precision, in Africa… well let’s just say it isn’t!
The nearest games to Tumu were being played in Tamale. Roughly 8 to 9 hours away if you do it in one go on public transport. Group D was there, the delights of Angola, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia. So my main aim was to see at least a game live. Accommodation in Tamale on a normal day is sparse, but for CAN it was ‘finished’. Fortunately, there’s a VSO couple there called Rik and Dinie, and they agreed to put us up. So the next task was to get a ticket. Cutting a long story short I acquired a ticket in a Post Office in Bolgatanga when on a visit for a meeting conveniently arranged just before the tournament started. I also encountered my first journalist there. He wanted a ‘white man’ to take part in a phone-in to a radio station in Accra. He didn’t have to ask twice. The only trouble was he wanted to know what ‘paraphernalia’ I was buying – for paraphernalia read merchandise – from a makeshift washing line I was having a look at. I wasn’t. When I told everyone listening to City FM that I was only here to buy tickets and that they should also be selling them in places like Tumu, he bid me a curt ‘thank you’ and moved on to his next interviewee. So my time on the Ghanaian airwaves was short-lived – but at least I had my ticket.
Diane and I booked time off so that we could spend around a week in Tamale, ‘like a short holiday’ said Di. More importantly that meant by my calculations I could get two more matches in, including the once mighty Cameroon – the (indomitable) Lions of Africa, Roger Milla, Old man Billeck (not spelt like that, but that’s what we called him), a glorious 3-2 defeat to England in Italia 90 …sorry I’ve come over all nostalgic! So off to Tamale we set.
Now, I hadn’t just bought one ticket in Bolgatanga, I’d bought two! And those of you that know Diane, will know how much she loves football…not! But she can’t spend two years here and not see a CAN game, can she? So Senegal vs Angola became the first live, in the flesh football match Diane had seen in our 26 years of marriage. The only time she’d ever been to Anfield was to see Billy Graham. As it happened on the day of the first game, Rik and Dinie’s house became a meeting point for dozens of people from all over the area. There were more VSO’s, other Dutch volunteers, an American Doctor, a Dutch Priest, the Archbishop of Tamale (who we sat next to) and brilliantly there were dozens of Ghanaian children and young adults from orphanages and schools who were all being taken to the game. So we bought two of their job lot of tickets so we could sit with all these people and gave our tickets to the watchmen at Rik and Dinie’s house, Mr Ibrahim and Mr John who were delighted to be able to go to the match. Then off we set. The house is very close to the new stadium, lying on the newly imaginatively renamed Stadium Road!
We all made our way to the ground, (The Tamale Sports Stadium) there was a real carnival atmosphere. As someone who has attended countless games, the scene inside was as nothing I’d encountered before. The noise was deafening – that wasn’t new – but the fans appeared happy to blow trumpets, bang Pepsi sticks or dance whilst paying relatively little attention to the football. It became a four hour people watching exercise. We saw: the proverbial African witchdoctor dressed in bra and knickers (supporting South Africa); the man with a football balanced on his head all game (Angolan); the Zoom Lions moving efficiently along rows picking up litter as the games were being played; countless vendors doing the same with different products balanced on their heads; riot policemen with shields and stun guns standing emotionless in the middle of celebrating fans; and fire officers complete with helmets showing people to seats – even late into the second half of the second game! In all honesty it was well into the second half of both games before I actually tried to concentrate on the football! At one point I too found myself sitting with my Pepsi sticks rhythmically banging them together almost trance-like!
For the record Angola came from behind to beat Senegal 3-1, all the goals in the opposite end, and Tunisia beat South Africa 3-1, all the goals in our end.
As the week moved on our (my) plan worked out perfectly. We got tickets and watched (the legendary) Cameroon v Sudan – treating Dinie to her first ever match. Then watched Tunisia v Angola in the final Group D match on the Thursday. The atmosphere was much the same for both games, except the Pepsi sticks were replaced with MTN yellow blow up hands! And while the trumpets remained we had the pleasure of sitting next to the official Tunisian fan club with their array of musical instruments – well, a selection of drums! The conclusion reached – give an African something that makes a noise and he’s happy! I must mention for those football fans reading this that we also witnessed Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon break the record as the all time top goal scorer in African Nation Finals – and he did it right in front of us!
We (I) would have loved to stayed for the Quarter Final on the following Monday, but it was necessary to travel back to Tumu and resume work by then, so we bid our farewells to Rik and Dinie and made the long journey home to Tumu.
To digress momentarily, the stadium truly is a marvellous structure, and my football head loved it, but the fact that it was constructed slap bang in the middle of communities that had neither electricity nor running water before or after its construction makes my social and political head question its worth. Even as an economist I saw little evidence to justify its existence. But hey! Let’s not get too deep about it, you try asking the bloke sitting in front of us at the Cameroon game who was making his MTN hands break the sound barrier, whether it is worth it or not! If he can still hear, he’d have no doubts!
So all this football talk and not a mention of the hosts Ghana! Well we didn’t forget about them either. Before we left for Tamale, Ghana had played two games. They beat Guinea 2-1 in the opener, and we watched this at the Danes on their TV that had a light snowfall on it. It was the perfect ending though with Ghana scoring the winner in the last minute, and we all joined Dr Zak, Dinladi and Abraham (the Ghanaian contingent) in celebration. Then we watched outside on the roadside, as they defeated Namibia on a better screen at Kuburu Enterprise, the butchers, to the delight of the locals. Morrocco succumbed while we were in Tamale. On our return to Tumu we watched the Quarter Final against Nigeria at the trusty Kuburu (not before we’d fleetingly popped into Jolly Friends, our local drinking spot, for the start of the game, but their TV lasted until 3 minutes into the game before dying!). Nigeria is a massive rival. It’s the Liverpool v Everton, or Man Utd v Arsenal of the international scene. The scenes after a dramatic win for Ghana were tremendous. As the fifty or so viewers, mostly men and Diane, went wild outside the shop, others set off round Tumu on their motos beeping horns. On returning to our house Jolly Friends had an excuse to put their music on full blast, it was a long, loud but enjoyable evening.
Cameroon met Ghana in the semi final. Alas the anticipated celebrations at Kuburu didn’t materialise. We all ‘ayeeeeed’ and ‘ooooohed’ and ‘abbaed’ as much as we could, but to no avail. And at the final whistle our 1-0 defeat saw people depart in a subdued manner, that meant no beeping horns or mega sounds from Jolly Friends – the party well and truly stopped! A philosophical inquest took place in work the next day – the consensus being ‘Ah well, life has its downs as well as its ups, and there’s not a lot you can do, is there?’
Still, there was the 3rd & 4th place play off to look forward to on the Saturday, and against the Ivory Coast at that. So as Diane had a nice sortie up to Leo, Burkina Faso, with the ‘girls’, I looked forward to a relaxing afternoon ready for the kick off at 5.00pm. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. It wouldn’t be Ghana without some flaw in the proceedings. At 11.00am lights went out in Tumu (i.e. the electricity went off)! And when did the power come back? Just before Ghana scored their 4th goal in a 4-2 win. That was about 10 minutes from the end of the game, a wee bit too late for me to get up to Kuburu’s to see the dying moments! Well the powers that be at least gave us lights on the Sunday for the final between Egypt & Cameroon, so I renewed my acquaintance with Kuburu for one last time in the CAN, and watched with a surprisingly big crowd. Egypt win 1-0. The final whistle was greeted with a polite ripple of applause for the Egyptians.
To finish off, I stayed around outside the butchers to see the presentation of the trophy. After roughly 30 minutes of quite impressive pomp and ceremony, as Egypt were about to go up to collect the trophy… the TV signal failed! A rather sudden end to a quite marvellous three weeks. And in those three weeks we saw some quite impressive football, met lots of excited and happy football supporters from all over Africa, stayed in Ghana’s third largest city, bought ourselves some cheese, (kraft cheddar cheese in a tin!) and Di got to see her first live football game – her comments on the experience – ‘well I did enjoy myself, I liked seeing all the crowds and the stadium wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, but I don’t think I’ll be going to the footy at home.’ Thank goodness….
