SOAS vs. Africa United Football Club

SOAS vs. Africa United Football Club

Lost 3-2 - Scorers: Sami Hamdi, Timothy Omacar

Football Beyond Borders 2010 kicks off

After all the hype, Football Beyond Borders 2010 was beginning to unravel. A day of travelling and then another to recover. Yet we now found ourselves on the side of a bone-dry pitch, on a humid Saturday afternoon. This wasn’t for the faint hearted; fast paced technical football from the Ghanaian University Champions represented a different footballing culture to the British one that encouraged hopeful long balls and last ditch slide tackles. We would soon find ourselves toiling away, “pass and move” with an effortless physical prowess that left us chasing shadows.

One-nil down at half-time and almost every sinew of energy exerted, “don’t chase the ball” just “let the ball do the work” the coaches told us. Yet the round ‘ball’ that we’d all grown up with, the ‘ball’ that we’d kicked together back home uniting us as friends now seemed so different. This was a ‘ball’ that was hard to retain and even harder to retrieve. British brute force was futile in the face of this African artistry, the Ghanaians danced on the ball and we were forced to watch and learn as we ran in vain. This was a baptism of fire into the Sub-Saharan African heat.

University of Ghana Radio Interview

 



We’ve just been interviewed by the University of Ghana radio station, ahead of our game this afternoon with the University team. We’re in fine spirits; though it was a bit difficult to rein in our confidence during the interview, and we’re now honour-bound to live up to Tim’s 3-1 prediction. Still, hopefully it’ll get the spectators out - and as Symeon pointed out, we’re here to meet the students and engage with the other team, and what better way to do that than to drum up interest in the game?

Training

Training proceeds well. The boys are in fine form.

Arrival

We’ve made it to the University of Ghana in Accra. After a 24-hour journey, involving a 6-hour flight to Lagos, a 12-hour night stopover in Lagos Airport waiting for our morning fight to Accra, and a 1-hour flight into Ghana, we were picked up at the airport by friends at the University, and now we’re getting some well-deserved rest and planning our next steps.

Ghana has welcomed us - a couple of us have visited before and are admiring how much the country has developed in the last few years. The rest of us are struck by how beautiful the country is and how friendly her people are. Symeon in particular has been moved by his symbolic homecoming - though it took him 400 years to return to the motherland.

We hope to have the use of one of the University’s football pitches for practicing over the next few days - we have a lot of fitness and team bonding work to do before our first match. But we’re confident - already we’ve been through a lot, and it’s made us stronger, and we’re looking forward to the next challenge.