Marked for Raphael Amponsah
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match10 Apr 2027
Hearts of Oak make home a hard place to visit
16 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.08, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Defences have started doubling up on Benjamin Nyarko
21 goals and a season average of 7.45 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market12 Apr 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Hearts of Oak is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match10 Apr 2027
Nobody wants to play Hearts of Oak right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Rivio Ayemwenre was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match10 Apr 2027
Three points for Hearts of Oak, 2‑0 the final word against Hasaacas in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
No place for Evans Mensah on the big day
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Hearts of Oak pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.08, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Hearts of Oak may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
A brace, and Azeez Falolu takes the afternoon — 7.90
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Azeez Falolu provided it, and the 7.90 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match6 Feb 2027
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Hearts of Oak have 4 straight wins of it.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A season average of 7.39 with 16 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Match6 Feb 2027
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Hearts of Oak and Great Olympics, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Moscow have kept their man, and Hearts of Oak go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The terraces8 Feb 2027
The crowd has taken to Yaw Amankwa
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.25, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market7 Dec 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Hearts of Oak is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match5 Dec 2026
Nobody wants to play Hearts of Oak right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Rivio Ayemwenre and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match5 Dec 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Benjamin Nyarko. 2‑0 against Berekum Chelsea, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match5 Dec 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Hearts of Oak. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Marked 8.01 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Adraman Yahaya
68 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hearts of Oak lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match3 Oct 2026
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hearts of Oak this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Evans Mensah beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match3 Oct 2026
A point taken on 86 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match3 Oct 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Wa All Stars leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.