Marked for Patrick Afful
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match2 Oct 2027
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.55, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market4 Oct 2027
Patrick Afful hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hasaacas can pretend not to have heard.
Match2 Oct 2027
Hasaacas cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mohammed Djiku and Hasaacas agree another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Edmund Owusu in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hasaacas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Edmund Kyereh falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Marked 8.49 — 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.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.23, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Sep 2027
The match ball belongs to Abeiku Asante, whose 4 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match4 Sep 2027
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 5‑1 against BA All Stars, and it could have been more.
Match4 Sep 2027
The run at home goes on for Hasaacas
16 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Market6 Sep 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hasaacas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Albert Amoah is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Edmund Owusu in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hasaacas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match4 Sep 2027
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Hasaacas and BA All Stars in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Edmund Owusu has improved at 27, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Player ratings6 Sep 2027
Abeiku Asante was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.79. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match9 Aug 2027
Hasaacas refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 72 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Edmund Owusu in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hasaacas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Abeiku Asante falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Abeiku Asante has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Hasaacas will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Patrick Afful
“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.
Market9 Aug 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Hasaacas, another week without a signature from Jonathan Amoah.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Jun 2027
Andre Mohammed 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Hasaacas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simon Obonde is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad21 Jun 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match14 Jun 2027
Hasaacas are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 72 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market14 Jun 2027
Hasaacas say no — this time
The offer from Asante Kotoko for Gladson Boateng was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad14 Jun 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 64. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match27 Feb 2027
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
No sign of nerves from Thomas Kudus at 20 — 8.39
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Thomas Kudus did not need any: 8.39, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market1 Mar 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Hasaacas is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad1 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hasaacas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match27 Feb 2027
A 2‑1 win over Heart of Lions, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces1 Mar 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Thomas Kudus has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Hasaacas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Afful is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Edmund Owusu is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.40 with 5 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match17 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 5‑2 against Bechem United, and it could have been more.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
A brace, and Abeiku Asante takes the afternoon — 9.27
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Abeiku Asante provided it, and the 9.27 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Age has not caught Francis Wakaso yet — 8.91
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.91 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
No sign of nerves from Jeffrey Annan at 20 — 7.60
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jeffrey Annan did not need any: 7.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Abeiku Asante
18 goals and a season average of 7.36 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Andre Mohammed 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Hasaacas and Bechem United in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match17 Oct 2026
Hasaacas keep winning on the road
4 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Match17 Oct 2026
Still nobody has beaten Hasaacas
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.