“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Wa All Stars have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Wa All Stars they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Essien 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wa All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jeffrey Paintsil has his answer from Wa All Stars; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market5 Apr 2027
Andre Addo returns from a loan that taught him nothing
0 appearances and 0 clean sheets. A goalkeeper learns his job by playing it, and a season that gave him neither the games nor the shut-outs is a year taken off the front of a career.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Abeiku Amoah has moved up it.
A strip of cloth that decides nothing on the pitch and tells the dressing room whose opinion counts. The manager has made a statement without making one.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Patrick Essien trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Adeyemo Bolaji and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicholas Ablido 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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Amos Asante, on a 3‑2 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Great Olympics waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Wa All Stars is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Wa All Stars until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“I watch every Wa All Stars game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at New Edubiase United runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
At 22 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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wa All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Marked 9.79 — 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.
“I watch every Wa All Stars game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at New Edubiase United runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. David Boakye 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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kelvin Appiah is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 21 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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Joseph Paintsil did not need any: 8.25, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Jeffrey Boakye and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Wa All Stars and WAFA, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Wa All Stars, and 0 appearances in 7 say he has earned the hearing.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at New Edubiase United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Salim Adams 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.
At 26 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Bechem United in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Mohammed Aminu
Player ratingsOff the bench and decisive: Enock Afram
Player ratingsTasiu Lawal beats them one at a time
Adeyemo Bolaji 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hearts of Oak have kept their man, and New Edubiase United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. New Edubiase United will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
18 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Michael Yeboah and New Edubiase United agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Michael Yeboah 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.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. New Edubiase United were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. New Edubiase United will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. New Edubiase United know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at New Edubiase United, another week without a signature from Henry Ndedi.
New Edubiase United have made the call to Hasaacas. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
New Edubiase United have made the call to Wa All Stars. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The offer from Remo Stars for Amos 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wa All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Jeffrey Boakye and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joseph Paintsil 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.