Marked for Thomas Partey
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match22 Jan 2028
53 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.
Boardroom24 Jan 2028
The scrutiny sharpens at BA All Stars
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at BA All Stars is running low.
Match24 Jan 2028
2 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match22 Jan 2028
0‑3 against Aduana Stars, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Market24 Jan 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at BA All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match22 Jan 2028
No clean sheets in sight for BA All Stars
5 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Joseph 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.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albert Inusah 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match4 Sep 2027
32 matches without a win for BA All Stars
The run now stands at 32, and the questions being asked around BA All Stars are no longer polite ones.
Market6 Sep 2027
Thomas Partey 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 BA All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Market6 Sep 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Thomas Partey is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad6 Sep 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 BA All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Sep 2027
At 30 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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
6 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Match4 Sep 2027
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at BA All Stars can tell you which week it ends in.
Market6 Sep 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Joseph Afful has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market2 Aug 2027
$130.0K — a new record at BA All Stars
No footballer has ever cost this club more, and the number will be read out every time he misplaces a pass for the next two years.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market2 Aug 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 BA All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The BA All Stars board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Thomas Partey is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Joseph 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.
The terraces2 Aug 2027
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Michael Ephson from Heart of Lions for $130.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mthokozisi Xaba 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Jan 2027
20 matches without a win for BA All Stars
The run now stands at 20, and the questions being asked around BA All Stars are no longer polite ones.
Match9 Jan 2027
0‑3 to Medeama, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Market11 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market11 Jan 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gladson Asamoah will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BA All Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Thomas Partey is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Joseph 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albert Inusah 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom11 Jan 2027
Nobody left the BA All Stars dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Oct 2026
Asante Kotoko ended it 0‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Market12 Oct 2026
Andrew Appiah 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 BA All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Match10 Oct 2026
7 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.
Squad12 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Thomas Partey is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Match10 Oct 2026
5 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Squad12 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 BA All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Albert Inusah 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Sep 2026
Andre Owusu 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 BA All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Nana Waris runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Thomas Partey is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Sep 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 BA All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Siyabonga Ngcobo 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Everyone has stopped pretending: WAFA will make the call about Gladson Asamoah this week. BA All Stars have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad14 Sep 2026
7 new faces, and BA All Stars are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I watch every BA All Stars game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Inter Allies runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.