Marked for Patrick Atiemo
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match22 Mar 2042
15 matches without a win for BA All Stars
The run now stands at 15, and the questions being asked around BA All Stars are no longer polite ones.
The terraces24 Mar 2042
The mood at BA All Stars has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad24 Mar 2042
Kamaldeen Mohammed damages knee ligaments — 67 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 67 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match24 Mar 2042
Position 15, 21 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Match22 Mar 2042
BA All Stars are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 8 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Player ratings24 Mar 2042
Jonathan Baba, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.95
A mark of 7.95 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad24 Mar 2042
Bernard Waris 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.
Match22 Mar 2042
It needed Osman Paintsil to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against Berekum Chelsea, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match7 Dec 2041
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Berekum Chelsea, and it could have been more.
Player ratings9 Dec 2041
Bernard Waris, 35, rolls back the years — 7.92
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad9 Dec 2041
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bernard Waris and BA All Stars agree another 2 years.
Squad9 Dec 2041
Bernard Waris 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 Dec 2041
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.
Squad9 Dec 2041
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
Uneasy
Match19 Oct 2041
BA All Stars are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 13 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Player ratings21 Oct 2041
Two goals and a mark of 9.18 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings21 Oct 2041
Bernard Waris, 34, rolls back the years — 7.98
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.98 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match19 Oct 2041
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between BA All Stars and Wa All Stars, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad21 Oct 2041
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bernard Waris 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 Oct 2041
Patrick Atiemo 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 Oct 2041
Isaac Acquah has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at BA All Stars 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.
Squad21 Oct 2041
Isaac Gyan gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market1 Apr 2041
“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.
Squad1 Apr 2041
A muscle injury sidelines Baba Mensah for 15 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. BA All Stars will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad1 Apr 2041
Bernard Waris 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match23 Feb 2041
6 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.
Player ratings25 Feb 2041
No sign of nerves from Emmanuel Adjei at 20 — 7.70
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Emmanuel Adjei did not need any: 7.70, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market25 Feb 2041
“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.
Squad25 Feb 2041
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.
Match23 Feb 2041
Bechem United left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad25 Feb 2041
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Krzysztof Zielinski and BA All Stars agree another 1 years.
Squad25 Feb 2041
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.
Squad25 Feb 2041
Emmanuel Adjei is the weekend's best young player
At 20 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
Player ratings25 Feb 2041
The pass was always on for Bernard Waris
Chances created: 5. Somebody has to open a door before anybody can walk through it, and he spent the afternoon opening doors.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match16 Feb 2041
5 matches without a win for BA All Stars
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around BA All Stars are no longer polite ones.
Squad18 Feb 2041
20 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad18 Feb 2041
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bernard Waris 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.
Squad18 Feb 2041
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Brayan Itende commits to BA All Stars for another 1 years.
Player ratings18 Feb 2041
Marked 7.62 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, BA All Stars had the best player on the pitch.
Squad18 Feb 2041
Patrick Atiemo 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.
Match16 Feb 2041
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Market18 Feb 2041
The shop window has Amos Gyan in it
BA All Stars have let the market know Amos Gyan can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.