Marked for Albert Afful
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market29 Oct 2035
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ashanti Gold they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad29 Oct 2035
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings29 Oct 2035
Marked 7.73 at 18, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Player ratings29 Oct 2035
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.90, and nobody on the pitch better.
Match27 Oct 2035
Ashanti Gold make home a hard place to visit
12 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.
Match27 Oct 2035
Whatever happens, Ashanti Gold do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match27 Oct 2035
It finished 2‑1, and it was Japhet Matondo’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Ashanti Gold.
The terraces29 Oct 2035
He is 18 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.
Player ratings29 Oct 2035
A performance of 8.08 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Jan 2035
9 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Market15 Jan 2035
“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 The request is on a desk at Ashanti Gold, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market15 Jan 2035
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ashanti Gold people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Player ratings15 Jan 2035
Both of them Baba Ayew's — 8.47
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.47, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match13 Jan 2035
5 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 ratings15 Jan 2035
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.92, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Transfer targets15 Jan 2035
Medeama wanted more than $110.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets15 Jan 2035
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The terraces15 Jan 2035
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Baba Ayew 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match7 Oct 2034
14 matches without a win for Ashanti Gold
The run now stands at 14, and the questions being asked around Ashanti Gold are no longer polite ones.
Match7 Oct 2034
1‑1 against BA All Stars, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings9 Oct 2034
Kwame Mohammed, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.88
A mark of 7.88 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad9 Oct 2034
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.
The terraces9 Oct 2034
At 19 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.
Squad9 Oct 2034
Words at Ashanti Gold training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bernard Mohammed 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.
The dugout9 Oct 2034
Nobody at Ashanti Gold 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.
Market9 Oct 2034
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Afriyie Atiemo has his answer from Ashanti Gold; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout9 Oct 2034
Osman Nuhu 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.