Jonathan Baba

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26 Jul 2043
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Marked for Jonathan Baba

862 Edition

The BA All Stars Gazette

2 Feb 2043
From our football correspondent Crisis

Match31 Jan 2043

A hiding for BA All Stars

Beaten 2‑6 by Wa All Stars, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.

Boardroom2 Feb 2043

BA All Stars spell it out for Kwadwo Amoah

The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Kwadwo Amoah has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.

Boardroom2 Feb 2043

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.

Player ratings2 Feb 2043

Albert Baba scores twice — 8.04

Two goals and a mark of 8.04 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.

Match31 Jan 2043

No clean sheets in sight for BA All Stars

8 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.

Squad2 Feb 2043

A one-man rearguard from Baba Mensah

There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.

Match31 Jan 2043

Nobody could stop scoring

8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about BA All Stars and Wa All Stars in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.

Squad2 Feb 2043

A month that belonged to Thomas Adjei

The young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at BA All Stars who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.

Boardroom2 Feb 2043

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.

In brief

Back issues
848 Edition

The BA All Stars Gazette

27 Oct 2042
From our football correspondent Crisis

Squad27 Oct 2042

A knee injury of the worst kind for Amos Adjei

58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. BA All Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.

Squad27 Oct 2042

Baba Mensah keeps BA All Stars in it on his own

Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.

Match25 Oct 2042

No end in sight to BA All Stars's wait for a win

5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at BA All Stars has to find a result from somewhere.

Squad27 Oct 2042

Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ernest Asamoah 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.

Match25 Oct 2042

Jonathan Baba’s goal not enough for BA All Stars

Jonathan Baba scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Great Olympics, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.

Squad27 Oct 2042

When it matters, Isaac Acquah plays

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.

In brief

842 Edition

The BA All Stars Gazette

15 Sep 2042
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match13 Sep 2042

18 matches without a win for BA All Stars

The run now stands at 18, and the questions being asked around BA All Stars are no longer polite ones.

Squad15 Sep 2042

Amos Adjei damages knee ligaments — 100 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 100 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.

Match13 Sep 2042

BA All Stars are shipping goals every week

Two or more conceded in each of the last 11 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.

Player ratings15 Sep 2042

Ninety minutes of Abeiku Ayew at his very best

Marked 8.07. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at BA All Stars.

Squad15 Sep 2042

Amos Gyan signs a new deal

“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Amos Gyan commits to BA All Stars for another 2 years.

Match13 Sep 2042

BA All Stars and Hearts of Oak take a point apiece

It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.

Squad15 Sep 2042

Ernest Asamoah 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.

Squad15 Sep 2042

BA All Stars pick somebody else ahead of Kamaldeen Ofori

There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.

Player ratings15 Sep 2042

Off the bench and decisive: Emmanuel Nuhu

The substitution nobody applauded turned out to be the whole story. BA All Stars were going nowhere until he came on.

In brief

817 Edition

The BA All Stars Gazette

24 Mar 2042
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

BA All Stars are in real trouble now

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.

Match22 Mar 2042

Osman Paintsil among the goals in a wild afternoon

6 goals in one match, Osman Paintsil on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of BA All Stars and Berekum Chelsea.

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

Osman Paintsil rescues a point for BA All Stars

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.

In brief

812 Edition

The BA All Stars Gazette

17 Feb 2042
From our football correspondent Crisis

Squad17 Feb 2042

Kamaldeen Mohammed damages knee ligaments — 102 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 102 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.

Match15 Feb 2042

BA All Stars taken apart

2‑7 to Liberty Professionals, 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.

Match15 Feb 2042

No end in sight to BA All Stars's wait for a win

10 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at BA All Stars has to find a result from somewhere.

Player ratings17 Feb 2042

Ernest Asamoah pops up at the right end — 7.52

7.52, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.

Match15 Feb 2042

9 goals as BA All Stars and Liberty Professionals go for it

Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 9 goals between BA All Stars and Liberty Professionals, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.

Squad17 Feb 2042

7 past Baba Mensah

Whether it was the goalkeeper or the ten in front of him is the argument that will fill every conversation in town this week. 3 saves does not settle it either way.

Squad17 Feb 2042

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.

Squad17 Feb 2042

Abeiku Ayew 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 BA All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Boardroom17 Feb 2042

Inquest at BA All Stars

The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.

In brief

790 Edition

The BA All Stars Gazette

16 Sep 2041
From our football correspondent Crisis

Squad16 Sep 2041

Nana Ofori breaks a bone — 32 days out

Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.

Squad16 Sep 2041

A knee injury of the worst kind for Amos Gyan

15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. BA All Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.

Match14 Sep 2041

No clean sheets in sight for BA All Stars

7 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.

Match14 Sep 2041

The wait goes on for BA All Stars

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.

Squad16 Sep 2041

Bernard Waris 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 BA All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Match14 Sep 2041

BA All Stars come up short against Hearts of Oak

Hearts of Oak left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.

Squad16 Sep 2041

Amos Paintsil signs a new deal

“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Amos Paintsil commits to BA All Stars for another 2 years.

Player ratings16 Sep 2041

Albert Baba runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 10. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

Market16 Sep 2041

The Amos Adjei talk will not go away

Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. BA All Stars know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.

In brief