Edwin Asamoah 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.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Fataho Nerie 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.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Afriyie Kyereh chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Hearts of Oak in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Berekum Chelsea, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Fataho Nerie 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rahman Abdul trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Vincent Klu Adjeu is on it.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Fataho Nerie has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Berekum Chelsea can pretend not to have heard.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Afriyie Kyereh after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rahman Abdul trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Edwin Asamoah 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Fataho Nerie was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
New Edubiase United will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Berekum Chelsea were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 8.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Fataho Nerie was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.00 — 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.
A brace, and Rahman Abdul takes the afternoon — 8.38
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rahman Abdul provided it, and the 8.38 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Berekum Chelsea can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Berekum Chelsea this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Afriyie Kyereh could afford to be generous.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fataho Nerie 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Afriyie Kyereh could afford to be generous.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori 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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Berekum Chelsea will try again when the window opens; Medeama may not be selling by then.
5 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.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Berekum Chelsea will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Kwesi Sorotu Badori 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.
Berekum Chelsea asked and Aduana Stars said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Edwin Asamoah 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.
Asante Kotoko have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Seidu Abubakar is on it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Berekum Chelsea told Philani Sithebe something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“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 Berekum Chelsea, and it is not being withdrawn.
Jonathan Mensah 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.
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.
Nobody at Berekum Chelsea 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.
Something was said to Charles Agyemang and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Berekum Chelsea, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
Position 3 on 53 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Jonathan Mensah 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Nhlonipho Mtshali has just signed for Berekum Chelsea, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edwin Asamoah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Afriyie Kyereh left the room before anybody could ask which.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nhlonipho Mtshali and Berekum Chelsea agree another 3 years.
Nobody at Berekum Chelsea 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.
“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 Berekum Chelsea, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Jonathan Mensah 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edwin 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.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Berekum Chelsea is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Berekum Chelsea this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edwin Asamoah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Jonathan Mensah 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. Kofi Patric Ansu 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Afriyie Kyereh could afford to be generous.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Rahman Abdul will call it something else in private.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Seidu Abubakar is on it.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Hearts of Oak keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Berekum Chelsea have done the hard part with Ashanti Gold, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Berekum Chelsea this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edwin 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout31 Jan 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Afriyie Kyereh to a room that had heard them before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Seidu Abubakar is on it.
In brief
Player ratingsAn afternoon Edwin Asamoah will want back
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Berekum Chelsea is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Jonathan Mensah 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 unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Edwin Asamoah 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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Hasaacas will replay every second of the added time for a week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Berekum Chelsea this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rahman Abdul. 2‑1 against Hasaacas, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Rahman Abdul was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.39. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Berekum Chelsea will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edwin Asamoah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ashanti Gold will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Berekum Chelsea were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 8.50 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
He is 21 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.
Marked 8.11. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Berekum Chelsea.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Edwin Asamoah 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Afriyie Kyereh could afford to be generous.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.