Last time I wrote I briefly updated you readers on what happened between me getting here and going to ada foah, since then there have been a few things that have happened and I will run you through these one by one before giving a brief overview of what its like living in Ho.
The football training is really good, ive been coaching the mens team for the last 3 weeksish, which is more enjoybale than coaching the kids I think, however im not really sure as I haven’t done much kids yet. The men are a pretty decent side, and at the moment there at a stage where they are trying to market their players to bigger clubs inside Ghana, and eventually outside Ghana as well, they play in division 2 of the Ghanain leagues so are pretty handy.
Weve gotten into a routine where we split the U17’s and the Men (most of wh are under 22), and do specific drills for half an hour with each, before getting into a game at the end, where normally Dave, Chris and I join in. Last week we joined into one of these games, me and Dave on one team and Chris on the other, but this game was one of the worst training matches to date, within the first 30 seconds, Julius (one of our finer players) broke down the right, and me, being the dynamic surging midfielder that I am, burst into the box leaving my defender for dead, as the ball was squared, I was closing in on goal, roughly 2 yards from the goal, what ensued was ugly. The left boot was swung, the left boot connected, almost too well, and the ball went sailing over the goal from 2 yards, as I turned around everyone was laughing at me. I enjoyed the moment.
My personally misery was compounded as less than a minute later we went down to a goal scored by chris from a similar distance, he even gave it the Ameobi celebration to boot. A nightmare. So me and Dave really dug in, and Dave was rewarded with a penalty when his goalbound shot was punced clear by a defender, up Dave stepped with the penalty, who smashed the post, and then somehow put the rebound wide from a metre, needless to say Chris was having a field day. The match wore on and we found ourselves 4-3 down with a minute to go, but we had a corner, it couldn’t have been written, it was swung in, Dave rose, and the ball was planted in, HUGE celebrations ensued.
So after this game, Daniel, tld the players that a team that had just been promoted into the top league of Ghana wanted to play a friendly on Friday, this team, Inter-Allies I think they were called, apparently boasted players who played in the U-20S world cup, but im not too sure.
So Friday came round, and we all headed to the stadium to watchthe match, me and Chris walked over to see which players had turned up, and were given the news by Daniel, that we were to pick the team, set the shape and manage throughout the game. Thrown in at the deep end. We settled on a 4-2-3-1, which was quite hard to explain due to players only knowing positions but there 4-4-2 number (2= Right back, 11= Left winger etc.) With Dave as our technical director in the stands we gt to work. Warming up was a bit farcical as one of our players, Appiah, didn’t bring the balls or cones, so I had to borrow the balls from the opposition, pretty budget, Appiah didn’t think we needed balls if we were playing a match it seems.
So in the game we came out as the better side, we got a 0-0, but realistically we should have had a penalty, and we did miss a few guilt edge chances during the game, but we were extremely happy tacitically masterminding a 0-0.
Happy with our days work, it was Rhian (one of the Exeter lots) birthday, turning 21 on the Friday night, so we planned a bar crawl, snaking through town, hitting all our favourite spots on the way, namely wine lodge, the new bar on the way to football that always plays james blunt, the green bar, and white house. Having opened a few bottles of “dinasty” champagne at the house that was truly grim, we headed to the bars. Wine lodge was a disaster, no music, nad only beer, so no gin and Fanta, or Goal and Coke (which I will be rbinging home for you all to try). But the next bar was more successful, after knocking back a few, we through our CD (we set outselves the task of making a ultimate Ghana playlist) onto the speakers. After pumping out some sweet Azonto moves we headed to our final stop, white house, also our local. They normally shut at ten, but after lots of drinking and dancing, and even involving them we were still going come half 2. After been bribed out of the bar by been giving a free bottle of gin, me and Chris headed back to our room, where we started a 2 man after party. Including massive tunes, such as pure shores and ice ice baby. Untill maybe half 3, not even been told to be quiet was a massive result.
The next day we were hanging pretty hard. And it wasn’t that comfortable, but I remembered that I had agreed to meet George Hutchinson at Atimpoku for Saturday night, so I jumped on a hot tro, at roughly ten AM and got there way before he did, sat in the sun sweating out all the alcohol from the previous night. Evenutally Hutch arrive and we embraced, it was really really good to see him again, haven’t seen him for close to 3 months, which is our longest time apart. After checking into a massively overpriced dorm room where we were the only two people staying we went for a swim in the River Volta, something ive always wanted to do, after about 5 mins we bottled. George was scared of crocodiles. After a takeaway of rice and chicken we went to a spot bar to chat the night away, after a few drinks we started talking to the locals, who bought us a few more, and a few more. Then a massive bar fight kicked off, which involved a drink (comically my drink) being thrown into my face before two groups of men went outside for a good old scrap on the street. After this we were bought a few more from the warriors who returned, but me feeling a little hungover still wasn’t keen to go to Akosombo for another night on the tiles so we decided to turn in early. The next morning we both overslept a little so our goodbye was a little rushed. I guess I will see him soon.
Yesterday was the last day of summer school and the Exeter volunteers decided to run a sports day, I was appointed points scorer and the whole day was a success. And they got a bit emotional when they had to say goodbye to the students, remiscent of me in china. They leave today, and will make the experience a little lonlier, they were all real good craic. Were planning to go to the world cup qualifier between Ghana and Zambia on Friday, but tickets still haven’t materelised, were crossing our fingers.
So a little on living in Ho, I love it, I could easily stay for months and months, every ne is so friendly, the food is tasty and there is so much football to be played. It will be just Dave and Me until the 13th, then just me until the 21st, but im looking forward to it, coaching the men and the kids, and im certain the time will fly by even quicker than it already has.
This morning the Exeter lot have left and asked us to meet them in green turtle beach in a few days, weigihing it up at the moment, but the big news is that we have got our tickets! Off to Kumasi we go today.
Luke
Luke's Mystical Adventures 