SPECIAL REPORTS: DO OUR MASTERS LOVE OUR SCHOOL?

Monday, February 13, 2006

The Milo football, which consist of 80 minutes of action for each match, featured the following 8 schools in Group A (and another set of 8 in Group B):

The 2005/06 Prempeh soccer team

Prempeh's opponents were the Adu Gyamfi boys, two of whom played for the national Under-17 team.

Because of the skills of the two Starlets strikers on the Adu Gyamfi team, Prempeh placed our captain and versatile utility player, Ahmed Amoako in the defense along with experienced defender Okei Stephen. These two awesome players formed the backbone of Prempeh defense just as they did for the Ashanti Regional team. We therefore had as our rear-guard the national footballer of the year and probably the greatest defender Prempeh has produced in recent years. And what a fantastic job they did in halting all the fiery attack.

Ahmed could have played a striking role and created the goals but Mr. Lartey brilliantly thought that having him restrain the two national strikers of Adu Gyamafi would prove more beneficial.

Our opponents were appropriately cognizant of Paul Manu's impeccable pedigree as the form one boy who played on the Ashanti team. They therefore assigned about 3 or 4 defenders to mark him anytime he got the ball. This proved favourable to Prempeh as Manu's strike partner, Sports Prefect Collins Amponsah became free throughout the whole match. But strangely, the less effective Collins kept hitting all the balls over the bar, even when the net was widely open. Prempeh ended up hitting the post about four times.

Our sensational winger Goloe, the nation's fastest youth, was absent from the right wing because of a previous injury that ruled him out of the match.

In the 80th minute, just before the referee whistled for the end of regulation, Adu Gyamfi scored a clearly offside goal which the referee surprisingly allowed. This shameful act on the part of the referee caused several Amanfoo, including our own radio presenter Honourable Prince, to rush on to the referee to protest, while our opponents from Kumasi High, Asanteman, Obuasi Sec Tech and OKESS and Kumasi Anglican danced on the sidelines.

All through out our match they had been jealously shouting at our team, uttering words like, "Mo nfiri mu na yenko, mo nkoaa na mobo skillful football. Mo nfirimu, mo nfirimu."

Jet FM and Kessben FM independently argued later that the Ashanti Sports Federation did not fancy the idea of one school winning the trophy three consecutive times and thereby keeping the trophy for good -- a form of corruption that is prevalent in our country. Any time a repeat winner (such as Prempeh in the national Science Quiz) faces in a final a team without a previous trophy, that team will mysteriously defeat the school that is on the verge of winning it for an unprecedented third time. This happens in Ghana not only in sports but also in Science Quizzes and other areas.

Others believed that Ashanti sports officials wanted to present 2 teams to the national Milo competition this year to increase Ashanti's chance of bringing the national inter-schools trophy to Ashanti again this year. They know that Prempeh already qualifies as the number 1 seed in the forthcoming national Milo competition by virtue of being the defending national champions. What if they crown another school Ashanti champion and have the new champion join Prempeh in the national finals? We could even wind up with an all-Ashanti National final. That is the reason the people in Kumasi provide for Prempeh's casual robbery.

But in the opinion of prempeh.org, the main cause of Prempeh's unceremonious exit lies elsewhere. And the story depicts administrative laxity and incompetence, breach of contractual agreements, gross negligence, and a shocking lack of loyalty to the school.

Read on...