When I was growing up one of my biggest pastimes was football. Football was about 40% of the things I did with reading, going after 'golden' fish in gutters, ponds and pools as well as chasing after birds and other four legged animals sharing the remaining 60%.
When I say football was the biggest pastime it is not meant to be that I only played, yes I did play but also spent a lot of time discussing the beautiful game. I wasn't very good at it but I played a lot of football in the neighbourhood and with some upstart football clubs that were formed by some industrious individuals (most went under within a few weeks).
Not very good is not the right way to put it, I should say because I had my own style and that is to whack legs of opponents. I could confidently say my football style was modeled on those of Fernando Hierro, Franco Baresi, Ronald Koeman, Basil Boli and Emmanuel Armah Senegal.
So it was that in those days I was always relied on by my playmates and coaches in the neighbourhood to neighbourhood matches we played as well as the clubs that I played for like Some Kulikuli, Manchester, Orlando Babies, Temptation Stars and others respectively to do the whack job (just the same way Obama relied on the Navy Seals to whack the terrorist mastermind Osama). I never disappointed and in more than a few times I sprained my ankle, toe, leg or some such part of my anatomy in the process.
I thought I was smart enough to have realized that playing football was more difficult than talking about it and so I hanged my bandage and decided to talk about it more. In those days there were no Essiens or Muntaris to look up to. Yes the likes of Abedi Pele were around but we could never dream of getting even a piece of the talent that man had so we just decided to do what we were more able to do - discussing football.
Thus anytime we met at Osagyefo Bar to watch and or talk football I was among the leading analysts. Italian football was at the top then and my bias for AC Milan then was very obvious and so my circle of friends named me Berlusconi after the owner of the club. Up to this day you probably would take much less effort to find me in my old neighbourhood when you mention Berlusconi than my real name. Suffice to say that Osagyefo Bar was behind the house in which Ghana international Prince Tagoe lived and as little boy he came around to listen to the expert analysts discuss the beautiful game. It was also just 100 meters away from the house in which former Ghana international Alex Nyarko grew up.
As fate would have it, I ended up analyzing issues related to show business professionally and not what I started with - football. But since a passion cannot be hidden I have found myself on countless times discussing the greatest sport on earth at places that I should not.
Then came social media which has given us unbridled platform to discuss everything and thankfully many people have come on to Facebook and Twitter who also love football banter as I and many others do and we have had countless occasions to banter about many things that have happened in the football.
As an extension of my show business and arts and culture writing, I set up a blog late last year to discuss issues related to the subject and I have done so on a lot more occasions that I thought I would - I could do better, I know. I also realized that I love to visit football websites and blogs to read what had been said about a match a person in the business and other news related to the game.
I just thought about it an hour or two ago that I could in addition to my other blog set up a blog solely to discuss issues related to football whenever I have the opportunity and the time to do so. I may not be able to update it as frequently as I should as I would be working, learning or reading other peoples articles on football, but I will as and when the bug bites me.
The only caveat for those who would visit this blog is that I have some biases and they may show: I am a football slave of Messi, Maradona, Brazil, Manchester United, Barcelona, Hearts of Oak and as previously mentioned AC Milan and so I might annoy you once or twice with comments in favour of these people and clubs or against your club or favourite players.
The fact is that I will write in this column not as a professional analyst - which I am not by the way - but rather as the guy sitting at the stadium or rather Osagyefo Bar and arguing with the likes of Wisdom Awuku, Dan T, Zowey, Kwasi Macho, Stephen Bombay, Kwaku Frafra, Kwame Tagay (Alex Nyarko's younger brother), Damatey, Issah Mampam, Prince Dabodabo, Prince (doctor of all cases), Kojo Dugbe and a host of other young football enthusiasts on what should be, would be, could be or would have been. Do bare with me.
Sometimes, maybe most of the time, I will say the things that football fans say in the heat of the moment not what analysts write about after they've given it a thought. So if you have nothing much to do and feel like reading a blog that could make your blood boil why not come here and see if I have the right stuff for you and determine for yourself if I am lying that football runs through my blood.
Welcome to theglobularleather blog, the place where I talk about football, yes football not soccer!
