Ben Koufie’s legacy

Do you want to become a football coach? Are you desirous of going into the mind of a coach and know what makes him tick? If you are football analyst or critic, are you really anxious to understand the coach and what goes on before and during a match? How can you do a serious job of letting your readers, viewers or listeners understand and appreciate the nuances of a game of football?

Worry no more, for help is here. All it might take is to walk into a bookshop near you and ask for a copy of Ben Koufie’s freshly launched book, THE PRINCIPLES OF MODERN SOCCER COACHING. It might cost you the equivalent of six bottles of beer at any plush hotel in the city of Accra, but it will be worth the sacrifice.

Trust me, this isn’t your normal book review but a humble appraisal of an excellent work by a man who has spent a greater percentage of his 80-year existence on this earth in football. Uncle Ben, as he is affectionately called, is the quintessential football man. He played the game from an early age, became a national star, coached to the highest level anyone could aspire to, both locally and internationally. To cap it all, Uncle Ben became the chairman of the Ghana Football Association.

What Uncle Ben has done is to bequeath all the knowledge and vast experience he has amassed over the years to the present and future generation of coaches.

As a coach, Mr Kuofie has gone through the mill, having handled school teams and clubs at regional level. The former Venomous Vipers, Kumasi Evergreens and Kumasi Cornerstone player is credited with having coached Kumasi Asante Kotoko alongside the late Aggrey-Fynn to win the African clubs championship in 1970.

He became the national coach in 1968, having assisted the legendary C.K. Gyamfi in the beginning of the glory days of the Black Stars in 1963 when they first won the Cup of Nations and successfully defended it in Tunisia two years later.

In 1968, Uncle Ben was appointed the substantive coach. He led the Black Stars to the final of the continental championship in Sudan and finished as runners-up to the host nation.

Yours truly was part of the contingent to Sudan and I remember how we were virtually bundled out of that country for snubbing then military strongman of that country, Gen. Nimeiry, following a mix-up during the medal and cup presentation ceremony. Perhaps, over-excited with their first and still their only continental triumph, the Sudanese turned the protocol arrangements upside down and presented the gold medals and trophy to their players, instead of inviting the Black Stars to receive the silver medals first.

A furious Ben Kuofie then ordered his boys to leave for the hotel. The General was obviously scandalized and around midnight, security officials were dispatched to our hotel to send the team packing to the airport, a deportation order of sorts.

When his tenure at the helm of the Black Stars was over, Ben had stints as a coach in the Cote d’Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Gabon and Botswana. He later became a CAF and FIFA coaching instructor and conducted courses in numerous countries in southern, east and west Africa.

When in 2001, he was appointed chairman of the Ghana Football Association, his technical bias was in full glow. The establishment of the Ghanaman Soccer Centre of Excellence at Prampram bears ample testimony to this fact, not to talk about the introduction of the first five-year development plan for football, whose implementation he personally supervised whilst in office as GFA chairman.

With this rather rich and elaborate background in the game of football, Uncle Ben would certainly have done posterity and the sport a serious disservice if he had quietly walked into the sunset of his life without leaving us with the benefit of his experience and deep knowledge of the beautiful game. That surely is a worthy legacy for Ghana football.

Thank you and may your publication inspire some of us to also document our experiences for the sake of posterity.