League Day I: Bloody Clash At RTU-Kotoko Match

Supporters of Real Tamale United (RTU) and Kumasi Asante Kotoko engaged in fierce free for all fight during and after their premiere league encounter in Bolgatanga on Sunday.

They threw stones, broke plastic chairs hired from the Centre for National culture while a good number of them sustained injuries of various degrees in the course of the fight.

A bus with registration number AS 6385N hired by Kotoko supporters had its windscreens damaged during the stone "throwing war".

Some players from both teams were also attacked in the process.

The confrontation began when Kotoko scored the only goal of the match through Frank Osei. While Kotoko fans were jubilating, a man suspected to be an RTU supporter pretended he was hugging the goal scorer and in the process hit the player in the left eye.

This behaviour did not go down well with the Kotoko supporters who rushed onto the field to rescue Mr Osei and this drew more of the home supporters on the field thereby resulting in a fight.

But for the timely intervention of a combined force of police and the military, things would have been worse.

The match was disrupted for about 15 minutes when the first half had only two minutes to end. At least both sides recorded casualties with blood oozing from the bodies of a number of supporters.

The Upper East Regional Minister, Mahami Salifu and a number District Chief Executives who were among the crowd took turns to talk to the managements of the two teams, their supporters and the match officials.

The Regional Minister advised them to eschew violent confrontations to make the game of soccer sport enjoyable and reminded the spectators that their role is to cheer their teams to boost the morale of the players and not to engage in fights.

" These fights would not bring you the goals," he emphasised.

OKWAWU HOLD STAY COOL

Soccer Mountaineers, Okwawu United, and Premier League green horns, Stay Cool Professionals, settled for a goalless draw in their first week match played at the Tema Stadium yesterday.
The match saw both teams taking turns to squander glorious chances to the amazement of their respective followers, who turned up in their numbers.
Indeed, Stay Cool will look back on the game with regret as they wasted the most glorious of scoring chances.
Okwawu who were a far cry of the side that nearly beat Hearts of Oak in a charity cup match in Accra last Sunday, nonetheless, had their fair share of those good moments when they could have scored, but failed woefully to take advantage of the inexperience exhibited by their opponents.
The match assumed an entertaining pedigree particularly in the second half for all the wrong reasons. One moment after another, players of both sides committed unbelievable errors either in front of goal or at the rear but neither side profited from those mistakes.
While Stay Cool’s Patrick Afutu and Odartey Lamptey on one hand, and Okwawu’s Eric Mensah and Issah Shaibu on the other, failed to convert chances that their sides earned, goalkeepers Fatau Dauda of Okwawu and Alex Agyepong scored full points and were the main reasons for the scoreless game.

GOLDFIELDS PIP ARSENALS

GOLDFIELDS braved all odds to beat visiting Arsenals 1-0 in their maiden encounter of this year's league at the Obuasi Len Clay stadium on Sunday.
The feat was achieved in the 68th minute via a penalty awarded by referee S. Essel-Walker when a hard-pressed Arsenals defender, in an attempt to clear a dangerous ball from the penalty box, incidentally handled it.
The referee’s decision dissatisfied the visitors who protested vehemently but had to pay dearly for it when goalkeeper Justice Quarcoo who had performed creditably received the marching off order after using an abusive language on the referee.
A result, Arsenals pulled out Charles Benson who looked visibly tired to enable substitute keeper, Anthony Osei, to take the post. Eric Boakye who elected himself for the kick neatly converted the penalty which turned out to be the match winner.
Goldfields nearly got the opener barely three minutes into the game but narrowly missed the chance when Nasir Lamine's power-laden shot hit the cross-bar. The rebound resulted in a melee which Arsenals managed to clear.
Two minutes later, Boakye's cross from the far right again created a melee but the stout Arsenal defenders managed to control the situation.
The second half began with vigour as both teams tried hard to outwit the other, but the few chances they created were either saved by the goalkeeper or wasted with Goldfields being the worst offenders.

Lions’ baptism of fire

Kumasi (Ashanti Region) – Alhaji Grunsah’s King Faisal beat new entrant Kpando Hearts of Lions by 4-1 in their match played at the Kumasi Sport Stadium.

King Faisal led 3-0 before half-time with Eric Gawu scoring in the fifth minute through a header and the Eliasu Ibrahim increasing the telly with a beautiful and a terrific short in the 14th minute. King Faisal exhibiting their experience over the new entrants dominated the game to the admiration of their supporters and scored the third goal through smallish Ben Wilson in the 29th minutes.

The visitors finding the going very tough, brought in Komla Amewou for Yaw Nyarko in the 22nd minute to the strengthen the midfield but it was King Faisal who was on top till the end of the half. On resumption Samuel Yeboah nearly found the net in the 47th minute but his feeble shot went off target.

King Faisal brought in Samuel Thompson for Abass Inusah who got injured in the 50th minute. Hearts of Lions came into the picture forcing the visitors to play to the gallery. It was at this stage that substitute Komla Amewou scored the consolation goal for Hearts of Lions in the 76th minute through an indirect free-kick.

Wasiw Mohammed scored the fourth goal for Faisal 88th minutes when goalkeeper Abass of Hearts of Lions failed to grab a feeble shot by diving over the ball.

Results

Bolga: RTU 0 Kotoko 1 (Frank Osei)
Sunyani: B/A Utd 0 Mine Stars 0
Kumasi: Faisal 4 Lions 1
Tema: Stay Cool 0 Okwawu 0
Sekondi: Hasaacas 2 Bofoakwa 0
Obuasi: Goldfields 1 B. Arsenal 0

Played on Saturday
Liberty 1 (Asamoah Gyan 17min)
Hearts 1 (Bernard Bortey 90 min penalty)