Food For Thought - May 18th | By Uncle Ebo Whyte

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]I come from a family of sportsmen.

[00:00:01][music] My father was both a footballer and a boxer in his day. He and my mother had five of us, all boys, and were all very active in sports. Anthony, better known by his nickname, was into athletics and also played for a second division team at Samra Boy. Jude, otherwise known as Tuga, played for Acra House of Folk and Deu Youngsters.

[00:00:26]>> Okay. [music] and Bernard and Bernard played for new plan stars Asanti Kotocoi Goldfields drafts and [music] finally for Acra Hassuk. He also went yes he also went as far as playing for the national team the black stars and was part of the Sineagal 92 squad. Quu and I were the two who did not play soccer professionally. Two who did not play soccer professionally. We were above average players but in our day a boy had to choose between school and football. Parents did not see a future for their children in sports and so my generation was actively and sometimes aggressively discouraged from taking sports too seriously. The times had changed in the time of my younger brothers and so they were able to devote themselves fully to [music] sports. I learned a lot about life from sports and especially from the experiences of my brothers in [music] sports and this morning I want to share one of such experience with you. In one season the team Bernard was playing for at the time and Winston I am not going to mention [music] the name of the team or any other name apart from my brother's name because the people involved are alive and they would not get a chance to defend themselves. So let me just tell my story without giving those details.

[00:01:47]In one season, the team Bernard was playing for at the time found themselves second on the table with the [music] same points as the team on top. Who had a better goal difference. Bernard's team had one match to go. The other team was done with this matches. All Benner's team needed was a draw and the cup was D.

[00:02:08]>> Yeah.

[00:02:09]>> And they were playing at [music] home. I traveled to the city in which the team was based to see my brother's team crowned champions because their opponent, the visiting team, was a team already relegated and had nothing to lose or win [music] in the match. The match attracted a lot of attention and the stadium was packed. The fans [music] like me were very confident that they were going to see the home team lift the cup that day. So, the match was supposed to be an easy fixture for the home team.

[00:02:38]But on the day the team was simply not jelly. The center forward who had just been appointed a captain [music] of the team um had been averaging a goal a goal per match throughout the season but today he was just a passenger in [music] the match. He was not getting any services from the other players and when a pass came his way he could not control the ball. He was being caught in the offside trap too often for a player of his caliber. It was as if he had forgotten the offside rule. In the stance, the fans began to boo at him [music] and to insult him. In the 80th minute, the visiting team, the [music] underdog, scored a rather cheap goal. It was it was almost like a gift. And this time, the fans had had enough. After the match, the fans wanted to visit their frustration and disappointment physically on the center forward whom they blamed for the loss. He had to be kept in the dressing room on the police guard until the fans were dispersed.

[00:03:38]Bernard waited with him in the dressing room and asked me to wait [music] to take the two of them home since the team bus had left them behind. When it was safe, Bernard and the center forward ran into my car and the latter hid at the back seat until we were out of the stadium. Then he started talking bitterly. Bernard, did you see what they did to me today? He said, "Our teammates are wicked, Papa." Did you see that?

[00:04:04]They refused to give me passes, and when they did, they made sure the ball came to me [music] with such pace and with such spin that it was impossible to control effectively. You were the only one who who gave me passes. I listened quietly, thinking to myself, look at him just making excuses for a bad game. But Winston, I was soon to discover that there was more to [music] the story. He had just been appointed a captain of the team after the captain had been stripped of the position for disciplinary reasons. [music] The former captain had then mobilized most of the players against the new captain. Bennard said to him, you know, one of the cronies of the old captain came to me to ask me not to give you any passes just so you look bad in the match, but I ignored them. I then played the match back in my mind and realized that as a good center forward that he was whenever his team had possession he would run into space expecting a pass but the pass would either knock him or be delayed to give the opponents time to set the offside trap against him. I realized that there had been a match within the match. Okay, >> on the surface it was a match to fight for the championship, but underneath it was a match to sabotage the new captain, the center forward. The second match cost the team the title, but the players on the side of the former captain were happy that they had lost. They had succeeded in making the new captain look bad and that was very satisfying for them. Meanwhile, the fans who did not know what had just gone on were blaming the new captain for the team's failure to win the cup. It was the first time I came to see what true injustice was.

[00:05:55]True injustice is when a victim of viciousness is blamed for the outcome of the viciousness. The people who cause the team the cup were never blamed. They got away with it. And that is what happened most of the time even at the corporate and national level in Ghana.

[00:06:16]Someone is given a task others who do not see why that person had been given that privilege begin to undermine him and make him look bad and unproductive.

[00:06:28]People do not see those pulling the strings behind the scenes and blame the person who is in charge. That way the person is sacrificed but nothing really changes until we begin to look behind the scenes to understand what is going on and why things are not working in Ghana will continue to be accompllices of those who destroy our prospects for their own personal agenda.

[00:07:01][music] Take a flight.

[00:07:06]Leave your soul.