KFC takeaway Africa style

Rastaman cooks a mean chicken. It don't come much fresher than dis!

Biggie Smalls is still alive and living Ghana!

The sports regime and tan have already started to kick in!

Ghanaian fashion week kicks off

Nu Rave is huge in Ghana. This 'Superbrand' goes by the name of 'Spida Man' and is creative director of his own anti-fashion freelance stylist fanzine. Apparently he is absolutely massive on Ghanaian MySpace as well.

Fellow worshippers at the church of John DeLorean

Ghana's Got Talent future winner

This little chap may have never seen a video camera in his life but he's a natural

Pitch invasion Ghana style

Like everything in Ghana there is no need to rush.

Snakes and mowers

Here’s the village of Konko’s very own ‘Theatre of dreams’. David Beckham may be the highest paid footballer in the world and played in front of a hundred thousand fans singing his name. But I bet he’s never dribbled over a ten foot snake skin during a match. This is football Africa style. Konko village U12’s embarked on their first home game ever on Saturday, sponsored to the tune of the six figure sum of 200,000 Ghanaian Cedi (£10) by one ‘Mr Max Kennedy’.

On arrival for the game there was one small technical problem that threatened to put a halt on all proceedings. Not only had some of the opponents got beards, but some of them were arriving with children bigger than some of our players. In Ghana it seems age is a slightly fluid concept. No one has birth certificates, so instead they do it by weight a bit like boxing, not the only aspect of the sport they like to bring to their football. The only problem is they don’t have any scales either. After the customary half an hour of animated arguing, when the teams shook hands and I half expected their players to try and lead ours over a Zebra crossing.

What ensued for the next undisclosed and I suspect unmonitored time period, converted me a lifelong supporter of the way the way they play the beautiful game over here. Rupert Murdoch should tear up the billion pound Premiership broadcasting contract and start erecting camera towers in the jungle. There were so many pitch invasions, at the end of the match some of the crowd had run further than the players. Two penalty decisions reversed simply because the fans don’t leave the field until the referee concurs. Three sending offs, which I was informed is well below average and seen by the fans as a sign of lack of commitment.

The boys done better than good. A pack of little Davids, hunting together in piranha like fashion devouring their prey with studs rather than teeth. The pitch resembles more golf than football, you must stay out of the rough, and don’t lose it in the bunkers. Stray shots fly into the jungle undergrowth followed head first by a pack of kids to sniff it out. In the end the result read 0-1 to the visitors via an own goal. We won a penalty near the end but the match was abandoned due to a particularly enthusiastic pitch invasion. The score was a minor detail the day was ours!

After the customary hour after match hysterical arguing we said thank-you to the opponent’s coach. While he informed us that the only reason that he had said yes to the match was that he heard that my co-coach’s name was Tom from England and logically assumed that this would be the same Tom he met seven years ago.

Can’t wait till we play on Saturday, I am going to attempt to buy a lawnmower to elevate Konko’s ground to the Wembley of the region. Our village may not have running water or electricity or the like, but I’ll be damned if we can’t achieve a respectable pitch stripe.