The family of legendary football coach C.K. Gyamfi is launching the legend’s autobiography at the Academy of Arts and Sciences Auditorium in Accra on Thursday, May 19 at 4pm.
The book is authored by ace writer Fiifi Anaman and published by Digibooks Ltd.
In memory of the legendary football icon described by Sports administration supremo Ohene Djan as the man with the greatest football initials in our history, I recall a tribute I paid to his memory on his demise.
Tribute by Ken Bediako.
Charles Kumi Gyamfi was a stubborn personality, positively stubborn, if you like. And it was this positive stubbornness that propelled him to mature his football talents.
He started playing football at a very tender age at Okorase Primary school in the Eastern Region. He found goalkeeping very dull and he stubbornly decided to play upfront and he wasn’t doing badly at all.
In 1941, CK left his father, Nana Kumi of Okorase, to join his mother, Dinah Dodua Dodoo of Otublohum, in Accra. He had difficulty gaining admission to Primary Four and it was his football artistry and his positive stubbornness that saved him.
One afternoon young CK went to the Accra Royal School at Korle Gonno to watch a football match between the school’s junior team and the seniors. After watching the game for a while C.K. went straight to the sports master, Mr Lamptey Bruce and stubbornly asked to be fielded because he realised, he could play far better than most of the players. The sportsmaster felt the small boy from “the bush” was being petulant and initially ignored him but since C.K. stubbornly insisted he gave him the chance. Lo and behold C.K dazzled and scored two beautiful goals for the juniors. He became an instant hero and was carried shoulder high by the elated spectators. The next day C.K. gained admission into the Riyal School.
Growing up it was C K’s typical stubbornness that caused a major change in his brilliant football career in 1954. Then skipper of fabulous Kumasi Asante Kotoko, C. K. was accused of taking a team supposedly in the name of Kotoko to honour a special friendly Easter Day match at Abetifi Kwahu against Accra Hearts of Oak, without permission
Kotoko had been invited for the said match but the request had been turned down at the last minute. C.K being the team captain felt Kwahu football fans in Easter mood would be disappointed by that last-minute cancellation. So he stubbornly raised a team known in local parlance at the time as “wonkye nni” or “shabo shabo” and named it “MY ELEVEN”. It was a collection of players from Kumasi Evergreens and some players of Kotoko. The match turned out to be a fiasco; fans rioted when they realised it was not a full Kotoko side and demanded a refund of the gate fees with some destroying some property at the park.
Kotoko management was not amused at all. C.K. was seriously reprimanded and he in turn stubbornly quit the club and quickly formed a rival team in Kumasi called Great Ashanti.
The snag is CK did not stay in Kumasi long enough with his new team. He came down to the capital to join Kotoko’s closest rivals, Accra Hearts of Oak, maybe for effect. He really made his mark as a great footballer until he left for Germany in 1960 to play professional football with Fortuna Dusseldorf.
I got in close contact with CK in 1962 when as a young trainee sportswriter with the Daily Graphic. I did a lot of errands for my immediate boss, Sports editor J. K. Addo Twum, the celebrated horse racing pundit, in his dealings with Ohene Djan, that powerful Director of Sports. C. K was always with Ohene Djan and we actually struck a good acquaintance.
Incidentally, in late 1962 when CK returned from his first coaching course in Brazil, we were living two blocks away at the Awudome Estate in Accra. We met quite often and anytime we met he would start giving long lectures about football tactics even though he knew I was not a coach and I had told him I never intended to be one. Such a stressful profession.
I recall his famous phrases like “tactics with the ball; tactics without the ball and condition”. His simple explanation was that most of our footballers become inactive on the pitch when not in possession of the ball and he maintained that your positioning without the ball was as important as the time of possession.
His beef was that most players without the ball become mere spectators, which was most unproductive. The conditioning, he explained, was about physical fitness, C.K. Gyamfi was a successful coach by all standards. He passed his first test as a national coach by leading the Black Stars to win the West African Gold Cup beating Nigeria 3-0 in the final in Accra. His second test was the Black Stars 1963 African Cup triumph with a 3-0 victory over Sudan in the final.
When the Black Stars failed to shine in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, he sidelined veterans like Aggrey Fynn, Edward Acquah and Co and brought in youngsters like Osei Kofi, Frank Odoi, Jones Attuquayefio and Co to successfully defend the Africa Cup in Tunisia in 1965.
After a long sojourn abroad, he returned home to parade youngsters like Opoku Nti, John Bannerman, Abedi Pele, John Essien, Owusu Mensah and Co to give Ghana a then unprecedented 4th Africa Cup triumph in Libya 1982.
C K. loved coaching to the hilt and was an amiable character with a lot of football tales to tell. He cherished high standards and shunned defeats.
The most memorable defeat I remember he graciously accepted was when the late senior GTV sports commentator Ben Eghan Jnr stunningly beat him to it in a fun hot pepper consumption competition in Banjul during one of the numerous occasions we travelled together with the Black Stars.
The legendary Gambian FIFA referee, Omar Sey, hosted team officials and journalists to a typical Ghanaian dish of hot pepper, fish and kenkey. CK and Ben Eghan both displayed their capacity to consume hot pepper but Ben finally stole the show by actually drinking the hot pepper residue that had turned into red liquid. Ben won applause and CK raised his hands to accept defeat.
It was great fun to be in the company of CK off the pitch and those of us lucky enough to have been closely associated with him will long remember the tales he told about his football exploits from Okorase to Germany through Kumasi and Accra. Of course, not forgetting the historic tour of Britain in 1951 where the team travelled by sea from Takoradi port, played ten matches barefooted in winter over four weeks, winning only two and losing eight.
May his soul continue to rest in perfect peace.
Cheers and keep loving sports.
