Juju in Football

Some where around 1991/92, Cowlane babies were supposed to come to town to play my darling club Noble arics in the Greater Accra colts league. If ever you have followed Colts football in Accra, you will know that anytime Cowlane babies came to Town, the buzz and the frenzy around the pitch was fever high. Either you fight them as a man or you quiver like a lassie and allow them to have their way.

My Pal and I as usual got the Accra academy park several hours earlier before kick-off so we could watch the U-14s play and also watch the U-17s , it also afforded us the chance to gain “front row” seats to the main game. The shenanigans before, during and after the game was laughable and inexplicable. Cowlane was always known to be tough customers, employing all sorts of tricks and bullying tactics to win games, in the days leading up to the game the rumour around the Bubiashie area was that Noble arics needed some supernatural help to win the game since Cowlane Babies also dealt in some sort of occultism. On match day, Noble changed their usual home jerseys and entered the park from the thick bushes behind the kaneshie end of the pitch. Players had all sorts of leaves around their necks, with bands on their wrist and the star player for Noble arics was no where to be found, he resurfaced a few seconds to kick-off which in itself started another round of misunderstandings and fights around the pitch. Amidst the cacophony and all the commotion on the field, a man dressed in some funny attire could be heard shouting “King Samuel”, “six and seven books of Moses”. Being very young we could not understand all the gibberish the man was spewing! I mean who was King Samuel and what was six and seven books of Moses, it gave us some rib cracking moments. Noble arics won the game by a goal to nil, we jubilated like a bunch of mad men on steroids and Noble arics beating Cowlane babies back in the days was not an easy task.

At the just ended AFCON2012 players allegedly used juju, however not against the opposition but against each other, I could not help but wonder what had entered into these players, if it was true then my ultimate conclusion was that greed and selfishness was rather the driving force behind this behaviour.

Like it hate it, this dabbling in juju or some sort of superstition will not stop today or sometime in the future. My reason being that if players as young as 14 years or even 17 years are made to believe that the only way they can win matches is through something as farcical as what Noble arics and Cowlane Babies indulged in, how do you expect them to change in their adult life.

While most of us were busily playing Super Mario or Mortal Kombat on super Nintendo on weekends, these young players where being hurled around cemeteries and secluded bushes by some irresponsible adults all in the name of giving them supernatural help to win their football games. Moreover some of them are known to come from tough backgrounds and one wouldn’t be surprised if someone like Stephen Appiah or Ronaldo or any of our Blackstar players believe in some form of superstition.

These players are constantly reminded not to leave their Boots lying around since a colleague player who wants their position can put a hex on the boots and get them injured. How many times have we not heard about colts’ players or players in general complaining about the fact that this striker or that striker is underperforming because some one either within the team or outside of the team is “doing him”. The kind of orientation these players go through while they are young shapes their general outlook as professional footballers. In our part of the world right from your infant stages as a footballer you are made to understand the use of juju and this has gone on for ages to the extent that it has assumed the level where clubs who call themselves professional clubs now include them in their budget as “ways and means”.

The truth is that most footballers in the world have their own forms of superstitious beliefs, like Bobby Moore being the last to wear his shorts in the dressing room, to Beckham throwing away a can of Pepsi if he finds out that he has only three left in the fridge. Mario Gomez uses the Urinal furthest to the left in the wash room, John Terry uses the same urinal in the washroom and if that’s taken with others spare he will still wait his turn, goalkeeper Shay Given always takes a vial of Holy Water on to the pitch to be placed in the back of his goal. There are countless numbers which when you do a Google search you would come up with.

I do not believe that Juju itself helps a team or player perform better, I think it is just a psychological trick to reassure the player he will perform better, but when it gets to the level of inflicting pain on a colleague footballer and further disintegrating the team then I do not think it should be tolerated. Anyway the next time you go to a game and see players behave in a way and manner you do not understand remember Cowlane babies’ vrs Noble arics