Accra Great Olympics started the concluding day of the 2023/24 Ghana Premier League season as the likeliest team to join already-relegated Real Tamale United (RTU) and Bofoakwa Tano in going down. To avoid that fate, they had to win their own game, and hope results elsewhere went in their favour.
The first part of that task was completed without so much as kicking the ball. Their opponents, troubled RTU, simply did not show up; better that, they may have reasoned, than show up as they did for their last game with a bunch of impersonators and get thrashed before suffering the extra agony of disciplinary action by the Ghana Football Association (GFA).
Within minutes, it had been confirmed that Olympics had been awarded three points and three goals (the rules are pretty straightforward in that regard). That piled all the pressure on the other teams at risk of demotion to not slip up in their respective games. Reduced to spectators, Olympics waited and watched with crossed fingers and bated breath.
In the end, all the others got the job done, albeit not with great ease. Karela United scored late to beat Medeama on the road and survive their first season away from their traditional Aiyinasi base. Legon Cities secured a point at home to Bibiani Gold Stars, just enough to ensure they finished right above Olympics. Heart of Lions needed two penalties — one in added time — to complete a stunning recovery after a dreadful first half of the season that made them early candidates for the drop.
Most crucially (from an Olympics perspective), Accra Hearts of Oak came from behind twice to prevail 3-2 at Bechem United's Nana Fosu Gyeabour Park — a ground where the hosts had hitherto lost only four times in the league across the last four seasons — to preserve their proud record of being one of only two original members of the Ghanaian top-flight never to have fallen out of the division.
Olympics would be kicking themselves for missing the chance last week to drown Hearts themselves in the ‘Mantse’ derby, only managing to play out a stalemate that placed their arch-rivals at a slight disadvantage going into the final matchday — a lifeline the Phobians have now made the most of, at Olympics’ (in)direct expense.
If there is any silver lining to be found in the end to the latter's latest Premier League run, it is that Hearts’ wait for a competitive win against Olympics after failing in the last eight attempts would go on a bit longer. Yet that — and even the fact that they put up such a spirited fight to stay in the league, winning three and losing none of their last five games — would be scant consolation for the ‘Dade Boys’.
Returning to the elite tier won't be as straightforward as it was five years ago, when Olympics were re-admitted to the newly-expanded league via a simple vote. They'd have to do it the hard way this time, but Olympics, who have done it before, would back themselves to do it all over again.
For now, their flame is out — even if only temporarily — and the league would surely be poorer in the absence of one of its more pedigreed and colourful sides.
Credit: SK Frimpong
