There is nothing more worrying and heartbreaking than following a football team which only takes pride in history without taking steps to write a new one for another generation. This is the table of meal “the Phobian” has been served for many years.
Liverpool fans had to wait for three decades before they could set eyes on the Premiership trophy. They waited patiently because they saw a foundation laid towards that achievement but not Hearts of Oak. If not the best team in Ghana, the second-best team in the country yet everything about the club in recent past is backwardness. Every year “the Phobian” is asked to wait because things will get better but it getting worse than before.
When Mark Noonan arrived at Hearts of Oak, there was great optimism that at least a man from distant land can restructure the team to face modernity and reclaim the Phobian glory. He started well; one could fell sense of purpose in his approach. He secured a time-tested kit company in Umbro and rekindled the Pobiman project but his time was short-lived and the unmasked masquerade of the club sent him away.
As the time this piece was together, with no disrespect to Bechem United, their fans are enjoying some amount of comfort than the 2000 8th best-placed team in the world. There is certainly no joy for the fan whose team lies 11th on the League table with few matches to end the first round; identity lost, form diminished. The Phobian is praying fervently that the wilderness of football will not visit them.
Kosta Papic, the last man who brought smiles onto the face of “the Phobian” has left the shores of the country after just two months eighteen days. Whether or not his reasons for his resignation are true, Hearts is sinking, and “the Phobian” is not happy. What could warrant entire technical members to resign in a week? The post commentaries from the club hierarch are not a good omen for a club that want to rediscover themselves.
This is a time “the Phobian” needs words that will soothe their already damaged and diminished love for the club but the words coming from the mouths of those who have masterminded the failure lives much to be desired; disrespectful, medieval and step back. The responsibility shirking, backbiting, blame a positing, mediocrity, the quest to hold onto power are the evils hunting Hearts of Oak.
One thing those in the helm of affairs for Hearts must realise is that the way football was ran in the 1980s, 1990s and the 2000s is different now. It is a far-fetching method that demands strategies and those that have ideas. Money can buy a club but those have the ideas and the technical know-how must be allowed to steer the affairs of it.
Ten years is a long time for the runners of Hearts of Oak to know that at least they tried but they are not the right hands to restore the fortunes. They must give the supporters listening hear and chart a new course for Hearts. “The Phobian” deserves better than this.
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