Our test of a “live blog” application, during the African Cup of Nations semifinal between Ghana and Cameroon, went swimmingly. That is, except for our miscalculation of Greenwich Mean Time, which meant that we missed the first half. The “replay” is available—second half only—with accent on the Ghanaian national anthem (which we missed) and on attempts to render international football in “claymation.” (Feb 7)
Aiming to expand the reach of women’s football abroad and to build cultural awareness at home, San Francisco Bay Area coach Robert Sackey for the first time takes a girls’ team to his native Ghana. (Dec 17)
Berkeley, California, Sept 20 | One of the important implications of Martha Saavedra’s research into women’s sport in West Africa is discovery of the extent to which football helps define masculinity in much of the world.
“For a woman to play [football] in many places is a transgression,” says Saavedra, associate director of the University of California-Berkeley’s Center for African Studies, in our Sept 4 podcast. “People think of it as saying something about what it means to be a man.”
Within Diosdado Macapagal International Airport six miles northwest of Angeles City in the Philippines, Ghanaian footballer Ayi Nii Aryee spends his days in legal limbo, lacking proper paperwork to travel to his destination or back to his point of origin.
He has been living at the airport, the one-time U.S. air base formerly known as Clark Field, since July, sleeping first on terminal chairs and then on a cot provided by the airport’s fire brigade.
Articles on the African Women’s Championship, an award for Sepp Blatter and the Luton Town manager’s rant against women linesmen.
Atlanta, Jun 27 | Why Atlanta civic leaders wish to revive downtown with outlets for consumer and cultural consumption continues to mystify. This is the heart of Atlanta—its airport. As we begin an 18-hour haul to Berlin, we ask ourselves, Could it be any noisier here?
Abidjan, Ivory Coast | The Jules Rimet World Cup trophy has been touring Africa, and the Times of London has tagged along. Fortunately, Owen Slot beats his own path through Angola, Ivory Coast, Togo and Ghana—the continent’s new entries in the 2006 finals—for a five-part series, which began Monday in the newspaper’s weekly football supplement, The [...]
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, has campaigned to relocate the remains of goalkeeper-cum-existentialist Albert Camus from their resting place in Lourmarin. More about language & literature »
Links
David Goldblatt calls The Global Game: Writers on Soccer "the first truly global survey of writing" on world football. Buy from Amazon » John Turnbull