Accra Hearts of Oak skipper Fatawu Mohammed has urged his teammates to readily get attuned to the nature of the pitch at the Accra sports stadium, as that remains the home grounds of the club.
Hearts of Oak endured a displeased goalless draw against premier league fellows Bechem United on Sunday in the game the Phobians expected victory, and Fatawu is convinced the nature of the pitch affected the play of some of his teammates who joined the club not long ago.
The Phobians returned to their traditional home grounds, the Accra sports stadium to host the Hunters on Sunday after the stadium was temporarily closed to sporting activities in November by the National Sports Authority (NSA) for maintenance work. Head coach Samuel Boadu made comparison between the team’s quality of play during their temporary stay at the Cape Coast stadium and how they played on Sunday at the Accra sports stadium. His captain Fatawu seem to agree with him that the difference may be due to differences in the quality of the pitches.
“It is a bad day because this is not how we play. The matches we played at Cape Coast compared to this one; this is not how we play”, coach Boadu said after the game.
While admitting that Hearts of Oak played badly against Bechem United, Fatawu Mohammed believes the pitch was a contributing factor to the low performance of some of his teammates, but he insists that they have no excuses to give.
“As coach said the little I can say is New Year new game. To us (Hearts of Oak) maybe I can say it’s very very bad, because if look at our position on the league log that we failed to grab it, and having lost it, it’s very painful, but it’s part of football. That is now history so we will put it behind us and correct our mistakes for our next coming game so we can win our three points back”, Fatawu said after the game.
Asked whether the pitch did affect their play, he answer in affirmative.
“Yeah. I can say it has affected some of the new boys because the new players this was the first time some of them have played at the Accra sports stadium, so sometimes it was very very difficult for them to adapt. But for football, here is our home grounds so we have no excuses to give because whatever the situation this is where will play all our (home) matches”, Fatawu advised.
The Hearts of Oak skipper pleaded with authorities to further cut down the grass on the pitch to make it easier for the ball to travel on it during games.
“Not bad but it’s a little bit heavy so sometimes if you don’t kick the ball harder it it stalls in while in motion. The little I will say is if the authorities can cut (the grass) down a little bit for us it will be helpful”, he pleaded.
