Accra Great Olympics@70 …What’s there to celebrate?

• Club’s Board Chairman, Mr Amarkai Amarteifio and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Oloboi

Commodore join the players to celebrate the GHALCA Top 6 trophy, the last the club won

Wonder Club, Accra Great Olympics will mark its 70 years of existence tomorrow, hurray!

As a club founded on April 21, 1954, it assumed a position as the third force of Ghana football behind Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko.

Under normal circumstances, tomorrow must be one of the happiest days in the lives of the club’s faithful because a Platinum anniversary is no mean an achievement.

Growing up, many clubs have passed through the football scene, all at a point fighting to be considered as one of the established forces.

But one may ask, where are they now?

Clubs like Dawu Youngsters, Prestea Mine Stars, Ho Voradep, Soccer Missionaries, Maxbees, Kumasi Cornerstones, Iron Breakers, and many others in the past thrilled and entertained fans but have disappeared.

But Olympics have managed to survive similar storms that plunged these clubs into obscurity.

The height of the difficult patch they threaded on was three relegations all of which they managed to return, the reason the AGOSU faithful would celebrate the milestone as a Premier League club.

On such a gargantuan occasion, the club should be celebrating its achievements, no matter how small they are – two Premier League titles in 1970 and 1974; and three-time FA Cup champions – in 1975, 1983, and 1995.

That aside, Olympics also won the Super Cup and the Guinness Gala competitions and as a few would cynically add, the Temogen Cup after beating Hearts of Oak.

In terms of players, Great Olympics have produced some of the finest players across the various generations.

They had the late Cecil Jones Attuquayefio, Peter Lamptey, the late Emmanuel Awuley Quaye, Billy Lomotey, Shittu Mudah, George Alhassan, Abdul Aziz, Amoah Tawiah, and a host of others.

Without a doubt, history makes a place for the Wonder Club as a formidable side in Ghana.

But already, some critics of the club and a few daring loyalists are beginning to question what is there to celebrate.

For such people, the claim of the ‘Dade’ club to be the third force of Ghana football must come with corresponding achievement or statistics to suggest so.

The Wonder Club may lack a continental laurel in their cabinet but put in sterling performances on the few occasions they qualified for continental club competitions, notably against clubs like Abhaluya Club of Kenya, MMM of Madagascar, Coffee Club of Uganda, Enugu Rangers, Invincible XI from Liberia, Motemba Pembe of then Zaire (now DR Congo) and others.

Interestingly, Olympics@70 also coincides with the 50th anniversary of the club’s last league win. One may ask again, is that worth celebrating?

Within that period, Hearts and Kotoko have dominated the scene and built on their successes and left few spaces for clubs like Ashantigold SC, Medeama, Aduana SC, Berekum Chelsea to dominate the league.

It may be a time for a few to party but for dye-in-the wool followers, the anniversary period should call for sober reflection on the way forward to make Oly great again.

Until then, happy 70th Platinum birthday to the Wonder Club of the world.

By Andrew Nortey