Unlike a fortnight ago, for the opening game against Guinea, the Manjaro Bar in Holloway Road was lively when I arrived about ten minutes before kick-off for the quarter final match between Ghana and Nigeria. I wasn’t too pleased to see that the snooker was on the telly but the barman must’ve remembered me and after giving me a bit of a squeeze immediately set about getting the game on. He was the only visible staff member and even he disappeared for long periods, but I finally managed to get a bottle of Club Premium Lager and occupied a stool by the bar with a decent view of the smallish TV.

There was a full house in the stadium in Accra and more and more punters were coming into the bar all the time. It was interesting that about 90% of them were young women and they were there to watch the game. To add further spice, there were a number of Nigeria fans too but throughout the game the atmosphere was very friendly. Nigeria’s number 16 was our very own Dickson Etuhu but for some reason he was listed as P. Etuhu. There were many Premier League players in the Nigeria squad and the starting line-up included Yobo, Yakubu and Mikel as well as Danny Shittu. This was always going to be a very competitive match and as if we needed to be reminded of that, there was a major dust-up after only thirty seconds after a wild Nigerian tackle. Nigeria dominated the opening five minutes and they looked strong and skilful. In the bar the major development came in the eighth minute when the manageress arrived and helped to cope with the queue of customers. I noticed they were selling Africa Cup flip-flops for £2.50 and struggled to resist buying some.

I recognized a few faces from the last time I was there and had a bit of chat as the atmosphere built up. I’d been in this bar during the World Cup in 2006 and had noticed that the Ghana fans were silent until their side got close to the opposition’s penalty area and then they started screaming and leaping around. Old habits were obviously dying hard as both they and the minority of Nigeria fans were acting the same way. It was even-Stevens till the 36 th minute when Nigeria went one-up though a Yakubu penalty, which looked a bit dodgy to me. Ghana stormed back and just before half-time got a deserved equalizer when Essien headed in off the post. The bar went doo-lally with tremendous screaming, shouting, hugging and some dancing. It was the perfect time for an equalizer and during the break some popular Ghanaian tune boomed out that got a lot of the girls dancing. One of them was getting into the Ghanaian goal-celebration ‘Do the Egyptian Funky Chicken’ dance that I mentioned before.

The second-half continued in the same end-to-end fashion for the first fifteen minutes or so with Nigeria looking the more dangerous but in the 59 th minute their chances looked to have improved when Ghana’s number 5 Mensah was rightly red-carded after bringing down a Nigerian attacker at the edge of the box in a two-on-one situation. As he stripped off his shirt on the way to the tunnel to reveal his very well-toned torso, he received a great whoop from the gals in the bar and so it wasn’t all bad news for him. From the resultant free kick there was a great shot that Kingson in the Ghana goal did very well to save.

Dickson Etuhu hadn’t been particularly noticeable until he was injured in the 68 th minute. As he lay on the ground a Ghanaian player administ-ered some first-aid to him in a Jessie-Owens-1936-Berlin-Olympics-fuck-the-Fascists-stylee but he had to be taken off in one of the golf-buggy efforts that they employ for the purpose and was substituted shortly afterwards. As often happens, the ten men of Ghana battled all the stronger and had just gone close through Agogo when in the 82 nd minute the same player coolly side-footed home the winner after great approach play by the ever-excellent number 11 Muntari. The punters in the bar went completely ape-shit and after much jigging around and screaming, in a flash many of them were out on the pavement dancing and waving a large Ghanaian flag around.

Nigeria continued to fight hard and even as late as the 93 rd minute they had a free-kick on the edge of the area that had the woman in front of me unable to look. That was their last gasp and Ghana had won. I must say that I was glad for them and for their very jolly and friendly fans. The big boss lady asked me if I was delighted and I said I’d see her at the semi-final, which I think is at 5 p.m. on Thursday. The details are on my Africa Cup of Nations wall-chart but as is the nature of wall-charts, you stick them on the wall somewhere and then can’t remember what’s on them, especially when you’ve imbibed several large bottles of Ghana’s own Club Premium Lager. Roll on Thursday… or whenever. I’ll be there and if you’re in the vicinity, I recommend that you do the same.

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