How Hearts of Oak motivated the introduction of Asante Kotoko
Accra Hearts of Oak is Ghana's most established existing football club. Established on November 11, 1911, the Phobians are 111 years of age.
Asante Kotoko is their primary opponent in Ghana football. The Hearts-Kotoko competition is one of the greatest in African football.
Amusingly, the introduction of Kotoko was motivated by Hearts of Oak.
James Kwasi Kumah is viewed as the pioneer behind Asante Kotoko. He was from Nyankyereneaase, a Kumasi suburb. He was an expert driver who worked in Accra for a tactical official, Colonel Ross.
Kuma was not enthusiastic about football, in contrast to his chief, an English man and military official, Colonel Ross.
Ross honestly loved English Premier League side Arsenal and had a ceaseless love for football.
It didn't take long for Kuma to communicate an interest in the game. In 1924, Ross and his driver, James Kuma, visited the Stadium to watch the 'Guggisberg Shield/Cup' between Hearts of Oak and Accra Standfast FC.
Hearts of Oak won the prize by thumping Standfast 2-1. Seeing a football club winning a prize and its fans partaking in the second with wild festivals enlivened Kuma to possess a club.
Kuma just visits Kumasi at times because of his work. Subsequently, he got back to Kumasi during Christmas.
Upon his appearance, he sold the thought and told his 'circuit tester' companion Lawrence Yaw Asamoah about what he had found in Accra.
Subsequently, in 1925, Kuma established the principal football crew in Kumasi, Rainbow FC. The rainbow shades of Hearts of Oak motivated the club's name.
He had previously examined it with his chief, who provided the club with pullovers before he left Ghana for good.
For a long time, Kuma's group went through a progression of name changes; from Rainbow FC, Ashantis United Football Club, Kumasi Titanic, lastly Mighty Atoms.
How did the name Asante Kotoko occur?
Since football was parttime in those days, a large portion of the Mighty Atoms' players were regularly inaccessible.
J.S.K. Frimpong, an educator who likewise filled in as a mentor at the club, for the most part utilized his understudies.
There were no ethnic conflicts during the 1930s where one gathering could affirm strength over another.
Thus, the "Achepemehene" (A sub-boss in the Ashanti Kingdom) proposed to the King of the Ashanti Kingdom, Nana Agyeman Prempeh, to lay out a football club that would show the matchless quality of the Ashantis.
Manhyia chose to guarantee and rename Kuma's Rainbow FC, which had gone through a few name changes and was then known as Mighty Atoms.
The club was then named Asante 'Kotoko,' and that implies Porcupine, the Ashantis' image.
Accordingly, the Mighty Atoms was renamed Asante Kotoko in 1935.
The proprietor, James Kuma Darkwa, was named president, with instructor Frimpong as the principal mentor.
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