Reports reaching REBOUND via
Panthers' captain
Vincent Azan-Gbiok says forward,
Selasie Gamedeku will be out for at least 5 weeks with an index finger injury. Talking to Selasie himself, he mentioned that the x-ray showed "the bone is turned some funny way". He's also expected to get a surgery to get the bone fixed very soon. He got the injury while playing in a pick up game two Sundays ago in Tema.
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| A photo of Selasie's fingers he sent to us |
"This is a very big blow to us and that's one of the reasons we considered the Meme move considering we lack in size right now"; Vince's comments when asked about how much of an impact this injury has had on the Panthers team.
Hate them or love them; the Cape Coast Hoops were, yes! were one of the most exciting teams to ever watch in the Greater Accra Basketball League.
After about four years of being a force to reckon with in the Accra league, the management of the Cape Coast Hoops led by Claudius Thompson have decided not to register for the 2012 season which is scheduled to start on March 14 at Lebanon House. In a discussion with him, he mentioned a few reasons for their decision.
It all boiled down to funding!
A problem that almost every team in this league has to deal with. With the league remaining amateur; with no sponsorship / reward system whatsoever ever since its been running, it's becoming continuously difficult to participate in it taking into consideration the hustle and bustle of Accra and then game schedules.
It is quite plain that CCH is not in this plight alone. But then it's always a big deal when somebody walks away somewhat from the game of basketball and especially if that person or in this case an organization was a relevant piece in the league.
Memories of the excitement this team brought are countless; dunks upon dunks, good play after good play and talent after talent was displayed for free to us every week.
Like many of the things that happen in Ghana Basketball, this is just one more reason somebody has to do their jobs right!
Mini Q & A with Referee Gasu
Gh basketball could use a couple more people like this man...trust me!
RGH followed up on the wall post he dropped our facebook page. It read like "Why is everybody shying away from basketball officiating? The Referees' Association badly needs a fresh injection of personnel and commitment!" and drew a couple of interesting suggestions.
This sounded like an urgent call for help from the man who's also the secretary of the referees' association.
So I called up Gasu to further explain what exactly he meant in the post(yea, I know it was as simple as it could be, but who knows, he might have meant more).
He started by describing how he himself got into officiating. "Certain things should have been institutionalized long ago, but as you know, our system is not the best and many of those things do not happen. So for some us when we wanted to be referees, we were taken through training by Mr. Iddrisu Gamel before we were made to start officiating. Along the way through our own initiative and interest in acquisition of more knowledge about the game we regularly read material from the internet and other sources."
When asked if he made the statement because of any impending referee course, he responded by saying that it was a personal initiative; which he knows his chairman will applaud. He went on to say that any interested person should apply to the referees association and he will personally aid the person through all processes that are required to make one a part of them. "We need new guys to inject some sought of competition among the refs, so that it becomes like it's done in soccer and other sports, if you do not perform well as a referee, you are not given any games to officiate. There's a lot of complacency among the refs because they realize there are no other options but them".
If interested why don't you pick a phone and call referee Gasu on 024 3835148 or find him on facebook as http://www.facebook.com/#!/bquarmyne or follow the refs on http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Basketball-Referees-Ghana/215237911848598
