*Participation in CAF Club Competitions - Part 1*

Ghana’s oldest existing football club, Accra Hearts of Oak, celebrates one hundred years this month. On the 11th of November, 1911 (11.11.11), Hearts of Oak played its first ever football match against Invincibles, the first Accra-based football club. In Cricket language, this is equivalent to a batsman scoring one hundred runs at the wicket: a ‘century not out’.

Indeed, Hearts of Oak is the third oldest existing footbll club in Africa. Egypt’s Al-Ahly of Cairo, founded in April 1907, holds the distinction of being Africa’s oldest existing football club. Their fiercest rivals city, Zamalek, founded nearly four years later in January, 1911, occupy second position.

A hundred years of history in any context is certainly packed full of stories, and in the case of Accra Hearts of Oak, all kinds of football stories: matches of the local, national and international varieties; friendly and competitive matches; the joys of winning and the sorrows - even shocks - of losing matches the team was expected to win without difficulty.

Hearts of Oak has taken part in many competitions in its history: local and club international, and in this chapter of the club’s story, we shall look back at the club’s participation in the Confederation of African Football (CAF) club competitions.

CAF’s first club competition was the Cup of Champions Clubs (CCC), with the first edition held in 1964. It later became the Champions League (CL) from 1997. The Cup Winners’ Cup (CWC) was contested from 1975 to 2003, the CAF Cup from 1992 to 2003, and after the merger of the CWC and CAF Cup, the Confederation Cup from 2004.

However, it was to be other ‘much younger’ Ghanaian clubs: Real Republicans, Asante Kotoko and Great Olympics which first participated in the African Cup of Champions Clubs. Asante Kotoko also went on to become the first Ghanaian club to win the CCC, in 1970, before Hearts of Oak even made its first entry into the competition.

Perhaps, embarrassed, or one could say, incensed or even provoked by the fact that fierce city rivals, Great Olympics had won their first Ghana League title in 1970, and with it, the right to participate in the 1971 CCC, Hearts of Oak won the 1971 League, which the club had last won nine years previously in 1962. Significantly, Hearts won the league by nine points ahead of Brong Ahafo United.

So, eight years after the first edition of the CCC was first contested by fourteen teams, Accra Hearts of Oak, finally, made a historic debut in the competition and the club took its place as one of 26 teams.

In all, Hearts of Oak has made 25 outings in the continental competitions and aside from the CCC and CAF Champions League (eight and ten appearances each, respectively), has also participated in three other CAF Club competitions: the Cup Winners’ Cup (five appearances), the CAF Cup and the Confederation Cup (one appearance each).

In addition, Hearts of Oak played two Super Cup matches in 2001 and 2005, after winning the 2000 CL and the 2004 Confederation Cup, respectively. Etoile du Sahel of Tunisia and Al-Ahly of Egypt have been Hearts of Oak’s most familiar continental opponents, having played these two teams on three occasions in the CCC/CL. Etoile du Sahel and Hearts of Oak also met once in the CWC.

Between 1972 and 2008, Hearts of Oak had faced a total of 59 different clubs from 28 African countries, including Ghana (when they faced Asante Kotoko in the 2004 Confederation Cup Final). The most trips Hearts of Oak made to any one country, Nigeria, was seven, where they have played four different clubs.

Two of these clubs have also gone through name changes: WNDC, Hearts of Oak’s very first opponents in CAF club international football in 1972, had become IICC Shooting Stars by the time the two teams met again in the 1999 Champions League, while 1998 opponents, Eagle Cement, had become Dolphin FC by the time they met in 2005.

Senegal and Tunisia follow with six trips each, playing against five and four clubs, respectively. Five trips were made to Cameroon, Mali and Guinea-Conakry, where Hearts played against four different clubs in Cameroon, and three different clubs in Mali and Guinea-Conakry. Four trips were made to Egypt to play two different clubs.

Hearts of Oak’s trips to the rest of the 28 African countries were between one and three visits, facing one to three clubs. There were a number of ‘non-matches’: Kenya’s Abaluhya United withdrawing from the very first match Hearts of Oak was due to play in 1972; Gambia’s Wallidan withdrew before the 2006 Champions League competition and Congo Brazzaville’s EPB failed to honour the return leg in Accra after losing the home leg 3-1 in Brazzaville.

Hearts of Oak also withdrew before a competition when they were drawn against Guinea-Conakry’s ASFAG in the 1988 CWC. The two teams, however, met each other in the 1997 CWC when Hearts won 2-0 on aggregate.

In Hearts of Oak’s 18 participations in the CCC/CL, they have been drawn against 45 teams and played a total of 108 matches. The club won 51, drew 21 and lost 36, scoring 163 goals and conceding 126. They also faced 12 clubs in the CWC, two in the CAF Cup and five in the Confederation Cup.

The only meeting between Hearts of Oak and Zamalek, the other century-celebrating team in 2011, was in the 2001 Super Cup, the year both clubs reached their 90th milestone.

Before that match, Zamalek had sought a change of venue from Accra to Cairo, citing safety concerns following the incidents at the Champions' League final between Hearts of Oak and Tunisia’s Esperance in Accra, but CAF decided to move the match to Kumasi, instead. Hearts of Oak won the match 2-0.

In the next part of the Accra Hearts of Oak story, the Cup of Champions Clubs (CCC) campaign will be re-visited.

Ato P K Gomez

atopaak@gmail.com