Tamale City

Tamale City go into this season carrying the weight of a single Premier League campaign already behind them: promotion in 2022 lasted one year before the club dropped straight back to the Division One League.

The club did not start from nothing. It grew out of Guan United, rebranded once a consortium took control, with Dr. Abdul-Nasiru Issahaku, a former Bank of Ghana Governor, holding half the ownership stake alongside businessman Ibrahim Mahama.

The nearest thing to silverware so far came through the back door: a playoff win in 2022 rather than a title, and a semi-final run in the FA Cup the season before that. No league or cup has been won. What has stuck, instead, is the derby with Real Tamale United, a fixture with no love lost and one that matters more locally than anything in the trophy cabinet.

Home games are played in front of up to 20,000 at the Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium, and the yellow and blue kit has become shorthand for the club in local media, since no separate fan nickname ever caught on. There is no official website to speak of — Twitter carries what news there is.

Sellas Tetteh, once in charge of the Black Stars, took the reins for the Division One campaign, lending the dugout a profile well above the club's level at the time.