Foncha ST

Nobody in Bamenda had heard from Foncha Street FC for years when, in August 2019, the club turned up at the Interpoules qualifiers and won Pool C outright. Weeks earlier it had already claimed the North West Regional Championship. Two titles inside a single season, from a side that had effectively been dormant, forced the Elite Two door open under president Moh David.

Staying there has been harder than getting there. In five seasons since promotion, Foncha ST has spent four of them fighting off relegation, and in 2021 the fight was lost outright — only for the Cameroon Football Federation to reinstate the club the following year. That single reprieve says more about the club's standing in the North West than any run of results has.

The squad has leaned on academy graduates rather than marquee signings: striker Gibel Penjo Muh arrived from Legend Football Academy, while Cheson Loibinho passed through before moving on to Yong Sport Academy. Neither has turned Foncha ST into an established second-division force, but both point to a club building from local pipelines rather than buying its way up the table.

Home games are played at the Bamenda Municipal Stadium, known locally as Mankon, a ground meant to hold 2,500 but still unfinished — renovation work there stalled back in 2016 and has not resumed. Across the same city sits PWD Bamenda, the older and better-known name, and the two share a rivalry that Foncha ST's supporters feel more sharply than the record books show. For a club playing out of a half-built stadium in the shadow of the city's dominant side, every point taken off PWD carries a weight the league table alone would not suggest.