Asante Kotoko

Ibrahim Sunday used to run games for Asante Kotoko from midfield in the early 1970s, the year the club named him African Footballer of the Year, 1971 — the same period that turned Kotoko into a name known past Ghana's borders. In 1970 they beat Tout Puissant Englebert to lift the African Cup of Champions Clubs, and did it again in 1983 against Al-Ahly, a feat no other Ghanaian side has matched. Karim Abdul Razak carried the same shirt to the continental award seven years after Sunday, while Baba Yara, who never got to see the club's later years, gave his name to the stadium in Kumasi where Kotoko still play.

The domestic record dwarfs almost everyone else's: 24 Ghana Premier League titles, spread from 1959/60 through to 2013/14, with the FA Cup won on ten occasions. The club belongs, in a literal sense, to the Ashanti throne — the Asantehene approved the name Kotoko, Twi for porcupine, and the reigning king, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, owns the club today. Red dominates the shirt, with green and yellow drawn from the Ashanti Kingdom's own emblem.

None of it sits apart from the rivalry with Hearts of Oak. Their meetings, known as the Super Clash, carry a weight that turned fatal on 9 May 2001, when tear gas fired by police inside Ohene Djan Stadium set off a stampede that killed 127 people. The academy has kept sending players outward since — Tony Yeboah and Samuel Kuffour both came through Kotoko before their careers took them to Europe.

Kumasi still gathers at Baba Yara Sports Stadium, close to 40,528 strong when the ground is full, for a club its own supporters call the Porcupine Warriors.