S.C. Adelaide

Infobox Football club
clubname = S.C.Adelaide


fullname = Sportiva Calcio Adelaide
nickname = "Azzuri" "Bashers"
founded = May 16, 1995
ground = Christ Church, Ningo Pampram
capacity = 10,000 | chairman =
mgrtitle = Manager
manager = flagicon|Netherlands Johannes Van der Heyden
league = Second Division
season =
position =
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pattern_sh1 = _white_stripes
pattern_so1 =
leftarm1 = 0000FF|body1=0000FF|rightarm1=0000FF|shorts1=0000FF|socks1=FFFFFF
pattern_la2 = _shoulder_stripes_blue_stripes_half|pattern_b2=_shoulder_stripes_blue_stripes|pattern_ra2=_shoulder_stripes_blue_stripes_half
pattern_sh2 = _blue_stripes
pattern_so2 = _3_stripes_blue
leftarm2 = FFFFFF|body2=FFFFFF|rightarm2=FFFFFF|shorts2=FFFFFF|socks2=0000FF
t=s
pattern_b3=_shoulder stripes white stripes
body3=33CCFF
pattern_la3=_shoulder stripes white stripes half
leftarm3=33CCFF
pattern_ra3=_shoulder stripes white stripes half
pattern_sh3=_white stripes
rightarm3=33CCFF
shorts3=33CCFF
socks3=33CCFF

Sportiva Calcio Adelaide commonly referred to as Adelaide or the abbreviation S.C. Adelaide, is a Ghanaian professional football club based in Tema, Ghana. The club has spent most of their history as a youth football team, but recently converted into a senior team in second tier of the Ghana league. Adelaide was initially started as a football club, as a club oriented to multiple sports. Adelaide has departments for athletics, basketball, football, handball, swimming, volleyball, and others. Their motto is "Deo Juvante" (Latin) meaning with God’s Help.

History

The club was founded as a sporting club in 1995 as an organization to aid the youth in the community to get into sports. It was named after St Adelaide of Italy "(thus the Italian connection Sportiva Calcio Adelaide)." Adelaide means Noble kind; of the noble sort, and this was what the organization set out to do to the community. "“The opening of the club is with an aim to developing talents and to raise up a generation who will be brave enough to face the world practically and make the nation and the continent as a whole proud.”" In honor of its origins, the club has retained the Italian name as Sportiva Calcio Adelaide, instead of changing it to the Adelaide Sporting Club, it should be noted that the S.C. is in front of the Adelaide and not after, which is sometimes confused since more sporting activities are being taken.

Colours and Badge

Throughout the entire history of the club, they have been represented by the colour blue and white. The colours have two representations, firstly psychics who claim to be able to observe the aura with their third eye report that someone with a blue aura is a person who is oriented toward spirituality. [ Swami Panchadasi "The Human Aura: Astral Colors and Thought Forms" Des Plaines, Illinois, USA:1912--Yogi Publications Society Page 36] People with blue auras are said to be interested in social service work and to be in occupations such as social worker, counsellor, teacher, writer, and psychologist. [ Oslie, Pamalie "Life Colors: What the Colors in Your Aura Reveal" Novato, California:2000--New World Library Blue Auras: Pages 117-130 ] due to the aim of the organization. Secondly with its Italian connection, "Azzurro" (meaning sky), a light blue, is the national colour of Italy as such Adelaide's blue jersey, they have gained the nickname Azzuri. White was chosen because White was the symbol of Catholics, white means purity. Blue jerseys are used for home matches and white jerseys for away matches. The team also wears a third jersey aqua (cyan colour) for matches on neutral grounds, when the opposition wears white or on holiday games. The bashers (bashing is a term meaning thumping) another nickname came from the teams thumping of their opposition. The nickname also comes from the municipality Tema which used to be a land of calabashes (Tema originated from ' Tor-man ' in Ga meaning calabash-town).

tadium

The team's current home grounds is a 10,000 capacity park - Christ Church, in the district of Ningo Prampram where it's located. There is ambiguity with the origin of the name, it was named after the many catholic cathedrals, it is also believed the name was given as a place for rejoicing for the fans where they will go and enjoy themselves from the football.

Approach and Philosophy

S.C. Adelaide has been described as a team which has a desire to entertain and attack, their style of play has been likened to Arsenal F.C. style of playing, quick one two passes, through passes and the odd one or two long passes. Others interpret their style as Total football due to their Dutch coach nicknamed the "“Dutchmaster”". "If you are looking to watch total football by the Netherlands national football team or looking to watch Arsenal F.C. live and not on TV look no further, just watch S.C. Adelaide, how do they do it" - Kalusha, sports presenter on Peace FM Ghana . The club focuses on and is dedicated to developing individual and collective technical ability, ball control, possession, passing and defending. They played a total of 32 passes and had possession for about 5 minutes. The Adelaide defense set a new record after going 22 consecutive games without conceding a goal and went unbeaten the whole season. A commentator said "“they (Adelaide) are protecting their goal like they will all die if the ball hit the post let alone if they conceded a goal”".

Adelaide is one of the most successful youth clubs in Ghana, having produced the most number of European based players by any youth team in Ghana. A record of 6 players; highest ever representation of a single club for the Under-17 team played in 1999. A total of 17 players have been produced for the under-17 since the clubs inception. Most of the players were recruited by premier league clubs into their youth teams and first teams. S.C. Adelaide are very successful on the youth level at unearthing talent because their chief scout Seth Hoffmann is the under - 12 and under - 17 southern sector scout for the Ghana Football Association, most of their best players especially the under – 12’s are brought through the club before they are even scouted by other clubs. Their recruitment of the best talents and training methods has led to them producing players described as world class. Examples are Ransford Osei a striker described by FIFA.com as "an opportunistic goal machine"cite web|url=http://www.fifa.com/u17worldcup/news/newsid=587992.html |title=Osei keen to have the last word |accessdate=2007-09-17 |date=2007-09-17|author=FIFA |publisher=FIFA] with superb pace and movement [cite news | date=2007-09-17 | url=http://kr.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=412851 | title=African Under-17 Hottest Starlets | publisher=Goal.com| accessdate=2007-09-17] , young free-scoring sensation Osei was recognized by World Soccer Magazine as one of the "50 Most Exciting Teenagers on the Planet" in their November 2007 Issue. Daniel Opare also was recognized by World Soccer Magazine as one of the "50 Most Exciting Teenagers on the Planet" in their November 2007 Issue, young marauding right wingback Opare received rave reviews for using his incredible pace and precision crossing to great effect for Ghana’s U-17 Team, "The Black Starlets"cite web|url=http://kr.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=412851 |title=African Under-17 Hottest Starlets |accessdate=2007-09-17 |date=2007-09-17|author=Goal.com |publisher=Goal.com] at the 2007 U-17 World Cup [es iconcite news | date=2007-09-17 | url=http://perlasdelfutbol.blogspot.com/2007/09/informe-mundial-sub17-2007.html | title=Informe: Mundial sub17 2007 | publisher=Perlas del futbol | accessdate=2007-09-17] . Anthony Annan is rated as one of the most exciting young talents in the World [cite news |title= The 10 most exciting young talents in world football | url= http://www.sportingo.com/football/a6989_most-exciting-young-talents |publisher=Sportingo |date=2008-02-15] . David Addy was voted the Young Player of the Year 2008 in Ghana. [http://ghanafoot.wordpress.com/2008/07/05/top-of-the-onetouch-premier-league-class/] . There is continuous supply of talents from the club, after the 2006-07 youth season, all the first team players were sold to top premier league club youth teams, the likes of Hearts of Oak and Kotoko. The club famously boarded up their Palisade fences at their training grounds to prevent premier league scouts from poaching their players. The hopes and expectations of S.C. Adelaide have always been very high, with their development and gradual progression into the premier league it will not be long before the players are sold directly to foreign clubs and also play for the senior national team.

Notable former players

*flagicon|GhanaDaniel Opare - Real Madrid
*flagicon|GhanaSadick Adams - Atlético Madrid
*flagicon|GhanaRansford Osei - Maccabi Haifa F.C.
*flagicon|GhanaAnthony Annan - IK Start
*flagicon|GhanaPrince Tagoe - Al-Ittifaq
*flagicon|GhanaAnthony Obodai - Ajax
*flagicon|GhanaEric Bekoe - Asante Kotoko
*flagicon|GhanaDavid Addy - Randers FC
*flagicon|GhanaMubarak Wakaso - Elche CF

Top Management

*flagicon|Italy Honorary Life President - "Giuseppe Balestrieri"
*flagicon|England Commercial Director - "Daryl Buffinton"
*flagicon|Netherlands Coach - "Johannes Van der Heyden"
*flagicon|Ghana Managing Director - "Esther Amakye"
*flagicon|Ghana Executive Director (Football) - "Elikem Ayikple"
*flagicon|Ghana Public Relations / Media - "Isaac Sapene"
*flagicon|Ghana Chief Scout / Player Recruitment - "Seth Hoffmann"
*flagicon|United States Club Secretary - "Jessica Winfield"

References