A former president of the Ghana Hockey Association, Mr Richard Akpokavie, has attributed the slow pace of development of the sport in Ghana to the lack of artificial playing fields across the country to provide a platform to nurture and develop talents.
He said financial constraints had bedevilled the roll-out of hockey infrastructure across the country, making it difficult to unearth and develop talents outside of the nation’s capital and the Ashanti regional capital, Kumasi.
“In our time, we used to play on grass which was available across the country but when artificial turfs were introduced into the system, it took Ghana a long time to play on such turfs.
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It was only in 1999 that we started playing on artificial turf [sand based turf], and when water based artificial turfs were introduced, it took Ghana 10 more years to have it installed in the country.”
Despite the inadequacy of infrastructure, Mr Akpokavie lauded the efforts of the sport’s governing body which he once headed, for initiating a move to build additional artificial turfs in some regions of the country and encouraged them to speed up the project.
“Building playing turfs at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Cape Coast, University of Ghana and other parts of Ghana would motivate students to nurture and develop their potentials for their own benefit and that of the country.”
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