NO DEATHS AT STARS MATCH (1b)

THE Black Stars first-ever international appearance in Sekondi last Saturday drew a record crowd, forcing the stadium officials to close the gates at 1 pm — hours before kick off.
However in their anxiety to gain access to the stadium, milling spectators forced one of the gates open, causing a stampede, during which some soccer fans were injured.
Local and foreign media reports spoke of some deaths but the Western Regional Police Command denied widespread media reports that the stampede which occurred last Saturday at the Sekondi Stadium during the Ghana-Lesotho match resulted in the death of a number of football fans.
The Regional Police Commander, DCOP Mohammed Ahmed Alhassan, who spoke to the Daily Graphic hours after the match, stated categorically that no deaths were recorded at the stadium.
He, however, confirmed that some fans sustained some bruises from a stampede which occurred at one of the gates at the stadium following a rush hours before the match.
During the build up to last Saturday’s game, soccer fans in and around Sekondi-Takoradi and beyond vowed to spend their last savings on tickets for the match to drum support for the Stars, who needed a win at all cost against the Crocodiles of Lesotho to advance to the next stage of the World Cup qualifying series.
DCOP Alhassan, who was reacting to some reports in both the local and foreign media in connection with the incident, said a check at both the Stadium Clinic and the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital, as well as with the Red Cross Society, revealed that those fans who sustained some minor injuries had been treated and discharged.
When the Daily Graphic visited the Emergency Unit and the morgue of the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital, the attendants also confirmed that no deaths had been recorded. Attendants at the morgue even expressed surprise at the news, stressing that nobody had been deposited there since last Friday.
An eyewitness of the stampede, Mr Ernest Korankye, blamed Sports Council officials at the stadium for the fans’ behaviour.
“The security men kept assuring us that they would start selling the tickets soon. However, we saw some people passing with tickets and that prompted us to push the gate open and rush in,” he said.
“I did not see any dead person so I was shocked to hear that some people had died. Nothing like that happened; only that some people had bruises,” Mr Korankye noted.
When the Daily Graphic team first visited the stadium about 10.00 a.m., the various entrances had been besieged by enthusiastic fans who were seen in long queues waiting to be served with tickets to enter the stadium.
And by 1.00 p.m. every seat in the 20,000-capacity stadium was occupied, leaving fans with tickets with no choice but to look for space anywhere possible to watch the match.
Those who could not get space climbed the walls of the fourth floor of the stadium or peeped through various toilet windows and offices to be part of the historic event.
At a point the fans outside the stadium seemed to outnumber those inside, leaving the organisers with no alternative but to close the gates.