England-Ghana World Cup match carries special meaning for fan
Joe Oteng, who is British with Ghanaian roots through his late father, will be cheering for both England and Ghana when they meet in the World Cup. While researching his family history after his father’s death, Oteng discovered he came from a large Ghanaian family with royal lineage tied to the Ashanti tribe.
With the FIFA World Cup, fans can have loyalties to more than one team. Take, for example, Joe Oteng in England, whose late father was from Ghana. The two nations play each other Tuesday, June 23, in the group stage of the World Cup.
Oteng rallies for both but has a backstory that’s worthy of its own television time. Oteng’s family story on his father’s side is one of discovery and hidden roots.
Oteng lives in England, is bi-racial and British on his mother’s side. His late father is from Ghana. He notes in a documentary, “My world changed when I lost my dad. We were close, but I never really knew him.”
Oteng started on a deep dive during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. His father had died in 2011. It was then that he found paperwork and documents that didn’t quite match up.
He’d thought his father was 64 when he died of pancreatic cancer. Turns out, his passport birth date put his age at 75. Oteng says, “A lot of things came to life after he died that I had no idea about when he was alive.”
There’s more. A marriage certificate noting a marriage prior to his father meeting his mother. His parents never married and had separated when he was a child.
For answers, Oteng went in search of his father’s old friends and colleagues, leading to relatives from Ghana. Lots of them. He’d learned his father was the youngest of not 13 siblings, as he thought, but 69 siblings. There’s more. He’d learn his grandfather was the chief of a tribe, with five wives.
So, if grandad was a chief, that meant Oteng is of Ghanaian tribal royal lineage. He says, “We’re from the Ashanti tribe, and the area my dad is from is a small town called Nsuta Chebi.” He’d learn all this 10 years after his father had passed and would travel to his father’s homeland.
To his surprise, he was installed as a chief, a sub-chief.
Oteng has documented his discoveries in a two-season series on YouTube called Hidden Roots. Oteng, a singer by trade, is now working on Season 3 of Hidden Roots. He says once his father was gone, “The story that was his became mine too.”
Why his father left Ghana in 1964 for a scholarship and educational opportunities in the U.K., but never looked back, he’ll never know.
When it comes to football, Ghana was his father’s team of choice. They’d watch matches together as father and young son. Despite all the secrets surrounding his father, he says football was one way they bonded.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.foxla.com ’
