as the saying goes, ‘’all work and no play makes jack a dull boy’’, and in line with the company’s policy to always ensure employee engagement and make sure staff have sound mind in order to work effectively, a four days inter-department football competition was organized by the hr department. the participating departments were kiln which was led by mr. wu and captained by margerial amissah, quality control led by mr. xiao and captained by theophilus eshun, raw material led by mr. li hong and captained by daniel nattor, e&e also led by mr. ye and captained by sylvester essel, admin led by mr. eugene and captained by solomon addo, polish led by mr. wang yi bin and captained by daniel paintsil, warehouse department led by mr. jack and captained by louis frimpong as well as glazed line department which was led by mr. liu and captained by paul abakah.
the football match took place from the 18th, 19th, 20th and 22nd january, 2018 respectively. on 18th january, 2018, the match commenced with an opening ceremony where the managing director of the company addressed the gathering about the purpose of the activity and declared the commencement of the football match. the first match was between warehouse and raw material. it was a beautiful display of soccer with some brilliant passes from both sides, but warehouse department seem to have upper hand in the midfield which made them score two (2) goals against raw material department.
the second match of the day took off at exactly 4:15pm, between e & e and kiln department. where kiln department scored the first goal and e & e manage to equalize to draw level, the match ended in favor of e & e during penalty shoot-out, after a pulsating two- two game after regular time.
figure 3. e&e team celebrating after winning against kiln team
on the second day, 19th january 2017, the first match was between quality control and glazed line team. the first half ended with no goal, and with a strong desire to make an impact in the second half the coaches of both department substituted 4 players during the match by which quality control team made away with three (3) goals against glazed line team.
the second match of the day was between administration and polish team, staff from the administration department both formal and casual came out in their numbers to cheer and support their team. this was a tough match between the two teams from onset, yet the match ended in favor of administration with a penalty shoot-out after an ending score of 0-0
on saturday 20th january, 2018 was the semi-final between four teams. these teams were warehouse team and e & e team (the winners from the first day of the tournament) and quality control team and administration team (the winners from the second day of the tournament). the first match of the day began at exactly 9:15am between warehouse and e& e where both team demonstrated their skill with brilliant passes. there e &e team had the upper hand in the midfield and made some brilliant attempt at breaking deadlock of the match, even then
warehouse defense players always had a way of preventing their opponents from scoring. the e & e team had a penalty opportunity which they spoilt and this brought an end to the game. the match eventually ended with no team imprinting a goal in the net. that was when there was a penalty shoot-out between the teams, where e & e won against warehouse team 5-4.
the next match of the day was between administration and quality control where by administration team lost to the quality control team through a penalty shoot-out.
the final match took place on monday 22nd january at exactly 3:00pm, between e & e team and quality control team. here quality control team had the privilege of getting a penalty shoot-out during the match which they nailed and scored. the match ended with quality control team defending their one goal till the referee blew his whistle for the end of the match. that was the win for quality control team, topping all departments as ‘’the champions of the tournament’’. the team and it supporters excitedly cheered and song to their victory over all the other teams.
after the last match on the 22nd january, 2018, the winners were acknowledged and presented with a trophy along with an amount of gh? 500 by the managing director of the company. while e & e team the second runner up of the tournament received an amount of gh? 300 which was presented to them by the factory director.
it was all joy and fun after the games came to an end and the winners as well as the losers (though sad) promised to do better and also workers who didn’t participate in the tournament had the opportunity to communicate with their departmental bosses and other bosses from other department. many of the workers were pleased and said they would be glad if the tournament would be held on regular bases.