Photo by Emmanuel Quaye

The Black Queens are Ghana’s extremely talented national female football team whose love for the game started when they were children and used to watch international soccer games on the television.

“I began playing football when I watched former Bayern Munich star, Osei Kufuor, on television,” one of the players said.

The team’s captain, 25-year-old Florence Okoe, developed a taste for goalkeeping when she followed the Women’s World Cup the year America hosted it. The antics of Ghana’s Abiba Suleman sparked a passion for football that has led her to where she is today. Her team mate, Sakina Abdel Mumuni, started playing football at the age of 12 with Lipo Ladies in Northern Ghana. Inspired by the likes of Ghanaian John Pantsil and England’s Stephen Gerard, she has taken her dream to become a football star very seriously.

The Black Queens spent several days at the Mplaza Hotel in Accra in the run up to their all-important qualifying match against the Senegalese senior female team, Teranga Lionesses on June 6, 2010. The Queens practised hard before the match with daily training sessions at the Achimota High School where they played and prayed together as a team. They went on to win the match 3-0 to claim one of the seven places available for the African Women’s Championship (AWC) to be hosted by South Africa in September, 2010.

The Black Queen’s success is a testimony to the perseverance and passion of its young players who have nurtured their dreams to be football stars from a very young age.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Publication rights to this feature are available from Africa Media Online.