Six fan club champions across the country would on Friday, December 18, 2015, face one another in a fierce battle to select clubs which would represent their schools in the National Junior Graphic Fan Club Spelling Competition.
The contest, which could be aptly described as the clash of the titans, is at the semifinal stage to select the best spellers for the final of National Junior Graphic Fan Club Spelling Competition which is slated for Saturday, December 19, 2015 at the Lizzy Sports Complex, East Legon in Accra.
The six fan clubs, which are champions in their own right from the various regions are: the Family Life International School, Accra; Falsyd Foundation School, Accra and Volta Barracks Basic School, Ho.
The rest are Palmer International School, Kumasi; Elsie Lund School, Tamale, and the University Primary School, Cape Coast.
Obviously, this stage of the competition promises to be very competitive and interesting since all the clubs are poised to be part of the three which would eventually advance to the final stage of the competition.
Apart from the University Primary School which had the experience of advancing to a similar level in last year’s spelling competition, the others are either new entrants or fan clubs which had only participated at the group stages of previous competitions.
The Family Life International School, for instance, first featured in the 2012 National Junior Graphic Fan Club Spelling Competition but could not advance to the knock-out stage of the contest. This year, however, the spellers have done their homework well and that would explain why they have been able to reach the semi-final stage.
One new entrant in the competition, Falsyd Foundation School, has justified its inclusion in the competition by beating other clubs in the group to get to this level.
Palmer International School also beat two-time representatives of the Ashanti Region, T.I Ahmadiyya Basic ‘B’ School to qualify to this stage of the contest while Volta Barracks Basic School won in the Volta Region and also defeated the Eastern Region Champions, A.E.A Memorial School, at the knock-out stage to qualify to the semis. Elsie Lund also triumphed over Bethel International School to qualify to represent the Northern Region.
So far, no fan club has been tipped to win but in a telephone conversation with the patron of the Nest School Complex Junior Graphic Fan Club, Mr Henry Forson, he said contestants of the University Primary School are a force to reckon with since they were able to beat his team which was very strong in the knock-out stage when the Western and Central regions met in the knock-out stage.
In an interview with the contestants from the University Primary School, they were confident of victory, stressing that their ultimate aim was to take the cup.
“We are happy and expectant and we want to tell the other fan club members who think they have the best spellers in the country to watch out for us because we promise them that they are not going to take the cup this time,” they warned.
Contestants of Palmer International School in Kumasi say the other fan club should not see them as the underdogs in the competition because this is their first time. “We will give the clubs the shock of their lives. All they need to do is to wait and see,” they added.
There is also a ‘Messiah Majid’, the team leader of the Falsyd Foundation School, who thinks he is the ‘Messiah’ to lead his team to win the coveted prize so contestants of the Kabore Basic School would not have the luxury of keeping the cup this year.
The contestants of Kabore Basic School say they will not listen to schools which think they can beat them. According to them “the Lord is our light and salvation in whom we are looking up to.”
Kabore Basic School Junior Graphic Fan Club has won the cup twice, first in 2012 and then in 2014 so if it wins this year, the club would have the honour of keeping the cup forever.
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- FLASHBACK: One of the schools which participated in the grand finale of last year’s competition attempts to spell a word.
