Akwasi Asante

Akwasi Asante (born 6 September 1992) is a Dutch footballer who plays as a striker for League Two club Grimsby Town.
Asante began his senior career in England with Birmingham City. He made his first-team debut in the Europa League play-off round second leg against C.D. Nacional in August 2011, and made his debut in the Football League while on loan at Northampton Town in January 2012. He had spells on loan at Shrewsbury Town in both 2012–13 and 2013–14, but injury disrupted his progress, and he left Birmingham when his contract expired. Without a club while recovering from injury, he spent the latter part of the 2014–15 season with Kidderminster Harriers before moving on to Solihull Moors, with whom he won the National League North title.

Early life and career

Asante was born in Amsterdam to Ghanaian parents. He played at amateur club Neerlandia, which then merged with two other clubs to form Blauw-Wit Amsterdam. As a youngster he had interested Ajax, but he chose to join HFC Haarlem's youth academy, where he spent three years before the family moved to the UK when he was 13. He played for Wednesbury Sports Union in the Walsall Junior Youth League before joining Birmingham City F.C.'s Academy, where he began a two-year scholarship in July 2009.

In the 2010–11 season, Birmingham chose not to enter a reserve team in a competitive league, but Asante was a regular member of the under-18 Academy team and played in the Birmingham Senior Cup. In October 2010 he scored five goals as the under-18s beat Tottenham Hotspur's under-18s 6–0. This performance contributed to his first competitive involvement with the first team a few days later, when he was named among the substitutes for the League Cup fourth-round tie against Brentford. Asante signed his first professional contract, of two-and-a-half years, in January 2011. Injury kept him out for four months, but he was an unused substitute for Birmingham's last two Premier League games of the season, against Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur.

Senior football

He was part of the Birmingham squad for their 2011 pre-season visit to Ireland, and came close to scoring in the second half of the friendly against Cork City, when he appeared to be brought down after touching the ball past the goalkeeper, but no penalty was awarded. In the absence through injury of strikers Cameron Jerome, Marlon King and Nikola Žigić, Asante was named in the 20-man squad for Birmingham's Europa League match against Nacional in Madeira in August. An unused substitute in the first leg, he made his first-team debut in the second leg on 25 August, replacing Chris Burke in the 88th minute as Birmingham won 3–0 to qualify for the group stage.

On 1 January 2012, Asante moved to Northampton Town of League Two on a one-month loan deal. He went straight into the starting eleven for their match the following day, away to Shrewsbury Town, and after 22 minutes he collected a cross from Lewis Young and rounded the goalkeeper to set up the opening goal for Saido Berahino. The match finished as a 1–1 draw. In his second game for the club, he "took advantage of a slip by his marker to carry the ball inside another challenge and smack a right-footed shot inside Barry Roche's near post", his first league goal which proved to be the winner as Northampton beat Morecambe 2–1. He returned to Birmingham at the end of the month having scored once from three appearances.

Asante was part of the Birmingham squad that went on a tour to Austria ahead of the 2012–13 season. He was preferred to Žigić for the visit of Bolton Wanderers in September because manager Lee Clark wanted a striker with pace available among the substitutes if needed. He tore a hamstring playing for the development squad in October. The injury took considerably longer than expected to heal, and Asante did not return to development squad duty until March 2013. Ahead of the transfer deadline, Asante joined Shrewsbury Town on loan until the end of the League One season, and made his debut as a late substitute in a 2–2 draw away to Carlisle United. In seven games for Shrewsbury he scored once, the third goal in a 3–2 defeat of Portsmouth on the last day of the season.

Asante signed a new one-year contract with Birmingham in June 2013, with an option for the club to extend it for a second year. He rejoined Shrewsbury on loan, initially for a month, ahead of the 2013–14 season. A hamstring injury delayed his second debut for the club until the fourth match of the season, a 2–0 win at home to Swindon Town. Birmingham recalled Asante on 19 August as cover, with two strikers injured and another free to leave the club. However, injury prevented his involvement in Birmingham's next match and disrupted his season. He returned to action in April 2014 with four goals in a development squad match against Huddersfield Town, leading manager Lee Clark to suggest he might still have a future at the club, but it was later confirmed that he would leave when his contract expired at the end of the season.

Kidderminster Harriers

Asante was without a club for some months while recovering from injury. On 16 December 2014, he signed for Conference Premier club Kidderminster Harriers until the end of the season. He made his debut as a second-half substitute as Kidderminster beat Lincoln City with a goal in stoppage time, and finished his spell with 11 appearances without scoring.

Solihull Moors

He then moved on to National League North club Solihull Moors, for whom he appeared regularly, as starter or substitute in about equal measure. Asante was part of the Solihull Moors team during the 2015–16 season that secured promotion to the National League for the first time in their history, clinching the National League North title. In May 2016, Asante played in the Birmingham Senior Cup final as Solihull Moors won the competition for the first time, beating Birmingham City 2–1 at St Andrew's.

Grimsby Town

On 18 January 2017, Asante signed an 18-month contract with newly promoted League Two club Grimsby Town.

As of match played 21 January 2017

Solihull Moors

• National League North: 2015–16
• Birmingham Senior Cup: 2015–16