Nineteen years have now passed since Tony Yeboah's thunderbolt at Elland Road against Liverpool on August 21st 1995.
That 25-yard screamer would send Leeds United top of the Premier League and go some way to immortalising Yeboah in club folklore.
“I don’t score many with my right foot. Normally I prefer my left foot. But it’s a fantastic feeling to score a goal like that and it’s important that when you play a club like Liverpool, you win.” Yeboah said.
His rocket against the Reds with his ‘weaker foot’ would be overshadowed by a stratospheric solo effort at Wimbledon a month later that won many plaudits, including Match of the Day’s goal of the season competition for 1995/96.
Both strikes saw Yeboah become the first player in Premier League history to win back-to-back goal of the month competitions.
Debate rages on to this day over which goal was better.
I was a mere boy (7 years old) when the Ghanaian marvel was lighting up Elland Road and the Premier League.
Of course the slightly grainy archive footage as it would be viewed today still endures almost two decades on, long before the exclamation of fandangled HD.
High definition Yeboah's show reel may not be, a factor that only adds to the appeal if you asked me, but some of the goals were nevertheless straight out of the top drawer.
Yeboah was a relative unknown when he joined Leeds in January 1995, initially on loan before making his switch to Yorkshire permanent that summer for £3.4m from German outfit Eintracht Frankfurt.
However, the Bundesliga was well acquainted with Yeboah’s goal scoring exploits. The Ghana international scored 68 times in 123 appearances for Frankfurt.
He soon announced himself to the Leeds faithful, netting 8 goals in his first 9 games for the club.
Leeds manager at the time Howard Wilkinson remarked, “I'd never actually seen him play, but I watched him a lot on Eurosport. I remember thinking: `Christ, what a player'. What you saw him do in Monaco he did for four years in the Bundesliga. `Routine' goals from three yards, wallops from 20 or 30. Right foot or left, headers. The lot.
As it turns out Tony looks a bargain at what we paid. But it doesn't matter what he's worth because he's here now and we won't sell him. So what is the catch? There isn't one - maybe it's a case of right place, right time.”
The 1995/96 season is my earliest conscious memory of the beautiful game.
As many may enthuse, at that young age supporting your hometown club is a truly immersive experience.
For a 7 year old me was fraught with innocence, naivety and a distinct lack of cynicism towards football, as in life.
I remember scampering off to primary school on the Monday morning, (usually a drab, rain swept affair) the first exchange amongst friends was often one simple question, which broke through the dull British weather like a ray of sunlight; 'did you watch the football at the weekend?'
A tale as old as time perhaps, but an enquiry that spans generations the world over and sticks with you from your formative years through to adulthood.
The mere hint of the lily-white shirt embossed with the blue suede tinge of Thistle Hotels and stitched Asics kit sponsor takes me back to a simpler time.
A time when the sun shined (inexcusably drab Mondays aside) accompanied by the smell of freshly cut grass.
Of playing football with your mates all day until it was dark. Even then, whether you were losing by a cricket score or comfortably on top, ‘next goal wins’ was the only way to separate the winners from the losers.
An idyllic and somewhat rose-tinted view of infancy in the mid-nineties to put it lightly, nostalgia of romantic proportions - the now fully developed cynic within me admits.
But it's those fond memories that melt this ice-cold heart.
The Thistle Hotels/Asics home shirt of 95/96 would be my first football kit as a youngster, which for me at least, became synonymous with the time period.
However, I suppose the general consensus of that kit may not be reminisced upon so fondly, instead a love/hate relationship, for all the good times, there was invariably the bad.
It was of course the kit the team wore at Wembley for the Coca Cola League Cup final of 1996.
A 3-0 defeat to Aston Villa seemed to signal the end for Howard Wilkinson as that one-sided result beneath the towers of the old Wembley reverberated into league form.
Leeds after such a promising start to the campaign lost six games on the spin come the final game of the season, to finish an uninspired 13th in the Premier League.
For Yeboah, cult hero status was solidified through his performances on the pitch, in part down to the breathtaking goals he scored.
He became the first non-English player to win the clubs player of the year award following the 1995/96 season.
The Whites number 21 despatched 32 goals from 66 appearances over two years at Leeds with his right foot, left foot, and head from a plethora of angles that at times looked superhuman.
The hat trick against Monaco that took Yeboah to 20 goals from 20 starts in all competitions, his sublime strike from 25 yards against Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Wednesday and his mazy run at the Manchester United defence before blasting past Peter Schmeichel on Christmas Eve in a 3-1 victory over the old enemy.
A striker with pace and power I can only liken to Didier Drogba in the modern era.
In 47 Premier League matches he netted 24 times and goes down as one of the greatest foreign imports ever to grace England’s top division.
Sadly his tenure with Leeds was to be a relatively fleeting one.
Following a string of injuries at the beginning of the 1996/97 Premier League season, coupled with the departure of Howard Wilkinson and the appointment of George Graham at the helm of the Elland Road club, Yeboah’s days at Leeds were numbered.
Souring relations between he and new Leeds boss George Graham spelled déjà vu for the Ghanaian who had experienced similar conflict with his former manager at Frankfurt Jupp Heynckes.
It was quickly made clear to Yeboah that he was not seen as an integral part of Graham’s vision for the club moving forward and was restricted to appearances off the bench more often than not.
Yeboah moved back to Germany soon after, signing with Hamburg for £1m. He would spend four years at the Volksparkstadion, making over 100 appearances.
In his final year with the German side, they played in the Champions League for the first time in their history following the expansion of the old European Cup.
It was Yeboah who netted the clubs first Champions League goal in the extraordinary 4-4 draw with Italian giants Juventus.
The former Ghanaian international finished his career with a single season spent at Qatari outfit Al-Ittihad, where he helped the club win the Qatar Stars League and the Emir of Qatar Cup.
He was capped 59 times for his country, scoring 29 goals. He is the third highest leading goal scorer for the Black Stars behind Abedi Pele and Asamoah Gyan.
Yeboah returned to Elland Road for a proper and final farewell in front of the Leeds faithful, crossing the white line one more time for Lucas Radebe’s testimonial in 2005.
Howard Wilkson’s assessment of the striker was glowing, “Tony's unique - not just different from other strikers, but better. I've never seen or worked with a finisher like him. He thinks he'll score every time he goes out there.”
Brian Deane said of his former team mate, “We used to call Tony ‘The King’ – and he was such a kind, warm, cool, calm, collected person. It was an absolute privilege to play with him.”
His time at Elland Road will always be looked upon with fondness at the gifts he showcased in the white shirt of Leeds United.
Thank you Tony.
