Yeboah: Anthony (Tony)

1995-1997 (Player Details)

Centre Forward

Born: Kumasi, Ghana: 06-06-1966

Debut: Queens Park Rangers (h) (Substitute): 24-01-1995

5’11” 13st 13lb (1995)

#22 in 100 Greatest LUFC Players Ever

Yeboah realised his talent as a footballer at the tender age of six. His father, Mike Kofi Yeboah, a former footballer of the defunct Kumasi Highlanders, provided Tony with the motivation and excellence in a bid to ensure that Tony attained the heights of his career. He started as a Colts player with Kotoko Babies, when he was twelve years old and a primary school pupil. During this period, he exhibited exceptional skills and gained promotion to the Under-Twenty side of Kotoko. He left the Kotoko Under-Twenty team and joined the Omnibus Services Authority (OSA) football club, a Division Three side. After one year, Yeboah left OSA and joined Neoplan Stars. He was instrumental in the club’s qualification to Division One. However, after just a year in the elite division, Neoplan Stars was relegated to the Second Division. His aggression and knack for great goals caught the attention of top football clubs. Kumasi Cornerstone expressed interest in youthful Yeboah and signed him. While with Corners, he was invited to the national team, the Black Stars in 1984. His career started to bloom as he helped Corners’ qualification to the West African Football Union (WAFU) competition in 1986. It was in the same year that he emerged the top goal scorer in the League. After pondering over the offers, he opted for Okwahu United FC, where he played for two years, from 1986 to 1988. It was while he was with Okwahu that he, then a regular international, got an offer to play trials in Germany. He had a great performance in the World Cup qualifying series against Zambia, when he scored the only goal of the match, and it opened the door to German football. He was signed on by Saarbrucken, a Division Two side and played for them for two years from1988 to 1990, before moving to Eintracht Frankfurt. For the four years that he was striker for them, honours and achievements flowed and it was his exploits with Frankfurt which earned him star status and second place in the 1993 African ‘Footballer of the Year’ Award.. He scored spectacular goals and was joint leading goalscorer in the Bundesliga in 1992/93, with eighteen goals while in 1993/94, he scored twenty goals. There was friction at Frankfurt and Yeboah left for Leeds, J.J Okocha left for Turkey and Gudino went to Manchester City. Interestingly, after their departure, Frankfurt started sinking and was relegated, after six months. Few strikers in the modern game have made such an explosive impact as African star Yeboah. Howard Wilkinson shattered the club’s transfer record and paid German side Eintracht Frankfurt £3.4 million in what proved to be a major coup. Outside the Bundesliga, few fans had heard of the Ghananian’s goal power but it did not take long for him to take English football by storm with a series of spectacular goals. Yeboah arrived in Leeds in January 1995, after scoring sixty-eight goals in one hundred and twenty-three Bundesliga games, and soon picked up the pace with Leeds, with thirteen goals from sixteen starts, including a hat-trick against Ipswich Town, as United came up on the rails to claim UEFA Cup spot. He did not disappoint in Europe either, his spectacular hat-trick in Monte Carlo destroying Monaco, while the EPL teble he notched at Wimbledon included a blistering shot which was bettered by a match-winning volley at Elland Road that beat Liverpool and earned him the ‘Goal of the Season’ award. At last Leeds seemed to have a player of genuine star quality to replace Eric Cantona. But the goals dried up and after missing several games because of his involvement in the African Nations Cupfinals he returned to Leeds to find himself without a regular playing partner and often up front on his own. A knee injury ruled him out of the last two months of the 1995-96 season in which he finished the club’s ‘Player of the Year’. Despite rumours of Yeboah being unhappy with developments at Leeds, he vowed to honour his contract and see out his playing days with United before returning to Ghana. However, George Graham took over as Leeds Manager in September 1996 and there was instant conflict with Yeboah. Injuries did not help, but he spent too much time on the sidelines or on the bench unused, and even when he did take the field he had to plough a lone furrow. The African striker ended his career by throwing his shirt at him after being substituted at White Hart Lane in March 1997 in what proved to be Yeboah’s final game for Leeds. He joined Hamburg SV and played for them until 2000. He could not play regularly for Hamburg becasue of a tax problem he had with the German authorities. At the peak of his career the least goals he scored in a season was fifteen but managed to score only six goals in his last season with Hamburg due to his continued attendance in court. He moved to Qatar, playing for Al-Etihad and after the first season, he was voted the best player in the league. He helped his Qatar-based team to win the league title and the King’s Cup and played in the finals of the Prince’s Cup. In all, he played twenty-one games and scored seventeen goals. Yeboah scored twenty-six goals in fifty-nine appearances for Ghana in international competition. He later ran a hotel business in his native Ghana.