Football’s Greatest Goals No.22
Today’s Greatest Goal was scored by Leeds United’s Tony Yeboah and came a few matches into his first full season at the Yorkshire club.
The Ghanaian scored two absolute screamers in the first two months of the 1995/96 season, one away at Wimbledon and another at home to Liverpool. It is the goal against Wimbledon that I will be featuring today.
Having scored a brace at Upton Park on the opening day of the season, Yeboah smashed in a volley from outside of the box against Liverpool. The shot cannoned off the underside of the bar and flew high into the roof of the net. This sort of goal would be replicated the following month away at Wimbledon.
I was at Highbury on the day that Leeds went to Selhurst Park to play Wimbledon. I was there to witness Dennis Bergkamp score his first two goals for Arsenal. Both of Bergkamp’s goals were considered excellent finishes, but looked entirely ordinary compared to Yeboah’s goal!
Meanwhile across London, Leeds beat Wimbledon 4-2 with Yeboah helping himself to a hat-trick. His second goal was the pick of the bunch.
Carlton Palmer had already scored for Leeds after 32 minutes with a fine curling shot from 20 yards. Tony Yeboah then doubled Leeds’ advantage after 42 minutes with a tap in from close range.
Dean Holdsworth headed in from a corner a little over a minute later and Yeboah almost scored direct from the restart! His first-time effort from the centre spot dropped onto the roof of the net, narrowly scoring a sensational goal.
Just over a minute later, Yeboah would put the ball in the back of the net and what a goal it was too!
John Pemberton hit a long ball forward and it was headed up and also booted in the air a couple of times, in a way rarely seen nowadays.
Tony Yeboah chested the ball down about 35 yards from goal, controlled it with his knee before letting it bounce down on the turf. Wimbledon defender Alan Reeves jumped up to try and block a shot from Yeboah, but the Ghanaian anticipated this and pushed the ball to the right of Reeves with his left foot.
The ball then took a lucky deflection off Yeboah’s right knee and bounced up. He let the ball bounce and then unleashed a ferocious shot at goal with his right foot. Wimbledon’s Chris Perry had dived in to try and take the ball away from the Leeds striker but was a second or two late.
Yeboah’s shot flew like a rocket towards the top right hand corner. It cannoned off the underside of the bar before bouncing over the goal-line, up off the bar again and rippled down the back of the net. Paul Heald in the Wimbledon goal stood absolutely no chance of getting anywhere near it!
The Leeds striker completed his hat-trick in the second half after Alan Reeves had taken the score to 3-2. The second goal would be what the game would forever be remembered for though. It was quite rightly awarded Match of the Day’s ‘Goal of the Season’ award.
Sadly for the Leeds fans, that was as good as it got for Tony Yeboah. Injuries plagued his career thereafter and he fell out with George Graham, who took over as manager at Elland Road in September 1996. A year later, he left the club in September 1997 and joined Hamburg in Germany.
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