Former Leeds fan favourite Tony Yeboah has revealed the secret to his scoring success at Elland Road – Yorkshire puddings.
The Ghanaian striker earned cult hero status at Leeds during a two-year spell between 1995 and 1997, scoring some of the most memorable goals in Premier League history.
But he explains in the latest issue of FourFourTwo magazine that a local speciality had a part to play.
“Yes, yes, I loved the Yorkshire puddings!” he says, laughing.
“I had no idea what they were, but the more I ate, the more I seemed to score.”
Nordale Foods even sponsored Yeboah two puddings per goal, plus one for each of his team-mates. Once, a truckload of 250 turned up. “Eventually, we agreed they should stop,” he confesses. “I couldn’t eat them anymore!”
Yeboah netted 32 goals in 66 games for Leeds, but his volley against Liverpool and superb strike against Wimbledon in 1995/96 were his most memorable.
The latter goal was named as goal of the season at the end of the campaign, but Yeboah believes his dipping, long-range volley against the Reds was even more special.
“We’d practised those moves in training, so I wasn’t surprised when he headed the ball into my path – but it was a little too fast,” says Yeboah.
“As the ball landed, I knew I just wanted to hit it.”
In subsequent years, it has been said the shot travelled at 96 miles per hour.
“Sometimes, when a ball leaves your foot you know it’s heading straight in.
“The Liverpool one means more to me as it was against my idols, it was live on television, and it was my first really great goal in England.”
Very few players could relegate an equally astonishing strike to second place.
“To be honest, for technique and control, the goal against Wimbledon is better,” says Yeboah.
“But if you then add the ingredients of the crowd, the size of the match and all of the emotion, it’s the Liverpool one.”
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