On this day 5 May 1969 (Exactly 52 years back today) Former Asante Kotoko and Ghana winger Baba Yara ‘King of Wingers’ passed on at 33 years old.
Background
On March 24, 1963, Republikans played Volta Heroes at Kpandu, winning 5 – 0. On their way back to Accra, their transport was engaged with a mishap at Kpeve in the Volta Region. Yara, the pro footballer, was incapacitated after wounds he continued in the mishap.
Eyewitness accounts said the 23- seater bus skidded of the road in a curve in a slippery road and hit an embankment. Yara, seated near the main door, was thrown out of the bus and he might have been trampled by his colleagues in the stampede to get out of the bus.
Twelve different players, Agyemang Gyau, Kofi Pare, E. C. Oblitey, Dodoo Ankrah, Shitta, Edward Boateng, Carl Lokko, Wiliam Gibirine, Otto Odametey, S. Y. Tetteh, Salifu Musa and Dodoo Quartey supported slight wounds. They were sent to Ho Hospital from where they were traveled to the 37 Military Hospital in Accra. The majority of them were released inside a couple of days.
They were sent to Ho Hospital from where they were flown to the 37 Military Hospital in Accra. Most of them were discharged within a few days.
Yara, accompanied by Dr R. O. Addae, surgical specialist from the 37 Military Hospital was flown to England where he was treated at the famous Stoke Mandeville Hospital for spinal injuries.
A week later, LA Ronde Night Club, a popular joint in Accra, presented Yara’s wife, Patience, with an air ticket to visit her husband in UK.
Interestingly, the return ticket had been won by Yara two weeks before the accident when he was chosen as the best dressed gentleman in a competition organised by the night club.
Initial reports from Stoke Mandeville Hospital said there was the possibility of the colourful football star ‘gaining a reasonable recovery within a period of four to six months.’
This was not to happen and on August 14 1963, Yara returned home in a wheelchair. After a quiet life, the ‘King of Wingers’ died on May 5,1969.
Born on 12 October 1936 in Kumasi, Yara was a hero runner in an Arabic School. At the age of 13, Yara showed perocity of talented footballer yet his insatiate want for games generally drew him to horse racing between 1950 – 1955 was a jockey at the Accra Turf Club.
In 1955 Yara came back to Kumasi and enlisted for Asante Kotoko; that same year he hit the headlines. He made an impressive foray into the international scene – Yara wore jersey No. 7 for Ghana’s victorious team which annihilated Nigeria by seven goals to nothing. Yara scored two and created four of the seven goals.
Capped 49 times, Yara whose originality and dexterity on the field were a delightful spectacle, scored 51 goals(including informal counterparts) for Ghana.
A natural footballer, Yara abhorred orthodoxy and believed that a coache’s primary duty, similar to the music master, was to teach the student to read the notes and that the student’s own ingenuity and creativeness should enable him make melodious music with the d-r-m-f-s…
The incomparable Ghanaian winger was twice voted the Footballer of the Year and in 1961 won the highest soccer award of the State – the Most Distinguished Member of the Black Star Group.
His charming personality and affable character added to his dazzling football qualities made him the football hero of his generation. He was a football genius.
This was a player who for six years, one month, one week and three days was bed – ridden but never lost hope.
Though dead, but his spectacular performance on the field will long be remembered. Along the West Coast of Africa, Yara was invariably referred to as the original professor of the Black Star attacking machinery.
In European countries where Yara played as a member of the Black Star, he was frequently referred to as Africa’s Stanley Mathews.
As a schemer, he was in a class of his own. As a crater, he was a great asset to the original Black Star Group and as a striker his intelligence was beyond description.
A shy looking and respectable gentleman both on and off the field, and that is why he was voted as the best dressed gentleman in a contest organised by the proprietor of La Ronde Night Club, Mr Habib J. Ghanem.
He was supposed to leave for a three – month tour of Britain as his reward when the accident occurred.
Mr L. T. K. Ceaser, Deputy Director of Sports, on behalf of the Chairman and the Sports Council expressed grief to Baba Yara’s family.
Mr Ceasar described Yara as one of Ghana’s brilliant and phenomenal footballers whose replacement ‘is yet to be filled’.
He said Yara was one of Ghana’s few national sportsmen whose character and sporting skills are a shinning example for our youth.
Elsewhere;
On this day 5 May 1966 (Exactly 55 years prior today) Borussia Dortmund of West Germany won the sixth European Cup Winner’s Cup against Liverpool of England 2-1 in Glasgow
Goals Scored:
Dortmund
Siegfried Hold(62)
Reinhard Libuda (109)
Liverpool
Roger Hunt (68)
On this day 5 May 2012 (Exactly 9 years prior today) Chelsea’s FA Cup last talisman Didier Drogba was the match-winner again as they overcame Liverpool to lift the trophy at Wembley.
Drogba’s goal early in the second half – his fourth in this Wembley show-piece – proved decisive as the remarkable turnaround in Chelsea’s fortunes under interim manager Roberto di Matteo was rewarded with silverware.
Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina was badly at fault as Ramires scored at the near post after 11 minutes and Chelsea looked in cruise control when Drogba continued his love affair with the FA Cup final and Wembley with an angled finish.
The introduction of substitute Andy Carroll sparked Liverpool into life and he pulled a goal back just after the hour – and thought he had equalised as Kenny Dalglish’s side laid siege to Chelsea’s goal in the closing stages.
He met Luis Suarez’s cross at the far post, only for Chelsea keeper Petr Cech to show brilliant reflexes to deflect his header on to the bar. Carroll turned away to lead Liverpool’s insistent protests that the ball had crossed the line but referee Phil Dowd and assistant referee Andrew Garratt waved play on, with even a succession of replays proving inconclusive.
The final started with £85m worth of striking talent on the bench as Carroll was a Liverpool substitute and Chelsea’s Fernando Torres missed out on a starting place against his former club.
The Reds were on the back foot early on when a catalogue of defensive errors led to Ramires giving Chelsea the lead. Jay Spearing conceded possession in midfield and Ramires escaped Jose Enrique far too easily before scoring at the near post with a shot Reina should have saved.
Chelsea were coping comfortably as Liverpool left Suarez too isolated. Steven Gerrard was also being forced to drop too deep to offer support to the beleaguered Spearing and Jordan Henderson rather than add attacking potency alongside the Uruguayan.
Liverpool did have one moment of danger in the first half when Chelsea failed to clear Glen Johnson’s cross and Branislav Ivanovic blocked Craig Bellamy’s goalbound shot.
Chelsea doubled their lead seven minutes after the restart, with the second coming from their most reliable source of Wembley goals. Frank Lampard escaped Spearing with ease and fed Drogba inside the area, who controlled before sending an angled left-foot finish across Reina
BY: GEORGE ‘Alan Green’ MAHAMAH
