There were probably not too many people in England that would have heard of Tony Yeboah before he signed for Leeds United from Eintract Frankfurt in 1995 for £3.4 million.

The Ghanaian left his home country for Germany in 1988 joining FC Saarbrucken and in doing so became only the second black player to appear in Germany's Bundesliga after fellow Ghanian Anthony Baffoe (who had been born and raised in Germany).

Spending two years with Saarbrucken with 26 goals scored in 65 appearances for the club helped get Yeboah noticed by bigger fish and it was in 1990 when he joined Eintract Frankfurt. At first he was booed by sections of his own teams fans and even though this was the 1990's, in Germany supporters were still known to use racial torment subjecting Yeboah to monkey noises along with many other racial insults.

Yeboah though, overcame this racial tension and became a superstar for the German club scoring 68 goals in 123 games for them in five years, many of which proved to be spectacular strikes on goal. In 1993 and 1994 he was the Bundesliga's top scorer and it was Yeboah's success in Germany that helped to open their doors to other African players to follow in his footsteps such as Jay-Jay Okocha and Samuel Kuffour.

In 1995, Frankfurt manager at the time Jupp Heynckes had a major falling out with some of the clubs biggest stars including Yeboah, Okacha and Maurizio Gaudino with all the players being sold on swiftly and Heynckes reign as manager did not last much longer.

Yeboah became an instant hit as soon as he moved to Leeds and will be best remembered for two world class strikes that he produced within just a few weeks of one another that were both picked up by TV cameras. Yeboah would end up staying at Leeds for just two years scoring a total of 24 league goals for them in 47 appearances. Persistent injuries had become a problem towards the end of his period in Yorkshire and new manager George Graham had a personality clash with the Ghanian that ended up with him being sold back to Germany where he joined Hamburg. There was some talk of him coming back to these shores for a while but they never materialized and Yeboah finished his career in Qatar.

Below is a video clip including the two moments that he is best remembered for in England. A fantastic volley against Liverpool at Elland Road followed by what would be named the Goal of the Season in 1995/96 away to Wimbledon. I still remember the very first time that I saw this strike and the reaction was one of oh my God! How can anybody hit a ball with such venom – truly spectacular.

At a recent event sponsored by Mitre the goal of the year was announced - I am assuming that it was for goals scored by football league clubs (not Premier) for last year and also includes goals scored in cup competitions.
I know which of these goals won it and assuming that you do not could you pick the winner? The answer and my thoughts regarding this are below the video.

From the five that were short-listed here the goal that I would have selected would have been Darren Ambrose for Crystal Palace. What a fantastic strike and against Manchester United at Old Trafford would have tipped my vote in this goals direction. I must also say something about the Peter Leven goal for Oxford - what a goal!

So did either of these win the award? The answer is no! I have no idea who makes the final decision, whether its an individual, some sort of panel or is even voted on by the general public - but whoever made the decision as to deciding the actual winner has surely got it wrong. The winning goal was the last goal seen in this clip scored by Peter Whittingham and although I would agree it was a great strike with the Cardiff man showing some fine skills but honestly can it even be compared to either the Ambrose or Leven goals which were both unexpected and out of the ordinary. 
That is just my opinion and I am sure many will agree and disagree with me and there may be even other goals that people would argue for that did not even make the shortlist.

Nowadays when we see the best goals scored we know we truly are because of TV cameras in just about every single professional ground to capture the action. Back nearly 40 years ago the cameras were only in a handful of grounds each week so it is a credit to the players of that era to deliver such a high standard of finishing from just these few games where cameras were present - it does make you wonder what got missed back then though!
In this clip we see Brian Moore running through ITV's "Golden Goals of the Season" with the top six including strikes from Peter Osgood, Stan Bowles, Charlie George, Don Rogers, John Pratt and Bryan "Pop" Robson. Note that this selection only features London clubs as "The Big Match" was an ITV regional show for that area. Also note in the footage of the Osgood goal for Chelsea all the building work in the background of the three tier East Stand being built. Although it has been refurbished since, the East Stand is now the oldest stand at Stamford Bridge today because of the extensive rebuilding of the ground since.    

Josh Wright scores a belter in Millwall's away win at Burnley. Wright started his career at Charlton and having been loaned out to several clubs finally made a permanent move to Scunthorpe making 71 appearances. He moved back to London joining Millwall last November  and this goal is only the second one in his professional career!

OK - I admit that this blog has been a little neglected in 2012. But you must understand that I have been busy improving other parts of the web site and adding Facebook pages and so on. The Strike of the Week is something that I would like to maybe bring back at some point time permitting but I would appreciate feedback on that.
In the mean time I will add individual strikes worthy of this page on here as I find them and today I have just seen one that on first viewing made me go wow - definite top shot! It was scored by Giovanni Marchese in a Serie A game in Italy against struggling Novara. Catania are currently up to 8th place in the league table whereas Novora's stay - the first season that the club have playing in the top tier of Italian football in 55 years looks almost certain to be lasting just one season - especially when goals are blasted past you like this one!

Note - The original video of this goal was removed by You Tube so I have removed it from this post. The following does not show the goal as clearly.  Here is a view from the crowd - I love some of the amateur video fan footage as you really get a feel for what it is like inside the stadium.