Monaco 1995.

As you probably know, I’m not particularly fond of the French, but I did enjoy my trip to Monaco in the South of France in September 1995. In the first round of the UEFA Cup Leeds had been paired with Monaco, the first leg to be played away at the impressive, but tiny Stade Louis11.

We arrived at ‘The playground for the rich’ a few days before the game and began to immerse ourselves into the local culture, gambling and drinking. Most of us weren’t very good at the first of these, but were experts in the latter. Over the next two days, thousands of Leeds fans descended on the glamorous resort and the beer prices shown on blackboards outside the bars were being constantly ‘upgraded’ to a higher rate of currency. Luckily our lads have become quite experienced in negotiating beer prices.

After many trips to expensive Scandinavia, we have adopted a ploy of seeking out the quiet looking bars and explaining that if the bar owner was prepared to lower his prices a tad, then in return, 50 or so of us would remain in that particular bar for a good few hours. The customer count increases significantly once word gets round amongst fellow Leeds followers.

We have received very few refusals, in fact those that have, soon agree to our ‘terms’ once they see how much these other bars are taking. It’s not uncommon to see blackboards appear outside proclaiming, “Leeds fans welcome here”. On one particular trip to the seaside resort of Stavanger in Norway, Birmingham fans were seen masquerading as Leeds fans to get in on the act.

Meanwhile in the South of France, the kick off was looming and the bars temporarily emptied for a couple of hours. The French Champions, star- studded Monaco were favourites to overturn Leeds. Their team boasted many internationals including Thuram, Boli, Dumas and also the inclusion a young 18-year-old substitute by the name of Thierry Henry. But the French outfit didn’t reckon on the small matter of an awesome player called Tony Yeboah. Howard Wilkinson had snapped Yeboah up from Eintracht Frankfurt the previous January and it was the phenomenal goal rate from the Ghanaian that powered Leeds into Europe after a late run-in. And only weeks before this game in Monaco, Yeboah had made a name for himself on the domestic front scoring two absolute corkers at luckless Wimbledon and firing home a stunning, winning goal at Elland Road against Liverpool. A goal that subsequently was voted ‘Goal of the Season’. After only 3 minutes in Monaco, he had done it again. It was 1-0 at half time and then in the second half, helped by the hard working Brian Deane Yeboah destroyed Monaco with a blistering hatrick. After the final whistle, happy Leeds fans returned to the sea front bars with a huge thirst and huge smiles.

There were also huge smiles on the Leeds plane going home. As the champagne flowed, Howard Wilkinson said, ‘Frankly, I have not come across anybody quite like him. He will tell you that if he gets the ball in or around the box he will score – and he does.’ A modest Yeboah responded with, ‘I had noticed before that their goalkeeper tended to come off his line so I thought why not give it a try. I did and they went in.’