By Ken Bediako
May I skip, this week, the Ohene Djan story on the national football league and celebrate the memory of Baba Yara, easily one of the greatest footballers the nation has produced. It’s exactly 63 years ago this week (March 24 1963 to be precise) when Yara’s colourful football career abruptly ended followng a motor road accident.
Incidentally, it’s also exactly 39 years ago this week when the legendary sports administrator Ohene Djan passed away.
Before his death, this was what Ohene Djan had written about Baba Yara in his authoritative book titled “Short History of Ghana Football”, published in 1964.
He wrote “Baba Yara made an impressive foray into the international football scene in 1955 wearing the No 7 jersey for the victorious national team, which annihilated Nigeria by seven goals to nothing at Accra Sports Stadium.
Yara scored two goals and assisted four of the seven goals.
Right behind Baba Yara is his wife Patience.
Capped 49 times, Yara whose originality and dexterity on the football field were a delightful spectacle, scored 51 goals for Ghana.
A natural footballer, Yara abhorred orthodoxy and believed that the primary duty of a Coach, like a music master, was to teach the student to read the notes and that the student’s own ingenuity and creativeness should enable him to make melodious music with the d r m f s.
The incomparable Ghanaian winger was twice voted Footballer of the Year and in 1961 won the highest football 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.
Here was a football genius, when cometh another”, Ohene Djan added.
History recalls it was during the exciting league season that saw Super Republikans now taking part in the league on competitive basis that ironically saw the end of the colourful career of Baba Yara affectionately called “King of Wingers’.
On March 24, 1963, Republikans played Volta Heroes at Kpandu, winning 5-0. On their way back to Accra, their vehicle was involved in an accident at Kpeve in the Volta Region. Yara, was paralysed following injuries he sustained in the accident.
Eyewitness accounts said the 23-seater bus skidded off the road in a curve on 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 other players, Agyeman 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 sustained slight injuries. 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 the UK. Interestingly, the return ticket had been won by Yara two weeks before the accident when he was chosen the best dressed gentleman in a competition organized 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.
May his soul continue to rest in perfect peace as his darling Black Stars prepare to make their presence felt at the upcoming FIFA World Cup for the fifth time.
Cheers everybody and keep loving sports.
