9 May 2001: Kumasi Asante Kotoko had taken the lead well in that game.
The Porcupine Warriors had it under control. They knew they needed just a few more minutes to hold on, keep their lines tight, but their arch-rivals Hearts of Oak had other ideas. For them, the “never say die” mantra had been ingrained in their DNA. Every player knew it wasn’t over until it was finally over. On 75 minutes, the Reds were still quite comfortable.
Let’s paint a picture: a long, searching ball that was meant to find Nana Frimpong had been hoofed upfield to Jacob Nettey. The captain kept the ball in his stride, beat his marker and hit it to the man who had endeared himself to the Hearts faithful, Emmanuel Osei Kuffour.
Kuffour picked out Don Bortey, who in turn picked out Ishmael Addo with a dink of a pass from the outside of his foot, but it is the next few seconds that would turn the game on its head and probably change Ghanaian football in many ways.
Addo, at his prolific best, allowed the ball to roll instead of hitting it the first time, and dummied the keeper Osei Boateng with his first touch before he slotted in with brazen precision.
As Addo wheeled away in celebration, the Kotoko goalkeeper was hitting hard on the turf in disappointment. He looked up, and then towards his bench. He had let them down, but it was simply a look that many goalkeepers had on after facing Ishmael Addo: downcast, crestfallen and unable to make a proper reaction.
Addo went on to score again in the 81st minute, turning a near defeat into a pyrrhic victory for Hearts – a victory that has sunk way down in the memory of Ghanaian football fans because of the unfortunate events which followed immediately afterwards. But that was just who he was. Ishmael Addo – the goal machine.
Dream deal
Addo made the dream move from the now-defunct Tema Hearts Babies, a thriving colts team, to Accra Hearts of Oak in one of the most interesting deals in Ghana football. Seven players in total, including Joojo Bossman, who went on to win the Confederations Cup in 2004, were transferred to the club for C300,000 (the equivalent of GHC30 today). That was a harbinger for Hearts.
A Tema boy through and through, Addo had risen through a colts system which meticulously made sure that players were at their utmost best before the step up. At Tema Hearts Babies, Addo was just a few years ahead of his future teammate Bernard Dong Bortey. Tema had already produced a flurry of players who had gone on to give the Hearts of Oak fans joy in the late 1980s. Ablade Kumah, Shamo Quaye, Nana Benyin Crentsil and Paul Adjoda became the backbone of the famous Musical Youth team of the early 1990s.
Addo recounts the impact that team had on his decision to choose Hearts. “I will put the Musical Youth from back in the day as one of the best squads because, when I was a kid, I heard a lot about that group of players – how they were playing good, winning and all that,” he says.
Headline grabber
Addo made the move in 1997 while he was still in a teenager, but it was not until two years later, in 1999, that the stars aligned for him to get his chance. Addo made his Hearts debut on 31 January 1999 in a game against Liberty Professionals – an off-season game in a gala that served as a curtain-raiser for the League season.
Then 16, all he needed was 26 minutes to announce himself to Ghanaians. Hearts won that game 1-0. The pacey young striker went on to score in three out of the four games in the competition Hearts won comfortably, beating Goldfields in the final.
A week later it was the proper League season and many who had seen him in the previous tournament were hoping they could catch another glimpse of the boy wonder in the League. Hearts’s first League game that year was against Afienya United – a game Hearts won 4-1 and Addo had scored in, after coming off the bench to replace the diminutive midfielder Charles Allotey.
Three games in to the season, the boy wonder had scored in all and had already begun grabbing headlines.
Yaw Ofosu Larbi
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