On this day 24 May 1959 (Exactly 61 years ago today) Mr J. D. Amoah was re-elected as chairman of Kumasi Asante Kotoko at the annual general meeting of the club.
Mr J. D. Amoah joined Kotoko in 1937, and held various posts. He was chairman twice, twice a vice – chairman, and once a team manager.
On assuming office, he devoted greater part of his time to the club. Amoah was respected in high places and his advocacies for the Club was received in no small measure. Like his predecessors, he was always in the front line as far as the Club was concerned.
He travelled with the Club in all its away matches. It was he who led Kotoko to their outstanding performance in the “Aspro Cup ” (the inaugural FA Cup 1958) success.
On this day 24 May 1989 (Exactly 31 years ago today) AC Milan beat Steaua Bucuresti 4-0 at the Camp Nou in Barcelona to claim the European Cup.
Two goals each from Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit gave the Italian side their third victory in the competition
The Rossoneri – in white for the occasion – had last won the Cup twenty years before, while the Rumanian side, coached by Lordanescu, Champions in 1986, had no fans following the team in Barcelona, because of Nicolae Ceausescu.
AC MILAN: G. Galli, Tassotti, P. Maldini, An. Colombo, Costacurta (74′ F. Galli), F. Baresi, Donadoni, Rijkaard, Van Basten, Gullit (60′ Virdis), Ancelotti.
Coach: Arrigo Sacchi.
STEAUA BUCURESTI: Lung, Petrescu, Ungureanu, Stoica, Bumbescu, Iovan, Lacatus, Minea, Piturca, Hagi, Rotariu (46′ Balint).
Coach: Anghel Lordanescu.
Referee: Karl-Heinz Tritschler (Germany)
Goals: Gullit(18,39) Van Basten(27,46)
On this day 24 May 1995 (Exactly 25 years ago today) AFC Ajax 1-0 AC Milan
Substitute Patrick Kluivert, just 18, struck six minutes from time as youth triumphed over experience on a famous night in Vienna as Ajax claimed their fourth European Cup.
It was only fitting that in a city as cultured as Vienna two such fine vintages were uncorked to serve up an occasion to rival anything seen at its illustrious theatres and opera houses.
AC Milan were ultimately undone by Patrick Kluivert, a player they would one day call their own, was apt on a night when AFC Ajax’s squad contained six players whose CVs would eventually list the Rossoneri among their one-time employers.
Milan may have won the previous year’s final, 4-0 against FC Barcelona no less, but Louis van Gaal’s Ajax were a team who meant business, whose youthful potential more than made up for any lack of European pedigree. Pitted against Fabio Capello’s feted giants in the group stage, the Dutch champions laid down an almighty marker with a pair of 2-0 victories.
Would the showpiece be third time lucky for Milan or a glorious hat-trick for Ajax? Frank de Boer had the first chance to get the ball rolling in his team’s favour, but headed Finidi George’s corner over and ominously the Rossoneri began to impose themselves on opponents prone to lapses.
Twice they were reprieved after being dispossessed in midfield; Christian Panucci’s deflected shot ballooned onto the roof of the net, while Marco Simone’s first-time volley was superbly thwarted by Edwin van der Sar.
Van Gaal, growing ever more animated, suffered more frustration soon after the interval when Zvonomir Boban – so canny at drifting into space unnoticed – picked out Daniele Massaro unmarked. Deft control, a tight spin and early shot surprised Van der Sar but ruffled only the outside of his net.
Nwankwo Kanu came off the bench and flashed an effort centimetres wide, but it was a fellow substitute who had the final say. The most patient of approaches considering only six minutes remained, with Marc Overmars, Edgar Davids and Frank Rijkaard involved, finally unlocked a typically miserly Italian defence. Kluivert, power, pace and poise personified, did the rest despite immense pressure.
Danny Blind spurned a glorious late chance to make it two, but Kluivert’s intervention was enough: Vienna had witnessed a changing of the guard.
To date, Kanu is the youngest player to appear in a UCL final (18 years 291 days), and Kluivert, youngest scorer in the history of the UCL final.
On this day 24 May 2000 (Exactly 20 years ago today) Real Madrid beat Valencia 3-0 at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis
to win the UEFA Champions League.
The match saw a headed goal from Fernando Morientes and a spectacular Steve McManaman volley put Real Madrid 2–0 ahead, before Raúl sealed the win with a breakaway third goal, rounding Santiago Cañizares after Real had cleared a Valencia corner.
The win was Real’s eighth European Cup Championship overall and their second in three years, and was notable for being Vicente del Bosque’s first title as manager. It was also a landmark for being the first final played between two teams from the same nation. Upon this win, McManaman became the first English player to win the tournament with a non-English club.
On this day 24 May 2014 (Exactly 6 years ago today) Real Madrid CF 4-1 Club Atlético de Madrid (aet)
Extra-time goals by Gareth Bale, Marcelo and Cristiano Ronaldo won a tenth European title after Sergio Ramos’ last-gasp equaliser had denied Atlético.
Real Madrid CF’s quest for ‘La Décima’ finally ended as they won a pulsating final against neighbours Club Atlético de Madrid in Lisbon, extra-time goals from Gareth Bale, Marcelo and Cristiano Ronaldo settling a match that had looked set to produce an Atlético triumph.
Having already become the first side apart from Madrid or FC Barcelona to claim the Spanish title since 2004, Atlético took a 36th-minute lead when Diego Godín – whose goal had clinched the Liga championship last weekend – headed over the stranded Iker Casillas following a corner. It seemed that would be enough when the final moved into added time but with two of the five additional minutes remaining Sergio Ramos nodded the equaliser to force extra time. There Madrid ran away with it after Bale’s 110th-minute header, Marcelo and Ronaldo’s penalty crowning a memorable fightback
On this day 24 MA 2017 (Exactly 3 years ago today) Manchester United proved too strong for Ajax as a goal in each half won the 2017 UEFA Europa League to complete the English giants’ set of major UEFA club competition trophies.
Strikes from Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan secured the victory in Stockholm but this was the consummate team performance, built on a formidable midfield engine room of Ander Herrera, Marouane Fellaini and Pogba. Ajax, whose starting XI averaged 22 years of age, had no answer.
United were in the ascendancy from the off and never looked back after Pogba’s 18th-minute shot took a wicked deflection off Davinson Sánchez and looped in. There were flashes of hope for the Dutch side, chiefly from Bertrand Traoré, but United were nigh on impenetrable.
Mkhitaryan delivered the clinching blow moments into the second period, cleverly hooking in from a corner. There was no let-up in intensity, though, as José Mourinho’s men sealed a pair of hat-tricks: three trophies for the season and the full set of UEFA knockout competition titles.
On this day 24 May 1976 (Exactly 43 years ago )Muhammad Ali knocked out
Richard Dunn in round 5 at the Olympiahalle, Munich, West Germany to retain his WBA, WBC, The Ring, and lineal heavyweight titles
On this day 27 May 2018 (Exactly 2 years ago today) US President Trump posthumously pardoned boxer Jack Johnson for racially orientated criminal conviction – transporting a white woman across state lines
For more than 100 years, Jack Johnson’s legend as the first black heavyweight boxing champion has been undisputed, but his legacy had been tarnished by a racially tainted criminal conviction.
His battles against white opponents, in the ring and outside of it, gave rise to “The Great White Hope” play and movie and he came to be lionized as a barrier breaker.
But the criminal conviction from 1913 that most would find abhorrent today — for transporting a white woman across state lines — haunted
Johnson well after his death in 1946 and motivated politicians and celebrities for years to advocate for a pardon, however symbolic.
On Friday May 24,2018 at the Oval Office, Johnson posthumously found an unexpected champion: President Trump.
Although his own record on civil rights has come under question, often harshly, Mr. Trump, flanked by boxing champions and Sylvester Stallone, the actor who brought the case to his attention, signed an order pardoning Johnson.
The president called Johnson “a truly great fighter” who “had a tough life” but served 10 months in federal prison “for what many view as a racially motivated injustice.” Mr. Trump said the conviction took place during a “period of tremendous racial tension in the United States.”
By: George ‘Alan Green’ Mahamah
