My First Official Signing Fee Was A Bread And Fan Ice–Stephen ‘Tornado’ Appiah

Stephen Appiah

Football as a forte is admittedly a gift to the former captain of the Ghana black
stars whose birth name is STEPHEN LEROY APPIAH.

  “TORNADO” as he is affectionately called opened up to host
Yaw ampofo Ankrah on Friday 19th of February on “MY STORY ” a segment
on the late afternoon show “LET’S GO” on Radio xyz 93.1 on his humble
beginnings and how his journey to success has been.

 After dropping out of school at class 5 “CAPITO” had
the privilege to play for an under 12 coast team called Mighty victory which
subsequently led him to his first official signing with Accra hearts of oak
after a great game at the arts centre (Accra hearts of oaks’ training ground)
with Cuddling babies (The best coast team then) which he appeared on the
scoring sheet twice for his coast team. After the game, Tony okine of Accra
Hearts of Oak who was with the team at their usual training grounds approached
him and that’s how his career started.

When asked about his enticement fee with Hearts of Oak, CAPITO had this to
say;

“It’s so funny when I hear today’s’ players demanding soo much, at
times I laugh you know. When they signed me Harry Zakour gave me a bread and
fan ice. That was my signing on fee. You know those days bus stop bread was the
best and a Chokor boy having the privilege to have a bus stop bread, it was at
the top for me.

Today if you talk to the young boys all they talk about is how to get money
to buy the G-Wagons. No! Our time, it was about the passion and out of the
passion and hard work you got everything”.

   On his role as a peace ambassador for Ghana, The onetime
captain who led his nation to its debut world cup in 2006 spoke about how
peaceful he prays this year’s elections should be.

“We all know it’s an election year and I was lucky to be appointed as
the peace ambassador, I think I have to use what I have to preach the message
of peace and I think from next month we will go to some of the rural areas to go
preach in the name of peace to let the people know that at the end of the day
it’s one Ghana and it will be a Ghanaian who will be our next president
 and so in everything that we do we have to be calm.”