Prince Polley:Razak breathed life into my career

Two decades after retiring from football, former Kumasi Asante Kotoko and Black Stars striker, Prince Opoku Polley, has attributed his attacking prowess to a regular dawn training regimen he learnt from former teammate, Abdul Karim Razak.

According to Polley, he always undertook individual dawn training sessions with jogging from his Bantama base in Kumasi to the Baba Yara Sports Stadium  each day,in addition to personal fitness exercises at the stadium hours before joining his teammates for the regular morning workout.

He revealed that he always joined the Kotoko  team bus for both morning and afternoon training sessions but  abandoned the bus when he detected that his senior colleague, Razak left behind his posh car and rather jogged from Sawaba to the Stadium around 4:30am .

“I spotted Razak who was much older than I sweating profusely as he jogged to the stadium at dawn. Moments afterwards, I took a firm decision that if Razak undertakes such an extra training before joining the team for our regular training sessions,  then I would never join the Kotoko bus for training again,” Polley revealed during an interview with Graphic Sports Online.

“Since then, I started trotting from Bantama to the stadium early in the morning before joining my teammates for  training sessions. The early morning training sessions boosted my stamina so much as I gained extra fitness which made it difficult for seasoned defenders such as Addai Kyenkyenhene and Bashiru Gambo to handle me during Kotoko training sessions.

It was Razak who made me realise that individual training session built up much stamina to give players extra strength to their advantage during matches, and that helped me very much in my career,” he explained.

Polley, who joined Kotoko in 1984 from Anokye Stars -( then junior side of the Porcupine Warriors) was a thorn in the flesh of many defenders who played against Kotoko at the local and international scenes.

He scored a brace in the ninth and 43rd minutes when Kotoko whitewashed Egyptian giants, Zamalek, 5-1 at the Baba Yara Stadium during a CAF Club Championship (Champions League) second leg quarter-final match on May 30, 1987.

Polley, who was a key member of the Black Stars during his heyday, featured for Ghana at the 1992 and 1994 Africa Cup of Nations, scoring two goals, including a crucial match winner against Nigeria in the semi-finals of Senegal ‘92, and an 87th minute match winner against Senegal at the group stage of the subsequent tournament .