Happy Birthday to aggressive, hard-tacking Terry Yorath

Happy Birthday to aggressive, hard-tacking Terry Yorath who emerged from the shadows of Elland Road to enjoy an international career, which brought him 59 caps for Wales. Yorath’s entry into football was quite by accident. He was more noted at school for his ability as a Rugby Union scrum-half and had trials for Cardiff Schools at the handling game. One day he went to watch his football-playing brother play for Cardiff Boys against Rhondda Valley. The Cardiff lads were a man short and Yorath was pressed into service and did so well that he went on to win four Welsh Schools caps.

After turning down the two Bristol clubs and his native Cardiff, Yorath joined Leeds. He turned professional in April 1967 and went on to win seven Under-Twenty-three caps. He only had one Football League appearance under his belt when he won his first full cap in 1969. He waited patiently in the Reserves and was converted from a rugged defender to an effective ball-winning midfielder. Along with other Leeds midfield players of the time, such as Mick Bates and Terry Hibbitt, he found it difficult to establish himself ahead of the preferred pairing of Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles as well as Paul Madeley and Eddie Gray. Between 1967 and 1972 he made just fourteen League appearances for Leeds.

In the 1972-73 season, injuries and suspensions allowed Yorath to establish himself as a first team regular. However, his first season ended with two Cup Final runners-up medals. He was a substitute in the 1973 FA Cup Final, which Leeds lost 1-0 to Sunderland, and also appeared in the 1973 European Cup-Winners Cup Final, which Leeds lost in controversial circumstances to AC Milan. Yorath finally won some silverware in the following 1973-74 season, where he was a key member of the Leeds Championship-winning side. The 1974-75 season saw Leeds reach the final of the European Cup, but again Yorath ended up with a runners-up medal as Leeds lost 2-0 to Bayern Munich, once more in controversial circumstances.





Yorath proved a fine clubman, but as a defensive hard-tackling midfielder had to suffer a lot of barracking from supporters who saw him as lacking the skills of his team-mates. He had twenty-eight full Welsh International appearances to his name when he left Leeds for Coventry City in August 1976 for £125,000 after Don Revie had left Leeds to manage England, and his eventual replacement Jimmy Armfield decided to dispense with Yorath's services. Yorath remained at Coventry for three years, playing ninety-nine League games and scoring three goals and was their captain for most of this period. Coventry sold him to Tottenham Hotspur for £300,000 in August 1979, where he scored once in forty four League starts and four from the bench. He also made fourteen appearances in the Cup competitions in his two seasons with the club.

Yorath had a brief stay with Vancouver Whitecaps in 1981. He went to Bradford City as player/coach in December 1982, making twenty-two League starts and five from the bench, before he hung up his boots and helped Trevor Cherry build City into one of the most improved sides in the country. After spells as manager at Swansea and Bradford City, Yorath was made full-time Manager of Wales, having run the side on a part-time basis since 1988, and he took them close to qualification for the 1992 European Championships but his contract was not renewed in December 1993.

Yorath joined Cardiff City as General Manager in 1994, and assumed temporary charge of team affairs when manager Eddie May was sacked. He then took over as coach of the Lebanon national team in 1995, and helped them jump sixty places in the FIFA World Rankings before leaving in 1997. Yorath had further spells as coach at Huddersfield, Bradford City and Sheffield Wednesday. He ended his career with a spell as manager at Margate where his brother Dai and nephew Dean had both played. His daughter, Gaby, represented Wales at gymnastics in the Commonwealth Games and is of course a well-known TV presenter.