Terry Yorath

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Terry Yorath
Ian Rush en Terry Yorath.jpg
Yorath (right) alongside Ian Rush (1988)
Personnel
Surname Terence Charles Yorath
birthday March 27, 1950
place of birth Cardiff ,  Wales
position midfield
Juniors
Years station
Leeds United
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1967-1976 Leeds United 141 (10)
1976-1979 Coventry City 99 ( 03)
1979-1981 Tottenham Hotspur 48 ( 01)
1981-1982 Vancouver Whitecaps 54 ( 04)
1982-1985 Bradford City 27 ( 00)
1986 Swansea City 1 ( 00)
Indoor
Years station Games (goals) 1
1981 Vancouver Whitecaps 8 ( 06)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
Wales U-23 7 ( 0?)
1969-1981 Wales 59 ( 02)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
1986-1989 Swansea City
1988-1993 Wales
1989-1990 Bradford City
1990-1991 Swansea City
1994-1995 Cardiff City
1995-1997 Lebanon
2001-2002 Sheffield Wednesday
2008-2009 Margate FC
1 Only league games are given.

Terence Charles "Terry" Yorath (born March 27, 1950 in Cardiff ) is a former Welsh football player and coach . As a defensive midfielder , he won the English championship with Leeds United in 1974 ; the following year he played the final in the European Cup , which was unfortunately lost 2-0 to Bayern Munich . After switching to coaching, he failed with the Welsh national team at the beginning of the 1990s, twice just barely qualifying for a final tournament. A little later he worked for the selection of Lebanon .

Athletic career

Player career

Club stations

Leeds United (1967-1976)

A career as a football player initially seemed unlikely for Terry Yorath, because he was more of a talented rugby union player in his school . But when he was watching a football match of a Cardiff youth team in which his brother was to play, he suddenly found himself on the field. Cardiff had one short actor in their formation and so Terry Yorath helped out. He did his job so well that he later came to four Welsh student internationals and attracted the attention of a few professional clubs. He turned down offers from his home club Cardiff City and the two Bristol-based clubs City and Rovers and instead joined the youth department of Leeds United . There he signed his first professional contract in April 1967.

However, he had to wait a long time for his first appearance in the first team, although in his early days as a regular in the reserve team he was retrained from a defensive midfielder to a defensive midfielder. Decisive for this was his strength in conquering the ball, which was better developed in the center. Similar to other club-trained midfielders such as Mick Bates and Terry Hibitt , Yorath found it difficult to advance into the positions dominated by Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles as well as Paul Madeley and Eddie Gray . As a result, he completed between 1967 and the end of the 1971/72 season just 22 league games in the team trained by Don Revie . Only in the 1972/73 season he established Yorath after injury problems and various bans of competitors in the first team. In the end, he took part in two cup finals and lost both after being substituted in the FA Cup against second division AFC Sunderland and in the European Cup Winners' Cup against AC Milan with 0: 1.

During the 1973/74 championship season , Yorath was a permanent fixture in midfield at Leeds United, especially after Giles' serious injury. Although he never remained undisputed with his often rough style of play, he defended his position in the team even after Giles' return - both under Revie's direct successor Brian Clough and later under Jimmy Armfield . He often clad the left side of midfield and with five championship goals in the 1974/75 season, he achieved the best annual yield of his career. At the end he was in the final of a European club competition again and lost in the national championship cup to Bayern Munich (0: 2). Here he eliminated Björn Andersson with a notorious foul in the fourth minute . A year later, coach Armfield let him move to league rivals Coventry City in August 1976 for £ 125,000 .

Stations after Leeds (1976–1986)

In a total of three years in Coventry, Yorath was part of a team that, with players such as Ian Wallace , Mick Ferguson , Tommy Hutchison and Graham Oakey, went from a relegation candidate who only barely managed to stay in the league in 1977 to an aspirant for qualifying places for a European club competition moulted. Although this was missed in 1978 on the seventh final table rank, Yorath had developed into a regular player and team captain with 78 league appearances. Another year later he finally moved to London to Tottenham Hotspur , which in August 1979 had the transfer from Yorath cost the transfer fee of £ 265,000.

Mostly in central-defensive positions in midfield alongside “top-class players” like Osvaldo Ardiles , Glenn Hoddle and Ricardo Villa , but occasionally also as a full-back, he fitted in well with his new environment with 33 league appearances in the 1979/80 season before the following year he lost his place to players like the newly signed Graham Roberts . In February 1981 he left the "Spurs" and tried his luck in the North American NASL at the Vancouver Whitecaps . In Vancouver, his former teammate and midfielder competitor Johnny Giles had taken over the coaching office and during his two years Yorath was also involved in indoor football. His return to England then led him to the third division club Bradford City in December 1982 , where, in addition to continuing his active career as assistant to Trevor Cherry - also an old Leeds companion - he began to gain experience in the coaching business. The coaching duo Cherry and Yorath helped Bradford City to rise to the second division in 1985. Yorath witnessed the Valley Parade fire disaster beyond the field of play . He actively helped with the evacuation measures in the main stand and, after putting himself in danger, had to jump out of a window to save himself.

In May 1986 he was given the opportunity to take on a head coach at the fourth English division playing Welsh club Swansea City . In Swansea he completed a single and the last league game in his career before he devoted himself entirely to coaching.

Welsh national team

Yorath made his debut on November 4, 1969 in the World Cup qualification against Italy for the Welsh senior team and lost in Rome at the side of Mike England , Wyn Davies and Ron Davies with 1: 4. In the 1970s, Yorath became a regular player in defensive midfield as a clearer and organizer. In addition, he led the team, which always had no chance in the fight for the qualification places for the finals, often as captain. One of the few respectable successes on May 31, 1977 was a 1-0 win at Wembley against arch-rivals from England . Yorath's teammates at the time were, for example, John Mahoney and Brian Flynn . His national team career ended in 1981 when he decided to continue his club career in North America.

Coaching career

Two years after he took office in Swansea, Yorath achieved his first major success in 1988 when he was promoted to the third division. A few months earlier, he had also secured the post of the vacant position of the Welsh national coach, which he initially held parallel to his club activities. His departure from Swansea and the associated return to Bradford became a major point of controversy in February 1989 and those responsible for the "Swans" tried to prevent the change even by legal means - ultimately in vain. The renewed engagement in Bradford was not a good star and so he left the club a good year later in March 1990, only to get back to Swansea a few days later. After another year, he ended his club involvement in order to devote himself to the Welsh national team on a full-time basis.

The "Dragons" had with a team around players like Neville Southall , Kevin Ratcliffe , Ian Rush and later Mark Aizlewood , Andy Melville and Ryan Giggs increasing ambitions to qualify for the finals of a major tournament. Under Yorath, Wales beat reigning world champions Germany in the home game and just missed out on the possible participation in the 1992 Euro in Sweden just behind the big favorites . Another time Yorath failed with Wales to qualify for the 1994 World Cup finals in the USA , but despite the renewed success and great acceptance among the active national players, the Welsh association refused him a contract extension in December 1993.

After a short and unpleasant intermezzo in 1994 as "General Manager" at his ex-club Cardiff in 1994 (and presumably a short, interim coaching position after Eddie May's dismissal ), Yorath decided to accept an offer from distant Lebanon. After the death of his son, he used the build-up of the local national team as a kind of personal escape and, in return, helped the team to make significant improvements during the two years in office, which resulted in a jump of around 60 places at the top of the FIFA world rankings .

At the beginning of the 21st century he worked as an assistant one more time at Bradford City and later at Sheffield Wednesday under Paul Jewell . When he was dismissed, he initially retained his post and was promoted to the head coach role of the second division in 2001. A year later he submitted his resignation after a series of five defeats in six league games and the associated fall to a relegation place. In 2003 he took on another Kotrainer position at Huddersfield Town and kept this until December 2006. Only in 2008 did he return to the (semi-professional) soccer business. He was at the lower-class Margate FC - where his brother Dai and his nephew Dean had been active - initially as a sports director and between November 2008 and September 2009 as a coach, before Neville Southall inherited him after a period of poor results.

Private life

Yorath is the father of four children. These include the well-known sports presenter Gabby Logan , who mainly works in the field of soccer for BBC Sport . His then 15-year-old son Daniel, who had already had the prospect of a career at Leeds United , suddenly died in May 1992 of congenital heart failure after playing soccer in the garden with his father.

Yorath continued to attract media attention in 2004 through a drunk driving that resulted in an accident in which a 27-year-old woman was seriously injured. He pleaded guilty in the subsequent criminal proceedings and received a 30-month driving ban and the obligation to complete 60 social hours.

Title / Awards

literature

  • Martin Jarred & Malcolm MacDonald: Leeds United - The Complete Record . DB Publishing, 2012, ISBN 978-1-78091-031-4 , pp. 267 f .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Different (online) sources speak of 300,000 pounds.
  2. ↑ "The Big Interview: Terry Yorath" (Red Passion)
  3. ↑ "Triumph and despair: Terry Yorath" (The Guardian)
personal data
SURNAME Yorath, Terry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Yorath, Terence Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Welsh football player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Cardiff