Dwight Yorke - Born in Canaan, Tobago on November 3, 1971, Dwight was brought to England by Aston Villa manager Graham Taylor. (©GettyImages)
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My three legendary Y-es! men are Terry Yorath, Dwight Yorke and Alex Young!
Terry Yorath
Although not one of the most skilful members of Don Revie's famous Leeds team of the early 70's, Terry Yorath was a fully committed, aggressive player, the ultimate professional who rarely let his team down, whatever the position he was asked to play. A tenacious, tough-tackling midfielder, he learned aspects of his trade from Norman 'Bite Yer legs' Hunter, with whom he sometimes roomed!
Although short of speed, Terry eventually developed into a good, sometimes decisive distributor of the ball with no mean shot. When he later moved to Spurs he was encouraged to express himself and much of his latent skill flourished. He was also a natural leader on the field as he proved when captaining Wales.
Terry was born in Splott, Cardiff on 27th March 1950. After playing for Cardiff Schools, he was spotted by Leeds United's famous Welsh scout, Jack Pickard. Terry has a vivid memory of Don Revie watching him play for Wales' Schools against Scotland Schools, the Leeds manager actually waving to him as the teams were lining up. "For someone like Don Revie to do that was fantastic, especially when you consider his other commitments at that time. It is something I shall never forget," Terry said.
In 1965, aged 15, he signed for Leeds as a schoolboy, eventually turning a pro in April 1967. This was the period when Revie's team were riding high at home and abroad. Between 1968-1974, Leeds won two championships, the FA Cup, the League Cup and the Inter Cities Fairs cup twice. Terry, however, would serve a long apprenticeship to midfielders Billy Bremner, Johnny Giles and Norman Hunter. In fourteen starts for Leeds before 1972-73 season, he wore six shirts - 2,4,5,6,8 and 11! He would eventually play in all ten outfield positions for Leeds. In total for Leeds he would play 142 league games, 17 FA Cup ties, 11 League Cup ties and 27 games in Europe for the club, scoring a total of 12 goals.
He established himself during the 1973/4 Championship season along with Gordon McQueen, Frank Gray and Joe Jordan who were also emerging to replace the older, established stars. The team went 29 matches without defeat until they lost to Stoke on 23rd February and Terry played in eighteen of those, the last at right back.
Ultimately, when new manager Jimmy Armfield arrived, Terry felt it was time to move on and he joined Coventry for £140,000 in September 1976. After three happy years at Highfield Road, he signed for Spurs in August, 1979, for £300,000 joining illustrious team-mates Ossie Ardiles, Ricky Villa, and Glenn Hoddle at White Hart Lane.
He was deployed as a central defender and so well did he perform that Leeds even tried to buy him back! Eventually Terry joined up with his former United colleagues Peter Lorimer and Johnny Giles at Vancouver Whitecaps and, after further spells with Bradford City, Swansea City and Huddersfield Town, he moved into management. Terry won 59 Wales caps, 28 of them while at Elland Road.
Dwight Yorke
Born in Canaan, Tobago on November 3, 1971, Dwight was brought to England by Aston Villa manager Graham Taylor. An adventurous, deadly striker, confident on the ball with a great turn of speed, he loves to run at defenders and, although not powerful or tough, he is 'ice cool' when it really matters. With Villa he won a Coca Cola Cup winner's medal before, in 1998, a £12.6million move to Old Trafford made him United's most expensive player thus far.
Though an instant hit with the Manchester United fans, it was his partnership with Andy Cole that helped him emerge as a world-class striker - a surprise to some who felt they were too similar.
In his first year at United, Dwight scored 29 goals and, at the end of the famous Treble season of 1998-1999, was voted Carling Player of the Year. In the 1999-2000 season, Dwight scored another 23 Premiership goals, becoming the first United player since Brian McClair to score 20 league goals in a season. By the 2001-02 season, however, it was clear he did not figure in Sir Alex Ferguson's plans. A series of much-publicised off-field antics proved to be his downfall.
Dwight eventually signed for Blackburn Rovers for £2million in July 2002, where he was reunited with Cole who had moved to Rovers just months earlier.
In all Dwight scored 64 goals in 151 games for United. He won two Premiership titles, an FA Cup winners' medal, a Champions League medal as well as 39 caps for Trinidad & Tobago.
Alex Young
Born in Loanhead, Midlothian in1937, Alex Young signed for Everton F.C. in November 1960 from Hearts for £40,000. The Scottish 'experts' who considered Young too inconsistent and too peripheral to succeed in England were soon proved spectacularly wrong. In fact, during his playing peak, Alex Young inspired passionate emotions, his hero-worship on one half of Merseyside during the Swinging Sixties bordering on the hysterical.
Though a deep-lying centre-forward, he was never in the same mould as traditional Everton number nines like Dixie Dean and Tommy Lawton, but he possessed incredible 'spring' and could hang in the air to meet crosses before dispatching bullet headers with one flick of his blond head.
What's more, he stroked the ball, rather than kicked it, gliding across even the heaviest of surfaces, shimmying and tricking his way past clogging defenders before effortlessly floating shots past baffled goalkeepers.
Alex peaked in the Toffees' 1962-63 Championship side, when his striking partnership with Roy Vernon was the scourge of First Division defences. He scored 22 goals, and created countless more for his skipper and later played an integral part in Everton's 1966 FA Cup win, when the Merseysiders became the first team to pull back a two goal deficit in a Cup Final and win.
In all, Alex amassed 273 appearances for Everton while his goals return of 87 was more than respectable. Yet it was his almost mythical appeal, rather than mere statistical successes, which endeared him to the Everton supporters. He won two full Scotland caps.
