Terry Yorath, the former Wales captain and manager, has died at the age of 75 following a short illness.
As part of Don Revie’s formidable Leeds team in the 1970s, the midfielder whose life would later be deeply affected by personal tragedy became the first Welshman to play in a European Cup final. Although the Yorkshire club lost that final to Bayern Munich, Yorath was an influential, combative, mainstay of the 1974 first division champions.
A player who initially struggled to break into Revie’s first XI saw his intelligence and professionalism win new friends at Coventry, Tottenham and Vancouver Whitecaps before becoming player-coach at Bradford City. Yorath would later juggle club management at Bradford and then Swansea with managing Wales.
He was at Bradford in 1985 on the day of the Valley Parade fire that resulted in the death of 56 fans and left a further 270 injured. Yorath himself required treatment after being forced to jump from a window after bravely evacuating supporters from a club bar.
As a player he won 59 caps for Wales, 42 as captain and, as manager, he guided the principality to the verge of qualification for the 1994 World Cup finals before a 2-1 defeat to Romania dashed that dream.
Two years earlier Yorath’s life had changed irrevocably when his 15-year-old son Daniel collapsed and died while they were playing football in the back garden of their Yorkshire home. It emerged that Daniel had the genetic heart condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Yorath also had two daughters, the BBC sports presenter Gabby, and Louise as well as another son, Jordan. On Wednesday night Gabby Logan was presenting Match of the Day but left the studio part way through the programme due to “a family emergency”. On Thursday morning she and her siblings released a statement about their father’s passing.
“To most he was a revered footballing hero but to us he was Dad; a quiet kind and gentle man. Our hearts are broken but we take comfort knowing that he will be reunited with our brother, Daniel.”
Leeds said they were “devastated” to learn of Yorath’s death. “Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with Terry’s family, friends and former team-mates at this incredibly sad time,” a club statement read.
Yorath’s impact on Welsh football was “immeasurable”, said the Wales manager, Craig Bellamy. “The impact Terry Yorath had on Welsh football is immeasurable,” Bellamy said on the Football Association of Wales’ X account. “Terry epitomised everything it means to represent Cymru as a player, and watching the 1994 World Cup qualifying campaign with him as manager was the first time I experienced genuine belief that our country could qualify for a major tournament. As a country, we have so much to thank Terry for what he did.”
Ashley Williams, who captained Wales at Euro 2016, said: “He’s such an icon in Welsh football. A footballing hero, such a big personality in Welsh football. It’s a huge loss. He’s one of those massive names you hear about when you get selected for Wales. He’s at the top of that list and you know you’ve got to live up to what he achieved.”
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After losing the Wales job – a decision that upset and angered many – Yorath had stints in charge of Cardiff, Sheffield Wednesday and Margate either side of a two-year interlude in Beirut as the manager of Lebanon, overseeing a substantial improvement in the team’s fortunes between 1995-97.
At the time Lebanon was emerging from a 15-year civil war and it seemed that Yorath had found sanctuary in a country that understood human loss. In a 1996 interview with Robert Fisk, Yorath spoke movingly of his enduring grief. He revealed that the football he and Daniel had been playing with four years earlier had never been moved from the spot where it had dropped in the back garden of the family home when his son collapsed. “It’s still there,” he said.
During this period Yorath’s wife, Christine, remained in England and, after a separation, they divorced in 2007. During an interview with BBC Radio Wales in 2017 Yorath acknowledged he “didn’t really cope” with Daniel’s death. “I started drinking more,” he said. It echoed his reflection in an Observer interview in 2005: “Rather than bring us together, Daniel’s death has driven the family apart,” said Yorath. “I haven’t achieved what I could have since that afternoon.”
He had, though, already hit heights other could only dream of touching. “Sad news,” reflected Yorath’s former Wales team-mate Mickey Thomas. “A brilliant captain and player.” The former Bradford striker Dean Windass spoke for many who had crossed paths with Yorath, describing him as a “great man and a gentleman”.
