Terry Yorath

Terence Charles Yorath was born on 27 March 1950 in the Grangetown area of Cardiff, Wales, to David Yorath and his wife Mary (née Sigallias), who was of Greek descent. He grew up with an older brother, Dai, who also played football. As a boy he showed real promise as a rugby union scrum-half, but the story told in Welsh football is that he went to watch his brother play for Cardiff Boys against Rhondda Boys, found Cardiff a player short, borrowed a pair of boots and played so well that football took over. He went on to win four Welsh Schoolboy caps as a defender.

Yorath attended Cathays High School in Cardiff, where he played rugby at scrum-half. When he was selected for the city's under-15 rugby and football teams at the same time, he had to choose, and he chose football. A Leeds United scout spotted him as a 15-year-old. He rejected approaches from Cardiff City and the Bristol clubs and moved to Leeds as a schoolboy in 1965, signing professional forms with Don Revie's club in 1967 at the age of 17. Early in his time at Leeds he lodged with the mother of defender Norman Hunter.

Revie moved Yorath from defence into midfield, but with Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles in the team he made only 14 league appearances in his first five years. He made his debut at Burnley's Turf Moor on 11 May 1968 and scored his first goal against Newcastle United on 1 September 1971. From 1972 injuries and suspensions gave him a regular place. He was a late substitute in the 1973 FA Cup final defeat by Sunderland and started the 1973 European Cup Winners' Cup final in Thessaloniki, lost 1-0 to AC Milan under a referee later banned. He played 28 matches as Leeds won the First Division in 1973-74, then all eight European Cup ties in 1974-75, becoming the first Welshman to play in a European Cup final when Leeds lost 2-0 to Bayern Munich in Paris. He left Leeds in 1976 after 199 appearances and 11 goals.

Coventry City paid 125,000 pounds for him in August 1976, and he captained the club for most of his three seasons, including a top-10 First Division campaign. Tottenham Hotspur signed him for 300,000 pounds in August 1979; he played 62 games alongside Glenn Hoddle, Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa. In February 1981 he joined the Vancouver Whitecaps in the North American Soccer League and captained them for two seasons. He returned in 1982 as player-coach at Bradford City under Trevor Cherry, made 27 league appearances and helped win the Third Division in 1984-85. He made one final league appearance for Swansea City in 1986.

For Wales he won 59 caps between 1969 and 1981, 42 as captain, and scored two goals, against Luxembourg in 1975 and the Republic of Ireland in 1981. He captained the side that reached the Euro 1976 quarter-finals and was captain at Anfield in October 1977 when Scotland won 2-0 to end Wales's hopes of the 1978 World Cup.

Yorath became Swansea City manager in May 1986 and led them to promotion from the Fourth Division through the play-offs in 1988. That year he was appointed part-time manager of Wales, which caused friction at Swansea. He left for Bradford City as manager in February 1989, was dismissed after about a year, returned to Swansea and then left again in 1991 to manage Wales full time.

His Wales side, with Neville Southall, Ian Rush, Mark Hughes, Dean Saunders and a young Ryan Giggs, beat world champions Germany 1-0 in June 1991 and Brazil 1-0 in September 1991, both in Cardiff, and reached 27th in the FIFA rankings in August 1993. On 17 November 1993 Wales needed to beat Romania at Cardiff Arms Park to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. With the score 1-1 Paul Bodin's penalty hit the crossbar and Romania won 2-1. Yorath managed Wales for 41 games with 16 wins. On Christmas Eve 1993 the Football Association of Wales told him his contract would not be renewed.

He joined Cardiff City as general manager in 1994, took charge of the team in November that year and was sacked in March 1995. In April 1995 he became coach of Lebanon, living in Beirut, often under armed guard, and lifting the team from 145th to 87th in the world rankings; Lebanon finished third at the 1997 Arab Games. He coached at Huddersfield Town and Bradford City between 1997 and 2000, became assistant to Paul Jewell at Sheffield Wednesday, was promoted to manager in 2001 and resigned in 2002. By 2005 he was assistant manager at Huddersfield Town. In June 2008 he became director of football at Margate, where his brother Dai had played, was manager from 21 November 2008 and resigned on 24 September 2009.

Yorath married Christine Kay in 1971. They had four children: Daniel, Gabby, Louise and Jordan. Gabby became a leading BBC sports presenter, and in 2001 married the Scotland rugby union international Kenny Logan. Louise worked as a model in the United States, and Jordan played in goal for Halifax before going to university.

In 1992 Daniel, aged 15 and newly signed by Leeds United, collapsed and died while playing football with his father in the back garden of the family home in Yorkshire. A post-mortem found hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic thickening of the heart muscle. Yorath later said the football they had been playing with stayed where it had fallen for years. He admitted he did not cope, that he drank more and visited Daniel's grave every night. The family helped raise awareness of the condition. Yorath and Christine separated and divorced in 2007. He had grandchildren including Reuben and Lois Logan and Paloma and Phoenix Yorath.

Yorath was a fiercely proud Welshman. Before a match against England at Wembley in 1977, when the English FA refused to play Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, he and John Mahoney kept the Wales team from moving until their point was made, and at his funeral Elis James said he had pushed for the Welsh anthem to replace God Save the Queen before Wales games. He believed in fairness and in taking responsibility: he refused to blame Paul Bodin for the 1993 penalty, pointing instead to the team's collective failings, and he said he never blamed Joe Jordan for the 1977 handball. He spoke openly in later years about grief, about not seeking counselling after Daniel's death, and about his drinking, saying he should have accepted help.

Yorath belongs to the small group of players who both captained and managed their country, and his Wales team of 1988 to 1993 is remembered as the side that restored belief in Welsh football. Craig Bellamy, Wales manager at the time of his death, said watching the 1994 qualifying campaign was the first time he believed Wales could reach a major tournament, and that Yorath's impact on Welsh football was immeasurable. Ian Rush said Yorath gave him the confidence to score the winner against Germany in 1991. At Leeds he is remembered as part of the greatest era in the club's history, and at Bradford for his courage on the day of the Valley Parade fire. In January 2026 Leeds wore black armbands, and Bradford, Cardiff and Tottenham held minutes of applause in his memory.

As a player: Football League First Division champion with Leeds United (1973-74); FA Cup runner-up (1973); European Cup Winners' Cup runner-up (1973); European Cup runner-up (1975); Football League Third Division champion with Bradford City (1984-85); 59 caps for Wales, 42 as captain. As a manager: Fourth Division play-off winner with Swansea City (1988); Arab Games third place with Lebanon (1997); led Wales to 27th in the FIFA rankings (August 1993). Inducted into the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.

Yorath's autobiography, Hard Man, Hard Knocks, was published by Celluloid in 2004. He gave a much-quoted interview to Robert Fisk in Beirut in 1996 about grief and football, wrote about Daniel's death for The Observer in 2005, and spoke at length about the Bradford fire and his son on BBC Radio Wales in 2017, and talked about triumph and tragedy on Jacko's Sporting Almanac with Peter Jackson. He appeared on breakfast television with his daughter Gabby during her early broadcasting career. Football historians including Phil Stead, in Red Dragons, recorded his role in Welsh football's struggle over the national anthem.

As a player Yorath had a reputation as one of the hard men of the Revie era. In the 1975 European Cup final his early challenge on Bayern Munich's Björn Andersson broke the Swede's leg, and the Guardian's obituary noted he was lucky not to be sent off. His decision to combine the Wales job with club management caused conflict at Swansea in 1988 and 1989. In 2004 he was convicted of drink-driving after driving home from his golf club three times over the legal limit and hitting a young woman, who was taken to hospital. He avoided prison, served community service helping disabled children ride horses, and later wrote that he was deeply ashamed.

Yorath had been ill for a short time and was being treated at St James's University Hospital in Leeds. His daughter Gabby wrote that the family knew he had limited time, and that on the afternoon of 7 January 2026 they had joked at his bedside about what he would eat when he went home. That evening she left Match of the Day partway through the programme because of a family emergency, and Mark Chapman took over. Reports differ on the date of death: Wikipedia and the Yorkshire Evening Post give 7 January 2026, while the Guardian obituary and the family's death notice give 8 January 2026. The family announced his death on the morning of 8 January. He was 75. The cause has not been made public.

His funeral took place at noon on 26 January 2026 at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church on Harrogate Road, Moortown, Leeds, led by Father Dennis Cassidy, with Côr Meibion Taf singing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, Cwm Rhondda, Danny Boy and You'll Never Walk Alone. Elis James and his son Jordan gave eulogies, his grandson Reuben Logan read a poem and his granddaughter Lois Logan sang Jerusalem at his request. Around 100 mourners attended, including Eddie Gray, Ian Rush, Kevin Ratcliffe, Mickey Thomas, Chris Coleman and Joe Jordan. A private burial followed, with a wake at Elland Road. The family asked for donations to Age UK instead of flowers.