Sport
£100 bet Dwight Yorke placed on the club
Dwight Yorke was never short of cash during his time at Aston Villa – thanks to his constant bets with team-mates.
The Trinidadian and Tobagonian star spent almost the entirety of his football career in England, having achieved the most success with Manchester United during his four-year spell with the Premier League giants. Yorke, 52, was a major part of their Treble-winning side of 1999, scoring 29 goals in all competitions with eight coming in the Champions League.
Before joining Sir Alex Ferguson at United, Yorke was a hero at Aston Villa, spending 10 years with the club where he scored 98 goals in 287 games.
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Yorke scored 123 Premier League goals in his career with 73 of them coming in claret and blue as former Villa team-mate, Alan Wright, spoke about just how great the striker was when they played together.
Speaking on the ‘I Had Trials Once Podcast, sponsored by bet365’, Wright said: “I was at Aston Villa at the same time as Dwight Yorke and he was such a great player.” Having spent three years as Yorke’s team-mate, he was used to seeing the sheer amount of skill he had and he wasn’t afraid to bet money on his attributes.
“He had a ridiculous amount of skill too,” the 52-year-old said. “He used to stand in a small, square bin in the dressing room and any time a new player came in he would bet them £100 that he could do 50 keep-ups with his head without falling out of the bin!”
Yorke’s belief in his ability certainly paid off as nobody thought that he’d be able to do it. “Obviously everyone took the bet because it seems impossible – but I never saw him fail to do it,” Wright added.
The former left-back was always grateful for Yorke’s ability to always find space and give him an option, so much so that he asked him just how he was always able to do that. “Whenever I lifted my head up he was always there, giving me an option whether it was short, long, in behind, anything.
“One day I pulled him aside and asked him how he was always so open. He told me that when he first came over, Graham Taylor had told him that no matter where the ball was on the pitch he should be available. He was so easy to play with,” he continued.
