Dwight Yorke - Striker Date of Birth: November 11, 1971 Birthplace: Canaan, Tobago Nationality: Tobagonian Height: 1.80m / 5'11" Previous Clubs: Signal Hill (Trinidad & Tobago), St Clairs (Trinidad & Tobago) Joined Villa: December 19, 1989 Acquisition Price: £120.000 Debut: 1990 Left Villa (for): August 20, 1998 (Manchester United) Selling Price: £12.6 million

Yorke was spotted when Villa was on tour in Trinidad and Tobago and signed in December 1989 for £120,000 from the Tobagan club St. Clairs. He shows bursts of sparkling talent especially when running at defenders, but he never seemed to settle into a position that really suited him, until Brian Little arrived, and moved him all the way up front. Since then on he has been compulsory up front. He became Villa's top scorer in the 1995-96 season and once again in the 1996-97 ditto. He has an incredible smile, everybody starts smiling when Yorke puts on his grin, and he is generally one of those players everybody likes, Villa supporter or not. His vast goalscoring talent only adds to his popularity among the Villa truthful. He is obviously compulsory up front when Trinidad & Tobago's national team take on someone.

97-98 saw Yorke in a serious injury crisis, but he returned, and finished the season in style, ending up top scorer once again with 16 goals totally.

It all ended in anger, though. Dwight Yorke decided he wanted to join Manchester United "to get to play in the Champions League", despite the fact that Villa had qualified for the UEFA Cup in the same season. He left with no sympathy from the Villa fans, manager John Gregory or Doug Ellis, all enraged that he could leave Aston Villa for such a ridiculous reason. He left behind him an outstanding Villa record that - unfortunately - looked really bad in the end.

Apperances has substitutions in brackets, i.e. the games when he came on as a sub and didn't start on the pitch. All the stats include cup games.