Yorke’s mobility meant he could get around the pitch easily enough, his good first touch making him the sort of player that teams can build moves around. His physical strength meant he couldn’t be bullied off the ball, which also helped. Though hardly the tallest, he scored his fair share of headers while being happy to strike at goal with either foot. He was happy to dribble with the ball, too. The football world stood up and noticed this bright ‘new’ star, perhaps wondering where he had suddenly come from.

These were great days for Villa fans, as a team that had seemingly grown younger almost overnight began to exceed even the expectations of their supporters. It wasn’t just the results, though that always helps, but the performance levels of the team helped create a positive vibe around the club that meant the ground was filled every week. Having former Villa hero Little in charge of affairs was the icing on the cake.

As if the performances in the league weren’t enough, there were long cup runs to enjoy as well. Again, it helped that every League Cup draw up till the semi-final was at home where Villa were especially hard to beat. QPR were the only Premiership side to visit Villa Park, in the fourth round, marking a clear path to the semi-final. Villa started the away leg well but found themselves two goals down, both from the brilliant Bergkamp.

Such was the morale of this side, they came back strongly to earn a draw, with only the crossbar denying the mercurial Tommy Johnson the winner with a lashed finish from outside the box. Once again, Yorke was the hero, with a brace of goals to bring us right back into the tie, with the added advantage of two away goals in the bank. In the end, that proved decisive, as Villa controlled the home leg, their cast-iron defence holding firm for the full ninety minutes plus extra time.

The final against Leeds has often been described as the perfect cup final day out. It certainly wasn’t far off, with a dominant performance for most of the game, goals to remember (including, inevitably, one from Yorke) and a trophy carted around Wembley. Such a showing brought great credit to the club; players, manager and coaches alike.

Still, all that was in the future. Such was the buzz around the club that we had little time to celebrate this triumph; after all, we had another semi-final to play the following weekend. Yes, Little, Yorke and co. had finally broken the hoodoo that had kept us out of FA Cup semi-finals for a startling thirty-six years. The celebrations in Nottingham after a depleted side prevailed by a single goal in the quarter-final will never be forgotten by those who were there.

A three-nil scoreline against Liverpool suggested that the team were well beaten on the day, but Villa were well in the game until near the end. The fact that all three goals conceded were of dubious legality merely rubbed salt into the wound.

Typically, Villa bounced back with a couple of wins to secure a fourth-placed finish. Dwight may even have had one eye on Peter Withe’s twenty-goal record from 1981 but a minor injury kept him out of the remaining action. This was a slight disappointment after such a great year but even that was swept aside with the news that Yorke had signed a new four-year contract to secure his future in B6.

There had been rumours that Andy Gray (thought to be the new manager-in-waiting at Everton) had made it a condition of his possible return to Goodison that he would want to bring in Yorke to boost his frontline. It didn’t happen and it was never going to happen.

All looked fine for the new season, with Villa fans looking forward to more of the same. Predictably, Yorke’s excellent form from the previous year had attracted the attention of more than just the Villa faithful and opposing teams now focussed on restricting the match-impacts of the Tobagon striker.

This might explain why it took until the eighth game of the season for him to open his goal account, though he did it in style with a hat-trick in a losing cause at Newcastle, which would have been a quadruple had the match officials been up to the mark.

This sudden spurt broke the bad run and Yorke had another successful season, scoring the same number of league goals as the year before. With no decent cup runs to bolster the figures, Yorkie still managed to get up to the twenty-goal mark to make it clear that here was no one-season wonder.

The overall form of the last campaign was a little disappointing, though the team had done enough to qualify for Europe again. If a marquee signing was just the only thing to give the club a boost, then we absolutely got one, with Stan Collymore making his way to Villa Park from Liverpool where, in a foreshadowing of what was to come, he hadn’t always endeared himself to his teammates and fans. T

he fee was in the region of £7 million, so deflated those who claimed that chairman Ellis lacked real ambition to push the club on. The trouble was, that the big fee didn’t allow Little to strengthen other areas of the side.

Other problems soon became apparent. Such an expensive signing would, of course, be expected to start every game. Yorke and Milosevic, such a fine strike pairing, could hardly be left out. Little’s solution was to put Savo and Stan (who, according to rumour, didn’t get on that well) up front with Dwight in the ‘Ten’ role just behind.

That looked pretty good on paper, but on the pitch meant that Villa’s midfield, already weakened by the departure of the workhorse Andy Townsend, offered more gaps for the opposition to be tempted by.

Villa fans had hoped for a serious title challenge; instead, we suffered defeat in the opening four games. Little stuck to his guns and things improved but inconsistency meant that Villa were looking over their shoulders at the relegation places for most of the season.

Eventually the manager resigned, to be replaced by former coach John Gregory. Whatever Gregory touched for the next few months turned to gold, as he transformed the side from nervous relegation battlers to a winning team that claimed yet another European place at the start of the summer.

As two years before, Yorke’s achievements had caught national attention; the difference was that this time the hopeful suitors weren’t middling Everton, but Manchester United. At this time, the game was changing. United’s second-place finish would normally have given them a place in the Uefa Cup for the following season, the same competition Villa had qualified for.

With football increasingly following the Thatcherite path of more and more for the rich and screw the rest, the number of Champions League places had been doubled. A move to Manchester United now meant a chance to play in the premier European competition.

The rumours began in the summer and, thanks to United’s banks of friendly journalists never went away. Chairman Ellis tried to stem the drift by offering Yorke a new contract but this was refused. Villa then tried to tough things out by saying that the player would be staying with Villa, anyway. John Gregory’s rather amateurish public statements about not wanting to bump into Alex Ferguson at a Blues v United pre-season friendly seemed to leave the club open to attack.

An offer of over twelve million was rumoured to have been made. Instead of turning it down flat, Villa tried to squeeze more money out of the deal, to no effect.

The crossing of the Rubicon came on the opening day of the season. A young Villa side went to an upbeat Goodison Park and did well to get a draw with only ten men. Not that Villa had anyone sent off. Dwight Yorke’s go-slow, or should that be no-show, performance made it crystal clear that he didn’t want to play for us anymore. The transfer deadline day was the following Thursday, and the deal duly went through on time. Many felt it was the end of Villa’s ambitions to challenge the best.

This left Villa with a good deal of money to spend which they used wisely in general, though unwisely in terms of the ages of some of the men who came to Villa Park. Players like Dion Dublin and Paul Merson gave a big boost to the team but were, in the words of Jim Smith, ‘milk bottles’ – you weren’t going to get anything like your money back on them.

Nevertheless, Villa remarkably got off to a record-breaking start and led the league for several months, until they ran out of players and steam. Elsewhere, Yorke became part of a team that won the treble and seemed set for a long spell of success but after a further year, Ferguson felt the player had become complacent and he was soon he was on his way to Blackburn where he helped them win a League Cup.

There was even a chance of a return to Villa Park in 2002; the player was willing to come but Graham Taylor, as befitted such a decent man, worried what the crowd reaction would be to Yorke’s reappearance and so pulled out of the deal. Moves followed to Sunderland and all the way down to Small Heath, as his career wound down.

After that, the only football-related incident of note was when he found himself banned from flying to the USA after an exhibition match played in Iran, who didn’t have a Washington-compliant government, leaving Dwight to find a longer route home. He was linked, or more honestly he linked himself, with the Villa manager’s job whenever it became available – a disturbingly regular occurrence in recent years, but the offer was never taken up.

Only he seemed to be surprised at this. As we speak, he is now getting some hands-on experience as the manager of his country.

Dwight Yorke was loved and revered by Villa fans. His performances over many years earned him his status as one of the best Villa strikers of the last fifty years alongside names like Little, Gray, Withe, Shaw and Benteke. Sadly, the nature of his departure means, for some, that he belongs on a list of those who have betrayed the fans’ trust in a way that is hard to forgive, like Hodge, McCormack and Delph.