Veteran agrees to remain with Cats

Jul 3 2008 The Journal

ROY Keane has a familiar face as his first signing of the summer after persuading Dwight Yorke to return to the Stadium of Light for a 20th and probably last season of English football.

The Irishman had made his former Manchester United team-mate’s signature a top priority this summer but the Trinidad and Tobago international made him sweat – allowing his contract to run down and exploring the possibility of moves to the less competitive leagues of Australia and America before penning a new one-year deal yesterday.

Yorke, who turns 37 in November, made only 21 appearances for Sunderland last season but Keane stressed his signing is as important for what he can bring off the field as much as on it.

Although rumours of a player-coach role did not materialise and Dean Whitehead wears the captain’s armband, Yorke remains Keane’s unofficial lieutenant in the dressing room. Keane sees Yorke as his eyes and ears in the squad and has often spoken glowingly of his positive influence and the value of his experience of top-level football – something scarce among the Black Cats players.

Unsurprisingly it was a topic he returned to when Yorke’s signing was announced yesterday.

“Yorkie’s experience on and off the pitch was invaluable last season,” he said. “He’s a great character to have in the dressing room and around the

training ground and he’ll have a part to play for us next season.”

Yorke is a hero to many of his team-mates. Kenwyne Jones and Carlos Edwards were inspired by the first man from their country to play Premier League football, while a number of Sunderland players were young Manchester United fans when Yorke was top-scoring for the club’s treble-winning side of 1999.

Yorke quit English football in 2005 after unhappy spells at Blackburn Rovers and Birmingham City and it was a huge coup when Keane persuaded him out of semi-retirement with Australian League side Sydney FC for a first spell in English football’s second tier. Two years on he has again convinced Yorke to forsake Australian beaches for the charms of Wearside. The player maintained it was an easy choice, though his comments yesterday contradict those made in Australia last week.

“It’s been a tremendous two years for me at Sunderland,” Yorke said. “I’ve got to know the staff and the fans have been great towards me. Once the manager gave me the thumbs up, it was an easy decision to sign.” Sydney side Central Coast Mariners had been interested in bringing Yorke back to the city but their chief executive Lyall Gorman claimed his personal terms were “out of our realm”.

“That would have been my ambition, to come back here (to Australia),” Yorke was quoted as telling the Australian media last week. “I felt this year would have been the year to come back and stamp my authority in terms of playing football and getting the football buzzing around Sydney again.” After being initially utilised by Keane in the role where he made his name, at centre-forward, Yorke has since reverted to the deep-lying playmaker position he adopted at the 2006 World Cup.

The Trinidad and Tobago international has technical qualities few in the Premier League possess but it is a question of finding the games where the deficiencies of his 36-year-old legs can be suitably compensated for. That was demonstrated in his only start since January when Yorke reiterated his class against the more cultured but less frenetic footballers of Arsenal at the Stadium of Light.

Meanwhile, Sheffield United have confirmed they have signed full-back Greg Halford on a season-long loan deal.

The 23-year-old arrives at Bramall Lane from Sunderland, having finished last term on loan at Charlton.

He cost the Cats £3.5m last summer but failed to establish himself in Keane’s team.