His career began at Birmingham City where he played in the winning side at Wembley in the 1991 Leyland DAF Trophy.
He then joined Burnley for £40,000 and then moved on to Doncaster.
"Yatesy" joined Cheltenham Town in January 1999, the year that Cheltenham left the Conference for the promised land.
After five years at Waddle Rd Yates found himself out of favour there after a new manager, John Ward, took over. Jan Molby, in an act of charity, bought Yates back home to join his ever growing band of 'Old Comrades' at Aggborough.
In the end it wasn't charity but a bit of shrewd thinking by the Great Dane. Yates was one of the reasons we escaped relegation from the Football League by using his experience to coax the best out of the rest of the team.
It still didn't mean he would be staying for another season at Aggborough because he was released at the end of the season after earning the gratitude and plaudits from all Harriers fans.
He then took up the job of first team coach at Burnley and re-joined up with his ex Cheltenham manager, Steve Cotterill until re-joining the Harriers again in January 2006 but this time as the manager.
In his first season in charge he managed to save us from the possibility of a successive relegation and in his second, full, season we reached the final of the FA Trophy against Stevenage at the new Wembley Stadium. Sadly we lost that game 3-2 after leading through two fine James Constable goals at half time.
Last season Yates took us to the brink of the play-offs and managed to build a great side that looked good enough to go for promotion again the following season but that side was ripped apart from under him by a board that were not interested in promotion and just wanted to cut costs to the bone.
This season he faced more of the same and had to start the season with the offer of a paltry, insulting one year contract and it was then that we knew he would leave us for another club once the chance arose. That chance came just before Christmas 2009 when he and Neil Howarth joined Cheltenham Town as their new manager/coach
FACTFILE:
Born:
Birmingham
24-01-70
Height:
5ft 11ins
Weight:
13st 2lb
Position:
Manager
