Laying the law: Dwight Yorke feels he could cut it as a top-level manager... and would let his players have sex the night before a game

IN November 1999, Blackburn supporter Jason Perryman was banned from every stadium in England and Wales for five years. The crime for which his punishment is almost up was to make monkey chants and gestures at Dwight Yorke, as the footballer, then with Birmingham City but previously a Rovers player, warmed up.

In Yorke's autobiography, Born To Score, there is only the most fleeting mention of this unpleasant episode. The book tells rather more, however, about Yorke's sexual appetite. We also learn plenty about his tempestuous relationship with Jordan. But about race and racism there is scarcely anything, which casts some perspective on an exchange I have with Yorke's PA after I have interviewed him for an hour.

"Can you not make too much of the racism stuff he talked about?" she asks. After all, none of it's in the book, and it's to plug the book we're here. But he said it, I protest, and it wasn't off the record. In fairness to Yorke's agitated PA, the subject has been raised by me, not him. He has said he would like to go into management, and I mention the dearth of black managers.

"Yeah, it's like everything else," says Yorke, "black players are not given the chance to manage at the highest level." Does he ascribe that to racism? "Is that what you call racism? Maybe, yeah. Would I get an opportunity? I don't know. We were all hoping Paul Ince would do extremely well so we could break in. But it didn't work out for him, or for John Barnes either." Yorke turned 38 last week, and announced his retirement as a player two months ago. He has done a Uefa 'B' licence coaching course, and aims to start studying for his 'A' licence in January. I ask him whether, like Ince, he aims to start in the lower reaches of the Football League?

"I'd like to start in the Championship," he says. "I've seen [Gareth] Southgate, who was my captain at Aston Villa, and Simon Grayson at Leeds, who I played with, getting the breaks. They haven't done more than I've done in the game. Rather less, maybe. So why not someone like myself or Andy Cole? Les Ferdinand's another. I know these guys want to be managers. Why are they not getting the breaks? Why?"

Why indeed? A pause. "Well, it's a very delicate thing. But nothing is happening. It's very interesting."

Let's suppose, though, that we lived in an ideal world. In such a Shangri-La would he prove his excellence as a manager and end up at Manchester United, where he spent four spectacular years after his nine at Villa, his goals delivering the treble?

"In an ideal world?" A dazzling smile. "That's more like a fantasy world. No, in an ideal world I'd say Aston Villa. It's where I started, I have a good relationship with the fans there, so that would be my target."

Famously, Yorke joined Villa after impressing manager Graham Taylor when playing, aged 17, for Trinidad and Tobago. In March 1989 Villa had a blank fortnight, so Taylor hastily organised a trip. The skinny, toothy Tobagonian caught his eye, and was offered a trial. The rest is history, and a whole lot of headlines. Those headlines, indeed, raise an obvious question: how would Yorke the manager deal with a player who tried to smuggle a woman up to his room in the team hotel?

Another huge smile. "That's up to him. But if he does that then he has to make sure he plays well, and scores a goal, which is what I did. To be quite honest I think it's a myth that sex before games is bad. Each to his own. Gary Neville probably says 48 hours for sex before a match. Actually for him it's probably a week." Yorke giggles, delighted with his own effrontery. "But if you feel having sex even on the day of the game makes you play better, fine. I wouldn't ever say to my players, 'Don't have sex before a game'. Anyway, they have so many gadgets now, they come on the bus with earphones, laptops... they could be watching porn. You have to have an open mind. And the young players are so buoyant, so confident. Even the greatest, Alex Ferguson, has had to adapt to the younger generation. In my time you were intimidated, coming into the first-team dressing room. Now these young guys come in like they've already played 100 games."

In an hour, Yorke references Ferguson five times, but never as anything other than "the greatest manager", which is rather sweet considering Fergie cites Yorke, only half-jokingly, as the reason for most of his grey hairs. At any rate, it was Yorke's lifestyle, combined with the arrival of Ruud van Nistelrooy, which led to his departure. In 2002 he joined Blackburn, then managed by Graeme Souness. Yet they did not hit it off, to put it mildly.

"I went from playing for the greatest manager to maybe the very worst, in terms of handling players. He would constantly talk about the times he'd had at Liverpool, the way they used to do things, and it just became boring. I know he was a great player, and played with great players. But I played with great players too. I won trophies. You can't keep going on about it to players who maybe haven't yet won anything themselves. It's disrespectful."

After a brief stay at Birmingham, and a season at Sydney FC in Australia, Yorke was signed by his old United captain, Roy Keane, for Sunderland. He spent almost three years there; longer than Keane. And on the day Keane resigned, Yorke sent a text expressing regret it hadn't worked out. He still keeps Keane's gracious reply –"Go fuck yourself" – and laughs when I mention it. "Yeah, that's true, and it made me smile. But it's kind of sad to see Roy [struggling] at Ipswich. He has a great personal aura, as we all know, but is that enough?"

Yorke still lives in the Manchester area. "I could go back to the Caribbean and live like a king but it's better for me to be here. I get back there a lot, anyway. My close friend Russell Latapy is coaching Trinidad and Tobago, and I'm going to be his assistant. And the government have made me and Brian [Lara] sporting ambassadors, which is great."

I wonder whether they'll advocate plenty of sex and late nights? Yorke tells a story about a Friday night out in Port of Spain in 1995. Lara was due to play for the West Indies against Australia the following day, and Yorke was going along as a spectator, but at 3am they were still out partying. The following morning, having overslept, Yorke switched on the TV to find Lara was at the crease, already past 50. "It was amazing. And that's what I was saying earlier. If you're going to do that, you have to play well. But Lara knew what level he was at."

They are still the greatest of mates, he adds. "We're massive. We're going on holiday together soon. It's all golf-related. I'm a three handicap and he's about the same. We're very competitive. We don't ever give each other shots. If one's getting better it's up to the other one to catch up."

In his book, Yorke chronicles a period when he thought he might give up football and try to become a professional golfer.

"Yeah, it was a really tough time," he recalls. "I was falling out of love with the game, and golf seemed like a sport where if you put your work in, you get your rewards. You don't have to rely on other people. But then I got the call to Sydney."

We haven't, I venture finally, talked much about Jordan. Is she the reason why the book has come out now, capitalising on her fame? "If I'm totally honest with you, probably," he says. There has been quite a lot of honesty in his answers, I think. Perhaps a little too much for his PA's liking.