Along with other Leeds midfield players of the time, such as Mick Bates and Terry Hibbitt, he found it difficult to establish himself ahead of Don Revie's preferred pairing of Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles.

Don Revie had left Leeds to manage England, and his eventual replacement Jimmy Armfield decided to dispense with Yorath's services in 1976, selling him to Coventry City for £125,000.

Spearheaded by the prolific strike partnership of Ian Wallace and Mick Ferguson, and ably abetted by the legendary winger Tommy Hutchison and attacking full backs Graham Oakey and Bobby MacDonald, the Sky Blues would enjoy a 7th-place finish in the 1977–78 season, narrowly missing out on European football.

Yorath's Coventry side containing such notables as Alan Green, McDonald and Mick Coop are still fondly remembered even today by the Sky Blue faithful.

A remarkable 5–4 win over Norwich City at Highfield Road, Christmas 1977, replete with bicycle kick by Ian Wallace and last gasp penalty save by Jim Blyth, lives long in Coventry folklore.

Yorath was popular amongst the Wales players and fans and guided them to wins over Brazil in 1990 and World Cup holders Germany in a European Championship Qualifier in 1991.

Needing to win their final game of the qualifying group at home to Romania, Paul Bodin's penalty hit the crossbar with the scores level at 1–1.

In April of the same year,[7] Yorath took over as coach of the Lebanon national team, and helped them rise 60 places in the FIFA World Rankings before leaving in 1997.

However, Yorath resigned as Margate manager on 24 September 2009 following a run of disappointing results, leaving Neville Southall in temporary charge of the team.