TOBAGO gushed with rapturous delight when its most illustrious son Dwight Yorke returned in triumph to the Sister Isle last week Thursday.

And Yorke was understandably overwhelmed with emotion, when he addressed a special rally organised by the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) to honour the Germany 2006 World Cup-bound national football team, fondly called the Soca Warriors, at the Stadium named after him in Bacolet.

The home-grown Yorke, who from his crab-catching boyhood days rose to football heights in the English Soccer League at first Aston Villa, then Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers and currently with the Sydney FC in Australia, seemed lost for words during his address to the hundreds who came out to pay homage to his team.

This was the first time that the team was visiting Tobago since its historic qualification for next month’s World Cup finals in Germany.

The teary-eyed Yorke, stressed that it was really a tremendous feeling to come back home, a place that held such fond memories for him.

JACK WARNER gets advice to stay out of politics
at the Tobago rally for the Soca Warriors.

Soca Warrior fever among flag-waving
schoolchildren at the Dwight Yorke Stadium.

And his message for the large assembly of flag-waving of school children was: “Success comes with hard work.”

The lone Tobago flagman make a lap in honour of the Soca Warriors’ achievement.

Special tribute was paid during the rally to the retiring Russell Latapy, who played his last International match in front a home crowd in a World Cup warm-up against Peru at the National Stadium the day before. Cyd Gray, the only other player on the national football team from Tobago made a presentation of the team’s official emblem to THA Chief Secretary Orville London. London had earlier declared, amid shouts of approval from the Roxborough Sporting and Cultural Complex, which is currently undergoing renovations, would be renamed the Cyd Gray Complex upon completion.

YORKE arrives to a hero’s welcome.

The function was spiced with cultural items from Yvonne Duke with her own Soca Warrior Kaiso; the Plymouth Warriors Speech Band, who gave some witty speeches, including a piece to the Special Advisor to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation Austin Jack Warner to leave politics but stay with the football.