My childhood recollections of English Football/How I became a Leeds United Supporter.
As a young boy growing up in England, the first football team I became aware of and thus followed was Manchester United. I became aware of them when the news broke of the Munich Air Crash in 1958. Pictures of the “Busby Babes” and the Air Crash were splashed all over the newspapers and on TV. Eight Manchester United players died as a result of the crash, and two were never able to play football again. The Manager Matt Busby was incapacitated for quite some time afterwards, necessitating a stand in Manager to be appointed. The team had to be rebuilt again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_air_disaster
Almost as a matter of course, as a boy I would often hear the name Manchester United in the news and thus came to follow their progress and subsequent fame and fortune.
After his recovery from the Air Crash, Manager Matt Busby returned to rebuild the team, which won the FA Cup in 1963, albeit finishing in 19th place in the First Division. The club finished in second place in 1964, and then went one better by winning the league in 1965 and 1967. United won the European Cup in 1968, beating Eusabio’s SL Benfica 4–1 in the final, becoming the first English club to win the competition. This United team was notable for containing three European Footballers of the Year: Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and George Best. Indeed I remember listening on the radio around that time and subsequently, to some of the most exciting European Cup matches.
In 1970 Manchester United had progressed to and met Leeds United in the FA cup semi-final. The first match ended a draw, necessitating a replay. Unfortunately Manchester United lost to Leeds in the replay match. So almost subconsciously I found myself following the progress of Leeds United into the Finals.
1970 - FA Cup Final Match Report - Courtesy of Wikipedia:- The first match at Wembley took place on the 11th April, around a month earlier than was typical for FA Cup finals, due to the FA's wish for the England team, who were world champions and were defending their trophy in Mexico, to have time to acclimatise to the Mexican climate.
In a game where Leeds were generally seen to have had the best of the play — with winger Eddie Gray in particular giving David Webb a torrid time — the Yorkshiremen took the lead after 20 minutes when Jack Charlton's downward header from a corner didn't bounce, thus Eddie McCreadie mis-timed his clearance and the ball rolled over the line. Towards the end of the first half, Chelsea's Peter Houseman drove a low shot from 20 yards (18 m), which goalkeeper Gary Sprake fumbled, and it, too, rolled over the line for the equaliser. Leeds appeared to have secured the game six minutes from full-time when an Allan Clarke header hit the post and Mick Jones reacted first to put the ball into the net, but just two minutes later Ian Hutchinson headed in the equaliser from John Hollins' cross to take the match to a replay. This would be the first FA Cup final replay since 1912.
1970 FA Cup Final Replay – Courtesy of Wikipedia - The replay at Old Trafford, watched by a television audience of 28 million, a record for an FA Cup final, became one of the most notorious matches in English football. Modern day referee David Elleray "replayed" the match years later, and concluded that the sides should have received six red cards and twenty yellow cards between them. Not long into the match, Ron Harris caught Eddie Gray with a kick to the back of the knee, an action which virtually immobilised the Scot. Charlton kneed and headbutted Peter Osgood and Chelsea's goalkeeper Peter Bonetti was injured after being bundled into the net by Leeds' Jones, who minutes later rounded the limping immobile Bonetti and scored the opener. Norman Hunter and Ian Hutchinson traded punches while McCreadie and Johnny Giles lunged at opposition players.
Chelsea's equaliser eventually came after a flowing move from which Osgood scored with a diving header from a Charlie Cooke cross. Charlton should have been marking Osgood, but had 'lost' him, whilst chasing Hutchinson to exact retribution for a deadleg administered in the Chelsea penalty area a minute or so earlier. In scoring, Osgood became the last player to date to have scored in every round of the FA Cup. With the game at 1–1 in extra time, Hutchinson sent in a long throw-in which missed almost every player in the penalty area, but came off Charlton's head and looped towards the far post, before being put into the unguarded net by Webb to give the Londoners the lead for the first time. Chelsea kept the lead to secure their first FA Cup win.
Needless to say I was very disappointed, not so much with the rather brutal tackles and ungentlemany behaviour on the pitch, which were an undeniable and somewhat shameful aspect of the game, but with the fact that after all that, Leeds had lost! I had watched every minute of both games, very physical games and it seemed clear to me that Chelsea were the dirtier of the two teams and based on that and the balance of play, Leeds deserved to win.
Anyway, that was how I became a Leeds United football supporter. My support for Leeds United had become fully entrenched and continued through most of the next decade, until it and I became distracted by married life, a career, and then children in the late 1970’s.
Of the many games I watched on TV, I can still to this day see (in my mind): “Sniffer” Allan Clarke hunting down and skilfully running the ball through the box to whack it into the net; Mick Jones tireless work supporting and feeding Clarke, as well as feeding off Clarke to score one of his many goals – definitely a deadly partnership.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxtoJZeOZoA
http://www.blinkx.com/video/a-leeds-uni ... pV8I8wSh5A
Also the skill and dexterity of Eddy Giles in Mid Field; the grit and tenacity of Captain Billy Bremner; the blistering long range shots of Peter Lorimer; the twisting and turning of Terry Cooper in yet another of his legendary attacks up the left wing; the no nonsense strength of hardman “Norman bites yer legs Hunter” as he stamps out yet another counter attack and blasts the ball away; Eddie Gray in full dribbling mode attacking and twisting and turning the defence; not forgetting Reaney and Madeley in stalwart defence roles, so often loping out of defence to start yet another attack.
That was football, the football that I remember, and will never forget.
Those were my own personal recollections.
The following is a short biography, courtesy of The Times online, of my favourite players from that team that I remember so well.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ ... 08&page=10
1) Billy Bremner (1959-76) 771 appearances, 115 goals
"You can't put into words what Billy Bremner meant to football." So said another irascible, preternaturally aged Scot, Sir Alex Ferguson. There are more skilled players in this list, but nobody better epitomised the bloody-minded brilliance of prime-time Leeds. John Wray, of the Telegraph & Argus, pinpointed this will to win, writing: "To sit in on a card session with the little fellow losing his cash is to experience something akin to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the explosion of an atomic bomb. He is an extraordinary competitor." He was the totem of the side whose football has been besmirched by selective editing.
Signed by Bill Lambton as a 15-year-old and rooming with a veteran named Don Revie, the homesick Bremner asked for a transfer. When Revie became the manager, he asked again, but the manager priced him out of the market by slapping a £30,000 price tag on his head. For his next trick, Revie converted him from an inside right-cum-centre forward to a midfield general. He was in the team for 17 years and then came back as manager. When he was dying, Allan Clarke, his closest friend, wanted to see him. "He sent word back that he didn't want me or any of the lads seeing him like that," Clarke recalled.
His achievements are manifold. The glory years began in 1964 with the second division title and took in two championships, an FA Cup, a League Cup and two Fairs Cups. It might have been so much more, but for Leeds fans it was enough. They have always liked hard players at Elland Road and Bremner could merge silk and steel. It is entirely right that the belligerent firefly is immortalised in bronze outside the ground, and entirely in keeping with the myopia of modern times that it took his death to prompt it. What is football about? "Days when you can cry your eyes out and walk on air," Bremner summarised. "There is nothing to compare."
3) Peter Lorimer (1962-78 & 1984-85) 703 apps, 238 goals
As a kid, I can remember the hairs standing up on the back of my neck when Leeds got a free kick and the Kop started singing "Ninety miles an hour". The youngest player in the club's history at 15 years and 289 days, Hotshot bagged a staggering amount of goals for the club in 17 years and then, pushing 40, returned for more. He was older, fatter and slower, but he was still the cleverest player in the team.
Lorimer is still the most readily visible of Leeds legends, having been recruited to the board and entertaining punters at his nearby Commercial pub. He also had interesting views on the decline and the Brian Clough era, not least the suggestion the champions should throw their medals in the bins. "You can take the piss out of young lads but not seasoned pros," he said. "I respected what he did at Derby and Forest, but Cloughie was a bully who came in to prove a point."
4) Allan Clarke (1969-78) 364 apps, 151 goals
"I thought I'd better leg it. I remember Mick taking on Bob McNab and Pat Rice, the full back, coming across to cover. As the ball's coming over I'm thinking right-foot volley and I fancy my chances. But when it was about ten yards from me it started to lose pace and I'm thinking it ain't going to get to me. Now you've only got a split second to make up your mind, so I think I better take off. So I did." And that was how Sniffer won the FA Cup for the only time in the club's history.
Simply the best finisher ever seen in a Leeds shirt, with 151 goals to prove it, Clarke was also an outsider, signed for a British transfer record £165,000 from Leicester City having turned down Matt Busby. He was a volatile figure but a defender of Leeds's reputation for dirty deeds. "I'd been on the other side of the fence. I'd been in opposition changing-rooms with the manager saying, 'Try and outfootball this side and they'll destroy you so rough them up a bit.'" The thoroughbred to Mick Jones's high-class workhorse.
5) Johnny Giles (1963-75) 525 apps, 114 goals
Johnny Giles was out of favour with Matt Busby at Manchester United but was enticed to the second division by Don Revie and Bobby Collins. Later, alongside Billy Bremner, he was the epicentre of the glory years. "The football we played from 1969 to 1974 was unbelievable," Giles said. "Some of the matches we played, particularly at Leeds - well, I've never seen better football before or since. People don't mention that."
The legacy might have been different, too, had the board accepted Revie's recommendation to appoint Giles as his successor. Instead, they chose voluble Leeds-hater Brian Clough. The sure sign that Giles was a legend, who could easily have topped this list, was being immortalised in song by Ronnie Hilton.
7) Eddie Gray (1965-84) 577 apps, 68 goals
The image of Eddie Gray, neck disappearing into his shoulders, dribbling towards a hapless full back was one of the indelible ones of Revie-era Leeds. Just about the nicest man in football, Gray might have been a global legend but for injuries. "If Eddie had been blessed with any sort of luck at all, he would have been a bigger name than George Best," Revie said. He then added: "When he walks on snow he doesn't leave footprints." Gray ruptured a thigh muscle aged 16 in Leeds reserves. "There were complications and, as a result, I never had the opportunity to play to my full potential," he said. "The thigh injury restricted me in every way, whether it be pace or striking the ball. I was always aware of it."
Which is quite something given that he was wonderful and made close to 600 appearances. Periodically shafted by the hierarchy afterwards, being sacked as manager on the back of a seven-game unbeaten run a particular low, Gray remains one of the good guys.
11) Norman Hunter (1961-76) 724 apps, 21 goals
One of the great myths of Leeds is that the place was full of hard-faced hatchet men crawling from sooty black buildings with poisoned studs. A few years ago Pat Collins, one of the country's best sports scribes, wrote of Leeds: "Thuggery was cherished." It is a view that grates with Leeds fans as it was only one side of a team. Hunter was a rock for Leeds and had the backing of his peers, winning the first PFA Player of the Year award. "He did not get enough credit for his skill," Kevin Keegan, who voted for him. said. "He could flight the ball beautifully with his left foot. A great player." Keegan thought so highly of him that he travelled from his home in Wales to play in Hunter's testimonial. "I drove 100 miles and the first thing he did was chop me down."
15) Mick Jones ( 1967-75) 312 apps, 111 goals
With all due respect, Mick Jones did not have half the skill of the man above him in the list, but he worked tirelessly for the cause and effectively provided the legs for Allan Clarke to help himself into Leeds lore. It was grimly apposite that Jones should dislocate his elbow in providing the cross from which Clarke scored the club's solitary FA Cup Final winning goal. Jones weighed in with his fair share of goals, too, but it was Clarke who took the glory. Clarke remembered bumping years later into Frank McLintock, who said of "Jonah": "There were so many times a ball was running out of play and he'd chase it. It was obvious nobody could catch it, but he kept running all the same, and because he was running I had to track back just in case. He'd never catch it, but he never gave up. I used to think, 'I could do without this.'" Clarke's only regret was he never got to play with Jones for England. "We were the most feared partnership in Europe," he said.
16) Paul Reaney (1961-78) 745 apps, 9 goals
Speedy Reaney was the best right back Leeds have ever had. He was fast, strong in the air and had a penchant for shackling prime-time George Best. Reaney made more than 700 appearances for Leeds and would have been even better but for the broken leg he suffered a week before the 1970 FA Cup Final. Reaney can still be spotted at Elland Road
19) Terry Cooper (1961-75) 350 apps, 11 goals
Bought as a winger but converted into an attacking left back, TC has become part of Elland Road folklore because, not only did he start the Revie era in earnest by getting the winner in the the 1968 League Cup Final against Arsenal, but he also wore white boots. That may sound inconsequential to the modern generation, well used to seeing players don pink, green and blue footwear, but this was an age when men were men and skin grafts were encouraged. But Cooper turned up in white boots set off nicely by his natty sock tags. The left has never looked so good.
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Nowadays I follow football only a little, and tend to support whoever takes my fancy on the day, apart from European or World cup matches when my patriotism understandably comes into play.
It's somewhere near Birmingham isn't it? 
