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Kraft durch Freude
Memries of Leeds Part 2
I’ll say it straight away – I hate Leeds. As a Blade fan first and a football-lover second, Leeds United have left an indelible stain of the game we all love.
I did ‘Memries of Leeds’ on October 24th,2017 and I like to think I’ve improved things since then, so here, I’ve refined the original and added the latest bits. Since then, we’ve met just once – in my opinion the second-best result of the season. On Friday 27th October, 2017 in a game live on Sky, the Blades won 2-1 with goals from Billy Sharp and a stunning winner from David Brooks. The crowd of 34,504 saw United lead with an early goal from Billy Sharp. Leeds equalised and – under as lesser manager who would probably settled for a draw, Chris Wilder’s Blades went on to see a stunning goal from David Brooks secure all three points.
Or a (very funny) alternative view!
And finally a long (21m 29s) but - as usual - superb vlog from Dem Blades:
Recent-ish meetings:
Full history Sheffield United v Leeds United.
Starting in the 60s under Don Revie (Leeds manager from 1961 to 1974), Leeds often bent the rules to (and beyond) breaking point. Often indulged by referees and officialdom, thugs such as Bremner, Giles, Hunter etc. inflicted savagery on opposition players. I once saw Allan Clarke boot the ball into the back row of the John Street stand with no Blades player nearby. Naturally, he put his arm up appealing for the throw-in! Cheating is in Leeds’ DNA.
In Revie’s time, Leeds were employing every psychological trick in the book to gain the upper hand. In Hunter Davies’ superb book The Glory Game, he described how an FA Cup Quarter Final match on 18th March 1972 between Leeds and Spurs witnessed some remarkable scenes. Leeds entered the pitch in matching track suits with the names of the wearers on the back, they had (poncy) little blue tabs on their sock tie-ups with the players’ numbers on them and they performed carefully-choreographed warm-up routines. The effect? Most of the 43,937 crowd were whipped into a frenzy and Leeds won the game 2-1.
The 1974 Charity Shield (a generally good-natured pre-season game played at Wembley between the FA Cup winners and the Champions) was despoiled by Leeds and an unseemly brawl between Bremner and Kevin Keegan resulted in both players being sent off.
Brian Clough’s brief stint (44 days) was summed up in this clip from The Damned United:
What has made it worse is that United have consistently sold our best players to Leeds – Mick Jones, Tony Currie, Keith Edwards, Gary Hamson, Alex Sabella, Brian Deane, even Paul Beesley.
My first visit to Leeds was on 6th April, 1968. The week previously, we’d met there in the Quarter Final of the FA Cup and lost 0-1 in front of a crowd of 48,322. Times woz ‘ard and mi dad couldn’t afford both games, so he decided we’d go to the League game in the top-flight. We stood on the large, uncovered terrace behind the left-hand goal as you watch it on TV. Their ‘kop’ was behind the opposite goal, a shitty little corrugated iron dump call the ‘Scratching Shed’. This time the crowd had dipped to 31,059 and we lost 0-3. At the time we had a couple of useless lumps playing, the Wagstaff brothers – Tony and Barry. My one and only recollection of this miserable game was Tony receiving the ball on the penalty spot in front of us. He turned round (what seemed about three full turns) before nonchalantly blasting the ball over the bar. Just over a month later, we lost at home to Chelsea on the last game of the season and were relegated to the second tier.
The season of 1974/75 was a good one for the Blades. We finished in 6th place in the top flight and narrowly missed out on a place in Europe. Not so good was an early meeting with Leeds at Elland Road (21st September 1974) where we lost 1-5, our only goal coming from Bill Dearden in front of 33,739.
Only five media clips per post allowed, so gimme ten minutes so I can post two more bits!
