grafikhaus
Kraft durch Freude
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.
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 – 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.
On Boxing Day, 1989 we drew at home with Leeds 2-2. This was the season we got ‘back-to-back’ promotions under Dave Bassett – from the third tier to the top tier (sounds familiar?) Leeds and the Blades finished the season on 85 points. We finished in second place, pipped for the champions title on goal difference... The first 4 minutes of this vid. covers it:
On Bank Holiday Monday, April 16, 1990 we met Leeds at Elland Road in a vital promotion clash that could decide who would go up to the top tier. As ever, Leeds bent the rules to ensure that as few Blades fans as possible would be there to support the Blades (as did Wednesday the other week). So just 1200 Blades were there for what would be a toxic atmosphere. I was one of them and hoped enough of ‘the lads’ would be there but, alas, a lot of our fans were dads and kids. I drove up incognito – parking well away from the ground and wearing no signs of my allegiances. What followed would be scenes I’ve rarely seen in English football. First off, a police helicopter was hovering overhead – utterly unknown at the time. Our tiny band was ushered in to a tiny, cramped and fenced-in area in the corner of the ground. On two sides, screaming spitting and snarling Leeds fans added to the atmosphere. A brief drizzle meant that a bag of sugar one of these scum had thrown at us had maximum stickability.
As kick-off approached the mood of the majority in the crowd of 32,697 reached fever-pitch. A huge white, blue and yellow flag was passed over the heads of the Leeds fans (again, something I’d never seen before), one of our players – John Gannon’s – girlfriend was hit by a flying bottle in the Lowfield stand and – as the players warmed up pre-kick off - our goalie Simon Tracy was loosening up by punting the ball downfield. As the balls entered the Leeds half, they refused to return them, meaning we soon had no football to warm up with. As I’ve said, pure scum. The Blades collapsed, lost 0-4 and it seemed our promotion dreams were over. However nineteen days later, we won famously 5-2 at Leicester and the Blades were going up!
More recently, we’ve had a couple of memorable cup games – both at home. A freezing cold night on November 6, 2002 saw us meet Leeds in the Third Round of the Worthington (League) Cup. 0-1 down at HT to an own goal by Steve Yates, the game was heading towards the final whistle. The crowd went wild when a sensational 35-yarder from Phil Jagielka in the 91st minute beat Paul Robinson in the Leeds goal and drew the scores level. ‘My voice has gone and I don’t care!’ said the commentator on Radio Sheffield. But more was to come! In the 94th minute Peter Ndlovu made it 2-1, the Blades had won and went on to beat Sunderland and Crystal Palace before losing a highly-contentious semi-final over two legs to Liverpool.
