by Rob Bagchi
Without Charles, most people feared the worst. Fortunately, Revie now stumbled by accident, as he freely admitted at the club’s next AGM, on a more penetrative formula. He switched Jim Storrie to centre-forward, the former Airdrie man proving himself a revelation, scoring with the frequency that had been expected of the illustrious Charles. This rich streak saw him score 20 goals in his remaining twenty-seven appearances that season, and was the main reason that Leeds entered December in a robust shape. For the first time in his managerial career, results had given Revie the breathing space to keep a settled side. From Charles’ departure onwards he essentially stuck to a team based on nine regular starters – Sprake, Reaney, Bell, Charlton, Hunter, Bremner, Collins, Storrie and Johanneson – with the other two places open to youth players like Addy, Johnson and even Lorimer, or veterans like Hair and Mason. All nine kept their places for four years.
Following Charles’ return to Italy, Leeds lost only once in nine games. It was slowly beginning to dawn on most fans that the messiah they were looking for was not Charles but their manager. The club itself, however, was in terrible shape. At the December AGM the accounts showed a loss of over £70,000 and debts amounting to £140,000. The club was only solvent thanks to the book value of the ground and the directors’ guarantees to the bank. But no one seemed to care as a gregarious Reynolds urged everyone to toast the new optimism around the club and give ‘thanks to our nursery policy’. ‘With a continued free hand and the backing of supporters,’ Revie enthused, ‘We’re on the way to having a good side.’ The ‘free hand’ had been there from day one; the backing of supporters was still some way off, as attendances initially returned to their pre-Charles average of around 15,000. At least with regular gate income to bank, however disappointing, the Board was confident that the financial situation would improve as rapidly as the team.
Like most clubs, Leeds United’s cash-flow came from gate receipts. It was the lifeblood of the club, paying for the maintenance of the ground and everyone’s wages. In 1961/62 the annual running costs were £83,000, of which £70,000 was covered on the turnstiles, with the shortfall made up by gifts from the various supporters’ clubs. The purchase of players was only made possible through the directors’ largesse but tellingly in the form of secured loans to the club. It was made perfectly clear that the club’s day-to-day costs were solely the supporters’ preserve. Paying for John Charles allowed the business magnate to indulge himself in a romantic dream; paying the canteen staff’s wages was a different matter altogether. The ‘I pay my own way, I say, I pay my own way’ stereotype of Yorkshiremen does hold some truth. If Leeds wanted a football team, the least the fans could do was fund its ordinary expenses.
Extraordinary circumstances then intervened. The winter of 1963, though not quite as severe, lasted even longer than the hard winter of 1947, hitting football far harder as a consequence. The whole of the north of England was frozen to a standstill under a blanket of ice. United’s FA Cup third round tie with Stoke City, scheduled for January, was postponed twelve times. From 22 December to 1 March the club was in hiatus, unable to fulfil any of its fixtures. The loss of seventy days’ trading would affect any business. Crucially, for a football club with large wage bills to sustain even though its income stream had dried up, there was only one solution. The directors had to shoulder the burden themselves. The Board reluctantly increased their personal guarantees to the bank, thus permitting a bigger overdraft. In addition, further loans were made by Reynolds, Cussins and Morris.
Leeds United emerged after its hibernation in early March, the team carrying on where it had left off, catapulting itself into the thick of a promotion race. It was a year too early, and with nineteen games to play, they were far off the pace. Moreover, the two points for a win system was prejudiced against the late surge; it was how a team started that counted. But they gave it a hell of a shot. In the remaining games Collins led from the front, often playing like a puppet-master on speed as he orchestrated attacks and co-ordinated his defenders with his dynamic passing, subtle use of space and ready courage to receive the ball from a team-mate, even when under intense opposition pressure. For football fans the definition of bravery is simple: a willingness to get hurt in the tackle. Leeds certainly had this in abundance, but players themselves have a more sophisticated concept: that a player should never hide – should be hungry for the ball however tight the situation, and have the technique and temperament to deal with it without panic. That was the major lesson Collins taught the youngsters. This, more than anything else, taught them the responsibility they had to the team. It made the club what it was to become in the decade to follow.
Of course, Leeds players were all too prepared to back each other up physically – they were notorious for it. But, more importantly, they backed each other up on the ball, which helped to eradicate the fear factor from possession and retention. It also gave the intelligent player far more options and the intelligent team far more attacking verve. In March 1963 Leeds finally began to play in the recognizable style of the ‘Glory Years’. Though the personnel would subsequently change, the first glimpses are certainly evident in Eric Stanger’s match reports from April. ‘Their football at times, imaginative, fast and crowned by hard shooting was better than much that has been seen even in the 1st Division this season. Leeds are blending in a harmony of purpose which comes from every player being prepared to put team needs before personal achievement.’ Bremner’s famous adage ‘Side before self every time’ was inspired by this notion of collective responsibility that emerged that spring, and though it was Revie who constantly preached its benefits, it was Collins who showed them how to do it. This is a microcosm of the Leeds way. Revie did the theory; Owen, Cocker and Collins took the practicals.
Of the six teams still in the promotion shake-up – the others were Stoke, Chelsea, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Huddersfield – United had the most games in hand, and by winning seven of their first ten games after the thaw, rapidly gained ground. The gangling Ian Lawson and the recently signed, fleet-footed Don Weston proved able foils for the rumbustious Storrie, who had developed into a tenacious centre-forward successfully encouraged to shoot on sight. In winning three games in four days over Easter, the unthinkable became a remote possibility. One man dissented from the consensus that such an inexperienced side could hardly hope to narrow the gap: Richard Ulyatt of the Yorkshire Post. With the ‘pertinacious Storrie’ and the ‘presiding genius Collins’, Leeds ‘finally have a team good enough to go up’.
It was not to be. In this most abnormal of seasons, with so many games crammed into April and May to compensate for the two-month shutdown, mental rather than physical fatigue was always likely to hamper such a young team. With nine games to play, Chelsea were in second place but United had three games in hand on their flashy rivals; Leeds were six points behind them with the two teams still to meet at Stamford Bridge. If Chelsea were to be overhauled – still technically possible – Leeds had to win all their games in hand and then inflict defeat on the Blues. They achieved a creditable 2–2 draw in that game but promptly lost three of their next four, consigning them to fifth place. Don Revie learned the superiority of points in the bag to games in hand the hard way. All Leeds’ subsequent success in the league came as front-runners. They were never happy in the chase.
It had been the slimmest of chances but Revie didn’t seem so perturbed they hadn’t made it. If they weren’t ready, they weren’t ready. Confident in the knowledge of ‘even more young players up his capricious sleeve’ (Stanger), he knew the breakthrough was imminent. Always looking for greater personal security, in May he asked for and was offered an improved three-year contract, which made him the best-paid manager outside the First Division.
He would remain touchingly grateful to the older players who had tried to bring stability to the club. Indeed, he would always make a fuss of them when they visited Elland Road and tell his team with a touch of hyperbole that if it were not for people like Cliff Mason,
for example, there wouldn’t even be a Leeds United. In two seasons he had tried and failed to construct a capable team around the players from his own era. In nineteen games he had seen what could be achieved with players from his own mould. After two years of unbridled mediocrity, the Revie Plan Mk II stood on the threshold of success.
FIVE
ANYTHING GOES
In the summer of 1963 the nation was preoccupied with the twin attractions of the Stephen Ward vice trial and the Great Train Robbery. There was little room for the ephemeral football gossip concerning transfers and prospects. Even England’s test cricket annihilation at the hands of Frank Worrell’s West Indians received relatively scant coverage. In an age where we’re used to football’s unrelenting stream of speculation and all manner of unsought-for trivia, it can be disconcerting to discover that, as recently as the mid-1960s, once a season finished, there was no real news about a club or its players for more than six weeks.
Strangely little, however, was made at the time of another of Don Revie’s superstitions. In 1963, in the belief that Elland Road was haunted by a ‘gipsy’s curse’, he arranged for the ground to be exorcized. The transformation of his image from lovable ‘eccentric’ to ‘nutter’ was to happen much later. One has to remember that this sort of nonsense is not unusual in football. As late as the 1990s, Barry Fry, then manager of Birmingham City, would cheerfully recount how he had urinated in the four corners of St Andrew’s to ward off the evil spirits affecting his club. Revie, too, was never self-conscious about his superstitiousness, and in 1970 allowed Yorkshire TV to film his pre-match routine, expounding on his habits in the commentary. ‘I have the same blue suit on that I’ve had since the first match of the season,’ he said, ‘the same lucky blue tie, one or two lucky charms in my pocket – I have a spot up here, I walk up to the traffic lights every time, I turn around and walk back to the hotel.’
This bizarre promenade and all his other little foibles have been held up to ridicule, but essentially they were no more than harmless little rituals that comforted him. It’s discernible from his droll voice over that he, more than anyone, was aware of how silly it appeared. However, he continued to see his little ceremonies as a principal part of his match preparation, refusing to leave anything he might be able to control, however illogical, to chance.
The close season activities of the Leeds staff were as unpretentious as the men themselves. Fred Goodwin, for instance, was coaching in Rhodesia; Jack Charlton whetted his entrepreneurial skills in the Bradford cloth trade; Billy Bremner and his young bride visited friends and family; and Don Revie was on his usual golfing break in Scotland. All the previous season’s exotic activity was replaced by a calmly confident sense of expectation. This time the priority was not consolidation, that dread word which depresses all football fans, but consistency; as the manager put it in full cliché mode, ‘A good start is half the battle.’
The players’ fitness had reached new levels, too. During the three-month mid-winter lay-off, Les Cocker had been able to take the players to the gym every day for his merciless stamina-building sessions. For those players who habitually liked nothing more strenuous than five-a-sides, it had been hard work, but they were quick to note its efficacy. In the fixtures that followed the break, they found they could intimidate teams with a hard-running ‘pressing’ game without running out of steam after an hour and conceding critical goals in the later stages, a practice that had plagued them all season. ‘Considerable determination in a rugged style,’ was one observer’s description. They could still be outplayed on occasion, but they were never again to be outrun or outfought.
So much for the improvement in the players’ bodies. What happened to their minds? In recent years the application of sports psychology has made great strides – many football teams striving to build ‘team spirit’ have come to rely on principles largely derived from the pithy aphorisms of the American Football coach Vince Lombardi. Back then expediency – subsequently and erroneously tarted up as a kind of modernist masterplan – was the keynote. Don Revie’s players speak of him as a genius at man-management, often citing the fact that by 1970 he had eighteen internationals on his books and contrived to keep them all happy. This wasn’t psychology, though: it was more of a technical skill – juggling players’ egos, mollycoddling some, kicking others, as their personalities required. Pure common sense, in other words. Revie was always available for morale-boosting one-to-one chats, but the whole science of developing the individual’s focus through self-analysis or visualization would have been anathema to him.
Revie’s was a more practical goal: ‘club spirit’ rather than ‘team spirit’. This demanded an institutional focus, not one exclusive to the players – forging a broader coalition throughout the club from the boardroom down, which included its entire staff and other diverse elements, from the stringers at the local papers to local businessmen in the executive supporters club, and most of its fans. How he achieved this was very similar to the methods used by Matt Busby and Bill Shankly: common courtesy, charisma and, most important of all, conviction.
There was soon evidence of this grand club spirit. Two members of Revie’s backroom staff declined senior positions at other clubs. Maurice Lindley, the Assistant Manager and Chief Scout, could have gone to Hull City as manager in the summer of 1963, a job that guaranteed much greater income and prestige. But he opted to stay, telling the Yorkshire Evening Post, ‘Things are better here now almost to a degree you would have not thought possible.’ Similarly, Syd Owen, rumoured to be joining Bill Nicholson’s staff at Tottenham, reflected that no headhunter could have persuaded him to desert a project that had been built on his sweat. He was very happy at Elland Road, he announced, ‘And I want to see our present young players grow on into the first-class players I am sure they will become.’ Most remarkably of all, even Jack Charlton’s obsessive grumbling had slightly diminished.
Revie still had a couple of problem areas to deal with, however. His first dilemma was what to do with Billy Bremner, who had experienced such a loss of form towards the end of the previous year that he had been dropped. Bremner never took this sort of treatment lightly and resolved once again to return to Scotland for good. ‘I was playing at inside-right,’ he remembered in his autobiography, ‘and nothing, it seemed, would go right for me. In fact I got the bird from the crowd. Well, what with being fed up anyway, and getting the bird from the crowd at Elland Road, I was really browned off.’ Dismayed by the fickleness of the fans, he was transfer-listed at his own request. Unbeknown to him, though, Revie kept up a subtle, manipulative game with his asking price to deter suitors like Celtic and Hibernian while he figured out Bremner’s ideal role in the team.
Revie had maintained for years that Bremner was the brightest talent at the club, and in a team that had long had trouble scoring, using him in the forward-line was pretty obvious. But though it had worked – 30 goals in three seasons – Revie recognized that it wasn’t the best use of the player’s talents. In August 1963 he decided to move Bremner permanently into midfield, a decision based on the Scotsman’s grittiness as much as anything. The ploy paid off handsomely. His performance in a pre-season friendly against Roma (another part of the Charles severance package) showed real glimpses of maturity and commitment. The old impetuosity still simmered beneath the surface, but Revie was persuaded that Bremner’s energy and ability, allied to the tricks learned from Collins, made him, despite his lack of inches, the perfect candidate at right-half.
Bremner’s switch now left a gap in the attack, in the one area Revie had always struggled to fill: the number 7 shirt. In the past three years he had operated a revolving selection policy, calling on Bremner, Francis, Mayers, Hawksby, Weston and Henderson as makeshift out-side-rights. None of them had made the position his own, and it left Leeds alarmingly lop-sided, as the midfield was instinctively inclined to distribute the majority of possession to the more consistently penetrative Johanneson on the left. Revie had long since been targeting one
player as his long-term solution for the right flank, but he was faced with two difficulties: wringing more money out of the Board and prising the player away from a club that footballers seldom voluntarily abandoned. Drunk on debt, the directors released another £30,000 without hesitation. As for the second problem, Matt Busby was about to make the greatest misjudgement of his career.
The object of Revie’s interest was Johnny Giles. When he learned that, despite a decent contribution in the FA Cup Final only weeks before, Busby would not be picking him for Manchester United’s opening fixture of the 1963/64 season, Giles had had enough. He’d been dropped before but had hitherto remained convinced that Busby would ultimately have to recognize his ability. By the Tuesday after the opening fixture he was transfer listed, and moments after the news had broken, Revie was joyfully speeding over the Pennines. It took less than a day to wrap up the whirlwind £33,000 deal. A year before, it had taken four months to sign John Charles. In 1963 it took a mere four days to sign a player that Revie had coveted for just as long.