by Rob Bagchi
In the wake of their seventh straight win United’s dressing room was honoured by a visit from Vernon Stokes, chairman of the FA Disciplinary Commission. The man who had hung the £3,000 fine around Leeds’ neck also wanted to add his compliments. According to Revie, Stokes told the players they were setting a ‘wonderful example for everyone connected with English football’. For the newly PR-savvy Leeds manager, that one comment was as important as the seven wins. Or so he claimed: ‘By not disputing referees’ decisions, or becoming involved in feuds with opposing players, our lads have been able to devote 100% attention to their football.’
Revie was relishing his new incarnation as the scourge of negativity. In his programme notes for the game against Wolves on 5 September, he railed at managers who were constantly traducing the game’s image. ‘Stop this constant bickering and sniping,’ he implored. ‘It serves no constructive purpose whatsoever … I am slowly sinking in a surfeit of bad publicity. All I seem to read in the back pages is how bad the game is.’ If Revie detected any irony in such sentiments, he didn’t let it show. He did, however, issue a rather defensive explanation of why the aesthetic appeal of the 1974 Leeds team contrasted so sharply with the 1964 vintage, as ever calling his favourite witness in his defence: ‘Bill Shankly once made an apt summing up of what Division Two football is all about when he said: “You can’t play your way out. You’ve got to claw your way out.” It hurts me to admit now, but Leeds certainly clawed their way out of Division Two.
‘Our championship success that season was due to a rather defensive, physical style which made us probably the hardest team to beat in the League … Once we got a goal I would light a cigar, sit back on the trainers’ bench and enjoy the rest of the game, secure in the knowledge that it would need a minor miracle for the other side to equalise. Maybe we did not exactly endear ourselves to the soccer purists in those days, but we had to be realistic. Had we attempted to produce the uninhibited, constructive football which is a hallmark of today’s Leeds team, we would probably still be languishing in Division Two.’
A reasonable hypothesis, one supposes, but what Revie omitted to explain is why he had persisted with that reductive approach for so long after promotion had been won. Had it been jettisoned earlier, even his own players maintained, his side might have won more. Now, however, Revie was displaying the missionary zeal of the true convert. ‘It’s essential that more [league managers] put the emphasis on open, attacking football,’ he insisted, ‘creating a situation whereby players are given the chance to express themselves and therefore develop their basic skills.’
By mid-September 1974 the Sunderland manager Bob Stokoe was among those proclaiming – perhaps mischievously – that the title race was already over. Billy Bremner dismissed the suggestion as ‘silly talk’ and, indeed, a week later United would drop their first point. A crowd of 47,000 packed in to Elland Road to see Tommy Docherty’s Manchester United, the last side to beat Leeds in a home league match, scuffle their way to a goalless draw. The Manager of the Month award for August tempered Revie’s disappointment, all the more so since it was presented to him before the game by Eric Morecambe, then a director of Luton Town.
Ipswich Town ejected a weakened Leeds team from the League Cup a week later. This was of negligible interest to Revie, preoccupied as he was with the idea of remaining unbeaten in the league, an achievement that he calculated would secure his place in the pantheon of great post-war managers. It was beginning to seem possible, though an injury to Eddie Gray in the Manchester United game did not aid his cause. The winger would play just once more that season. Injuries, the bane of his last three seasons, threatened to ruin a fourth when United suffered a further blow before the home match against Liverpool with the loss of Johnny Giles to a long-term calf problem. Fortunately, Mick Bates proved a capable deputy, and a Mick Jones header secured a narrow victory. Giles, too, would be absent for most of the season.
On 15 December a 2–1 win at Chelsea saw Leeds overhaul Liverpool’s record of nineteen games unbeaten from the start of the season, but their play was becoming less fluent, victories no longer seemed effortless, and they were being punctuated with draws. One particularly lacklustre display provoked the manager’s wrath: ‘The boss read the riot act,’ recalled Peter Lorimer, ‘… tore into us. The lads were a bit shocked he came on so strong.’
One source of satisfaction for Revie was the dramatic improvement in attendances at Elland Road. Not even the Leeds public could cavil at the entertainment on offer that particular year. In the early months of the season the average gate topped 40,000, something Revie thought he would never see. Away from home his team were the top attraction, notwithstanding George Best’s short-lived return to Manchester United. For once Leeds were bucking the trend – the gradual decline in football attendances, which would reach its peak in the 1980s, was already well underway. By the end of November fourteen of the twenty-two First Division clubs were reporting a decline on the previous season. Chelsea and Everton had suffered falls of 8000 and 7000 respectively.
High gates alone did not generate big profits to invest in new players. Then – as now – the Leeds manager stressed that a lengthy run in Europe was essential to generate much-needed funds. The Leeds public’s appetite for the UEFA Cup was less keen, a partial reflection perhaps of Revie’s waning interest in a competition the club had already won twice. After a crushing aggregate win over the Norwegian amateurs of Stromsgodset Drammen, some 27,000 turned up for the second-round tie with Hibernian. Both legs ended in stalemate, with United eventually prevailing in a penalty shoot-out in Edinburgh. The home leg of the third round, against the Portuguese side Vitoria Setubal, attracted only 14,000. Leeds won by a single goal while Revie watched from the stand – he had been banished from the dugout by UEFA after remaining on the pitch while the penalties were being taken at Easter Road. ‘I think we’ll manage to get through, though we’ll miss the look of anxiety which the boss always has on his face when sitting in the trainers’ dugout,’ said Billy Bremner. ‘He shows so much emotion during a game, I think he must die a thousand deaths every match.’ Revie’s team selection for the away leg, however, suggested he was saving his players’ energy for more significant battles ahead. Bremner, Hunter and Jones were all missing for the game in Portugal, along with the injured Giles and Eddie Gray. To no one’s great surprise, United went down 3–1.
Just after Christmas, Leeds’ unbeaten league run came within seconds of being ended at St Andrews, Birmingham. A Joe Jordan goal rescued a point three minutes from time. Over the next few weeks the murmurings that Revie’s men had run out of steam would rise to a crescendo. The New Year would begin with a glut of draws, though an impressive 3–1 home win over Arsenal steadied fraying nerves. The sparseness of the crowd – just 26,000 – was partly explained by the energy crisis then gripping the nation: a ban on floodlighting dictated that the match had to be played on a Tuesday afternoon. Before the game, Revie had interrogated his players on the reasons for their declining form, which had seen them draw four of the previous five league games. Billy Bremner’s account of the meeting suggested the manager had reverted to type – the team was not performing ‘professionally’ enough. ‘At our chat we agreed we were a little slack at throw-ins and free-kicks and we were not challenging strongly enough when the opposition were in possession.’
Revie’s local newspaper column betrayed his growing anxiety. Its theme was the nervous tension to which players – and managers – were increasingly subject to in a game where money was talking ever more loudly. Liverpool’s Steve Heighway, apparently, had been troubled by excessive blinking in matches, and complained of ‘huge emotional ups and downs’. Revie empathized with the stricken winger. Many Leeds players took sleeping pills the night before a match, he revealed, while the highly-strung Bremner would disappear to his hotel bedroom on away days and not be sighted until the following morning. ‘Fans and critics annoy me sometimes,’ he declared, ‘because they just don’t appreciate ho
w easy it can be to make mistakes when there’s so much at stake financially and there’s an audience of thousands, occasionally millions.’
A comfortable 2–0 win at Old Trafford against a Manchester United team battling relegation took Leeds’ unbeaten run to twenty-nine matches. Revie’s men were nine points clear of a Liverpool side that had finally hit form, though Bill Shankly’s men had a game in hand. The gulf was huge but bridgeable. Leeds still had to play seven other top ten sides, among them Liverpool at Anfield. Once again Revie had transmitted his doubts to his players, and once again his neurosis would inhibit his team. The first hint of imminent implosion came at Elland Road on 19 February in a fifth-round FA Cup replay against Second Division Bristol City. In front of an incredulous Bill Shankly, Leeds lost by the only goal, their first home defeat of the season.
After an absence of almost two years, Terry Cooper finally returned to duty the following Saturday on the substitute’s bench for the league game at Stoke. For a while it appeared that normal service had been resumed, despite the absence of Jones, McQueen and Reaney. Goals from Bremner and Clarke within the first 20 minutes saw Leeds establish a two-goal lead. However, the loss of Giles before the restart with a hamstring strain proved a bridge too far for Revie. Too many players were injured or carrying injuries, and too many more were playing out of position. Suddenly Leeds looked disjointed. Stoke stormed back into the match, drawing level before half-time. The onslaught continued after the break, and as Leeds went 3–2 down in the 68th minute, tempers began to fray. Clarke and Cooper were booked for disputing a goal kick decision with referee John Homewood, Revie’s early-season ‘good behaviour’ injunction conveniently forgotten.
Revie had burdened his thin squad with a task that no top division side has ever achieved and his reaction to defeat was hardly constructive. All his players remember that his response was his usual threat to ‘get the chequebook out’ if they didn’t come back properly from this defeat. It was an astounding ploy, not least because they’d only lost one game. In any case, he’d used it so often it had clearly lost its impact. The players didn’t respond, or at least not as their manager would have wished. Draws against Leicester City and Newcastle United followed, before a scrabbled 1–0 victory over Manchester City.
The 16 March clash with Liverpool was billed as a potential title decider, and the gates were locked at Anfield 75 minutes before kick-off. Enigmatic as ever, Revie said he had named a squad of thirteen for the game because he was superstitious. It proved an unlucky decision. A goal from an unblinking Steve Heighway eight minutes from time gave Liverpool the points. It was the eighth time that season that a goal in the last 10 minutes had clinched a draw or a point for Liverpool, a habit they would sustain for years to come. ‘We planned to attack, but Liverpool’s pressure was so great we just could not get going,’ said Bremner. ‘In short we were cuffed and we deserved to be.’
Leeds’ lead at the top was now cut to six points, while Shankly’s men also had two games in hand. The title was still in United’s hands, but its destination was no longer a foregone conclusion. Bremner set a target of 12 points from the last 14, but it was to prove too optimistic. A week later Leeds plunged to a 4–1 defeat at home to Burnley, who were then seventh in the table. Burnley’s manager Jimmy Adamson had once claimed he would make them the team of the 1970s. A few years later he would fail to make Leeds the team of the 1980s. ‘Leeds were haunted by doubt, undermined by misunderstandings … their reputation was on the verge of destruction,’ wrote Brian James in the Sunday Times. The shock result followed an astonishing snub by the Burnley directors and their autocratic chairman, Bob Lord, in response to Manny Cussins’ warning that if Lord had appeared in the boardroom or director’s box at Elland Road, he would walk out. Lord’s offence had been his well-publicized anti-Semitic remark the previous year during the negotiation of a TV rights deal, that ‘We have to stand up against a move to get soccer on the cheap by the Jews who run television.’ The Burnley Board had countered by boycotting the game en masse.
In an attempt to arrest the decline, Revie dropped Peter Lorimer for the next game at West Ham and restored a partially fit Giles to the midfield. The slump continued. United were beaten 3–1 after taking the lead. At 1–1 Clarke had seen a perfectly good goal disallowed for offside, and his bad day was compounded when he was booked for haranguing the referee. For the first time Liverpool were now in a position to overhaul Leeds, but Revie remained optimistic. ‘I had the feeling that we turned the corner at Upton Park. We gave one of our best performances of the season, particularly in the first half, and we had only ourselves to blame for the goals we conceded.’ It was a shrewd observation, but Revie was taking no chances. Paul Madeley and Norman Hunter were withdrawn from an England international against Portugal, much to the chagrin of Alf Ramsey. The FA claimed they had not been notified in time that the players were injured. Suspiciously, both men returned for the visit of Derby.
The Rams had a grim record at Elland Road, but Dave Mackay, who had replaced Brian Clough as manager, was confident. ‘Derby are playing better than at any time since 1972,’ he said. ‘Leeds have something of an inferiority complex because of missing out on so many trophies in the final weeks of the season, and I think we can win.’ The match saw a welcome return to form for Peter Lorimer and put Leeds firmly back on the title trail. It was Lorimer who lobbed home the first goal in a 2–0 victory, his first from open play since 8 September. There was to be no return to the imperious form of the early weeks of the season, however. Jittery draws followed away to Coventry and at home to Sheffield United in a run of three matches in four days. As usual, Leeds had not been spared the traditional Easter fixture pile-up, and United travelled to Bramall Lane just twenty-four hours later for the return game. At half-time the match was goalless and Liverpool had already scored four against Manchester City. Disaster beckoned.
Ironically, it was to be the recently pilloried Lorimer who would prove the hero, together with a limping but always game Mick Jones. Lorimer scored twice in the second half to give Leeds a crucial victory. Lorimer scored again in a 3–2 win over Ipswich the following Saturday as the Liverpool derby at Anfield ended 0–0. Clarke, Cherry and Bremner were all booked for time-wasting, though this particular manifestation of gamesmanship could surely be excused. Liverpool could only win it now were they to win each of their remaining three games against Arsenal, West Ham and Tottenham. Bill Shankly, who doggedly refused to concede the crown, also needed Leeds to lose at Queens Park Rangers.
To their immense relief United were spared the prospect of another last-gasp calamity. A Ray Kennedy goal gave Arsenal victory at Anfield and took the championship to Leeds for the second time. ‘The players were secretly praying that Arsenal would do it,’ said Lorimer. ‘The tension at QPR on the Saturday would have been unbearable.’ As he sifted through the greeting telegrams on his desk the next day, Revie ventured the opinion that Leeds’ second title win was a greater achievement than the first. In 1968/69 the side had kept to a settled formation, but this year had had to do without as many as five internationals at a time. ‘I feel as though someone has come along and lifted six tons of coal off my back,’ the manager added. ‘I feel as though I am walking on air.’
It had been a great week for Revie, said a jubilant Les Cocker – ‘the championship, This is Your Life and he even beat Val Doonican at golf. Shankly, his ‘double’ hopes dashed, was dignified in defeat. ‘My congratulations. I know Leeds care about everyone from the cleaning ladies right through, and that’s how it should be.’ One of those laundry women to whom the Liverpool manager was referring was Kathleen Smith: ‘We must wash about 200 shirts a week,’ she exulted, ‘but this has made it all worthwhile.’
FOURTEEN
SUSPICIOUS MINDS
Mrs Smith never had to wash Don Revie’s training kit again.
Most summers for the past five years he had flirted with the idea of leaving, but had always allowed himself to be persuaded to stay. As ea
rly as 1971, he’d been preparing for a life away from the game, negotiating a ten-year consultancy deal with the United board to commence on New Year’s Day 1980 as part of an inducement not to walk out when suitors came calling. In 1974, he knew that in six years time, he could happily retire to a life of golf and punditry and still pick up £10,000 a year for turning up to a few board meetings. To get to that point, however, he was going to have to leave or else start the dismantling process forthwith. It became increasingly obvious which proposition he preferred.
For most of May and June 1974, while Bremner, Harvey, Jordan and Lorimer were starring for Scotland at the World Cup in West Germany, press speculation in England was still focused on the identity of Sir Alf Ramsey’s successor as England manager. Initially, at least, Revie’s name was not prominent in the predictions, which ludicrously favoured such luminaries as Leicester’s Jimmy Bloomfield, Coventry’s Gordon Milne and QPR’s Gordon Jago. In public Revie continued to express no interest, vowing that he had waited five long years for another crack at the European Cup and professing his distaste at how the FA had ditched Ramsey. But in private he was busy responding to feelers put out by Ted Croker, the secretary of the FA.
The go-between was the Sunday People’s Tom Holley, United’s former centre-half who had been a stalwart of the team on either side of the war and had covered the Elland Road beat throughout Revie’s tenure. He was summoned by Revie and told to approach Dick Wragg, the chairman of the FA’s international committee, to stress that the Leeds manager wanted the England job offered by Croker despite his public hints that his loyalty to his employers was too robust to break. It was the start of much clandestine to-ing and fro-ing, so reminiscent of his dalliances with Birmingham City, Sheffield United, Everton and Panathinaikos, but this time Revie did not pull back from the brink and, after four previous aborted threats to leave, finally tendered his resignation at the beginning of July. The prospect of abandoning his professional family and enduring long, lonely spells in White’s Hotel, Lancaster Gate, away from Elsie and his children, who would stay in Leeds, did not dissuade him.