Leeds United - the Greatest 50

LEEDS UNITED – THE GREATEST 50 PLAYERS
The Times Online: 24 March 2009.

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."

2) John Charles (1947-57 & 1962) 327 appearances, 157 goals

Over a pint in Peter Lorimer's pub, John Charles once told me how he had signed for Juventus despite never having heard of them and how he saved Omar Sivori, the 1961 European Footballer of the Year, from a Mafia bullet. The Argentinian had been threatened with sudden death if he scored in a particular game. Almost inevitably, a ball ricocheted off the back of his head and into the goal. Charles and his team-mates formed a protective cortege around Sivori and shuffled down the tunnel. Charles then scored the winner, but it was disallowed. He asked the referee why. "Like Mr Sivori, I want to get home safely," he said.

He was more than just a great raconteur. Equally at home up front or in defence, he was a softly spoken Everyman, although Jack Charlton took issue with the Gentle Giant moniker. "When he went on a surge he would leave a terrible trail of human devastation in his wake," he said. "Bloody gentle giant indeed!"

To get a real indication of how good Charles was, you have to look beyond Leeds. He scored 23 goals in 34 games for Juventus in 1960 and ended up with 93 from 150 in Serie A. His billing reputedly turned Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren green with envy, he sang on the same stage as Nat King Cole and he caused a national debate when he gave up a certain goal by kicking the ball out of play as an opponent lay injured in the Turin derby. That night, Torino fans gatecrashed his house and drank his wine cellar dry.

Utterly unpretentious, he reacted to getting his CBE by asking what it stood for. At his funeral, John Toshack read a self-penned poem. "A giant with a gentle touch, just watching him we learnt so much, I think you know the one I mean, the greatest player that’s ever been.” He later added: "We thought the sun shone out of his backside."

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 LeicesterCity 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.

6) Gordon Strachan (1988-96) 311 apps, 57 goals

Frequenters of the Pit of Smug Self-satisfaction, aka Old Trafford, often harp on about stealing Eric Cantona. Well, Leeds stole Gordon Strachan and Johnny Giles for half the price. Strachan recalls a halcyon age when Manchester United (note to all in the media, do not call them "United", you wouldn't have in 1991 so why now?) were useless.

Strachan had fallen out with Sir Alex Ferguson by 1988. "He's a difficult man to like," he said of Taggart's less vivacious sidekick. Strachan got the man-of-the-match award on his Leeds debut at Portsmouth and realised there was a problem when he was given 24 cans of beer as his prize. Under his stewardship, Leeds became more professional to telling effect. They won the old second division title in 1990 and won the last first division title, in 1992, before the Premier League era. Strachan was 34 and the heartbeat of the side.

"You can only do so much at a club and then it's like David Bowie, you have to reinvent yourself," he said of his move to Leeds. Strachan reinvented himself as Billy Bremner and we loved him for it. He even made Vinnie Jones look good.

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.

8) Jack Charlton (1952-73) 772 apps, 95 goals

He may not have been the most gifted of players and he admitted he watched Bobby Moore in the World Cup final and thought, 'I'll never be able to play this game,' but Jack Charlton was the igneous core on which Leeds's success was built, albeit that he had left before the second title was secured in 1974. A self-confessed jack-the-lad, who trained to be a miner, it was Revie who changed Charlton's life. However, in 1962, Leeds were almost relegated to the third division and Revie said he would sell him. Bill Shankly was interested and so was Matt Busby. In the end, he stayed put and formed a bad cop-bad cop combo with Norman Hunter.

They made a combined total of almost 1,500 appearances for Leeds, with Charlton named as the football writers' player of the year in 1967. The only other Leeds players to get the award have been Bobby Collins, Billy Bremner and Gordon Strachan.

9) Bobby Collins (1962-67) 167 apps, 25 goals

If anybody set Leeds on the road to the top, it was Bobby Collins. He was 31 when he pitched up in West Yorkshire from Everton, not having got Bill Shankly's covetous phone messages until too late, and he proved the forerunner of a timeline of diminutive, hard-boiled Scots who punched above their weight. Collins helped Leeds to survive dropping down to the old third division on the last day of the 1962 season and three years later was there as they lost the first division title on goal average.

His career suffered an inexorable shift when he was brutalised in a Fairs Cup match away to Torino. He broke his femur. Jack Charlton recalled that he ended up with a bolt through his leg like something from a scrapyard. "He thought it was funny," Charlton said. He also added: "Bobby would kill his mother for a result." When times were hard, it was Bobby Collins who was the difference.

10) Gary McAllister (1990-96) 294 apps, 45 goals

It was tempting when compiling this list to consider nobody until the Revie team had been covered, but that would be putting the collective efforts of a team over individual attributes. McAllister was arguably the most skilful midfield player to represent Leeds. Some fans were unhappy to see Vinnie Jones discarded after his role in the 1990 promotion season, but in terms of ability it was like comparing Sinatra and Sinitta. Gordon Strachan recalled that McAllister initially terrorised his team-mates verbally because he could not understand why they did not do as he did. The answer was they were not as good. The best £1 million spent in the past 30 years, McAllister formed the flair part of a perfectly weighted midfield quartet along with Strachan, Speed and Batty.

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."

12) Tony Currie (1976-79) 124 apps, 16 goals

If I was allowing personal prejudice to blind me to the facts then I would have put Currie at No 1. He is my favourite player because, by the time I was serious about football and not just reading the programme and watching Fred Dibnah wannabes climb the tallest floodlights in Europe, he was the ringmaster. He could pass and shoot - remember that banana shot against Southampton - and would sit on the ball and blow kisses to the crowd. Currie was pure entertainment, but he was no luxury player like Alex Sabella. In a different age (ie, now), he might have had 70 England caps, but he got 17 and, ironically, was cast into the international exile by Don Revie.

It was sad that Currie joined Leeds in 1976, as the team began the slow transition from best side in Europe to ne'er-do-wells heading for oblivion. But as the National Front peddled their propaganda outside the turnstiles and the hooligan years kicked in, Currie was the shining light. My hero.

13) Harry Kewell (1995-2003) 242 apps, 63 goals

I know this will have you spitting blood in Beeston, but ignore the inflated ego, the farcical exit and the failure at Liverpool and remember just how good Kewell was in his pomp. He was such a beautifully balanced runner with the ball and the goals he scored were astounding - the deft flick with the outside of the boot against Sheffield Wednesday, the 35-yard screamer against Aston Villa, the thunderous half-volley at Highbury. After the depression of the George Graham era, when any old lag could get a game, Kewell was the cure.

He has since been demonised in Leeds, which is shame because, in terms of natural talent, Kewell was as good as anyone on this list. Have a look on YouTube if you don't believe me.

14) Mark Viduka (2000-04) 166 apps, 72 goals

It is satisfying for the bitter fan to note that a lot of players have gone on from Leeds to hit a career lull. Kewell, Bowyer and Smith are the most obvious, but Viduka is another. Neutrals may now have him painted as a double barrel-chested Aussie with the mincing gait of a stuffed sloth, but Viduka was, and probably still is, lustrously talented. He was also prolific, bagging four goals against Liverpool at Elland Road in one afternoon, and when Leeds had a vast array of striking talent - Smith, Keane, Kewell, Bridges, Fowler - was the best of the lot. He scored 72 times from 162 starts and, given that most of those were deft chips or volleys, that is some return. His lofty position here should not be judged by what happened afterwards.

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 and, among his varied roles, he now acts as the agent for No 4 in this list. How did that happen?