Leeds United, Southampton, and the 4th March 1972
Leeds play Southampton in the Championship play-off final this Sunday, and it's been 52 years since they met at Elland Road in a match that went on to enter MOTD's hall of fame.
When they got up on the morning of the 4th March 1972, the players of Leeds United already had cause for optimism. They were still four points behind Manchester City at the top of the First Division, but a week earlier Liverpool had beaten City 3-0 in the League while Leeds cruised past Cardiff in the FA Cup Fifth Round.
City remained four points above Leeds in the table, but Leeds now had two games in hand, as well as a superior goal average. Win those games in hand and Leeds could be on for their first league title since 1969. In their last league game, a fortnight earlier, they’d demolished Manchester United 5-1 at Elland Road. Life, it’s reasonable to say, was good.
But nerves would have been understandable, too. The television cameras of the BBC were coming to Elland Road that afternoon. Just under a year earlier, they’d been there as Leeds imploded against West Bromwich Albion, a collective loss of head which ended up hinting at the eventual destination of that year’s league title.
At that time, Leeds had been desperate for the win to stay in touch with a team above them from a home match to be shown that evening on the television against a team in 18th place in the table and three points above the relegation places. Southampton arrived at Elland Road in 18th place in the table and two points above the relegation places. The television cameras would be there.
Furthermore, Southampton’s form against Leeds wasn’t too bad. The previous November, they’d beaten Leeds 2-1 at The Dell, while in March 1970 a 3-1 Southampton win at Elland Road had kick-started the collapse of their season; they won just one and two draws from their final ten matches in all competitions, missing out on the League title to Everton, the FA Cup to Chelsea, and a place in the European Cup final to Celtic. The two teams were second and eighteenth that day, too.
The Leeds team that day is entirely familiar to those of a certain age, even today: Sprake, Reaney, Madeley, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles, Gray. Mick Bates on the bench. This was an industrial team for an industrial city which was stylising itself as “The Motorway City” for the new decade. In the same year that this match was played the M621 Loop, connecting the M62 to the city centre, the central plank of a policy which has left a lasting aftertaste, was built.
On the pitch, Leeds United were the team of ‘professionalism’. Hard-headed and uncompromising, aggressive when they needed to be. They weren’t popular outside their home city, but this was tempered for onlookers by their failure to win much silverware, and frequently the manner in which they failed. In both 1970 and 1971 they’d ended up potless as a result of late stumbling in the league.
***
But Manchester City’s defeat at Anfield coupled with the thoroughness of their win against Manchester United a week earlier means that there’s good reason to put any lingering doubts to one side on the 4th March 1972. It takes 38 minutes of fairly shapeless possession for them to finally get going. Bremner pushing the ball through to Gray. Allan Clarke in acres of space on the left and wide open for the pass, cutting in and shooting across the Southampton goal under no discernable challenge. There’s more than a hint of relief in the roar of the crowd when Clarke’s shot hits the net.
As the game restarts and the crowd settles, the creaking of floodgates is suddenly extremely audible. Leeds have a spring in their step and Southampton have offered them a glimpse of the whites of their eyes. Billy Bremner attempts a back-heeled flick on the edge of their penalty area. The need to prove a point is becoming evident.
Three minutes after the first goal comes a second. Southampton needlessly give the ball away when Bobby Stokes’ pass is intercepted by Eddie Gray and, again under no challenge whatsoever, Gray threads the ball wide for Peter Lorimer to again shoot across the goalkeeper for 2-0. Southampton at least make it to half-time at that score, but as the BBC’s commentator Barry Davies points out, they’ll have to completely shift their tactical focus if they want any chance of taking something from this game, because tight and defensive isn’t going to cut it any more.
And then the massacre begins. Five goals in sixteen minutes. Clarke’s second comes on the hour. Bremner to Giles, Giles—again under no challenge—threading the ball through to the striker to score. “We’re gonna win the league”, sing the home supporters. Four minutes later comes the fourth, again assisted by a by-now rapidly imploding Southampton defence.
Giles and Stokes end up in a tangle on the ground, Stokes’ leg swings out and diverts the ball straight into the path of Lorimer, whose angles shot flies in off the retreating Bob McCarthy, whose face-down position as the Leeds players celebrate the goal rather sums up the trajectory of Southampton’s afternoon. “I think that must count as an own goal”, says Davie, harshly. It was probably going in anyway, Barry, but you do you.
By this point, Southampton are starting to look demoralised. The Leeds players look visibly bigger than they do. When Leeds do have possession, they move the ball around quickly and easily. And on occasion, Southampton just gift it to them, as happens for the fifth goal. Roger Fry, under no pressure on the left hand side, passes the ball straight to Lorimer, who scores with considerable ease.
There are small pockets of resistance. Goalkeeper Eric Martin—who, it should be added, hasn’t really been to blame for any of these goals—makes an excellent save from a low Clarke shot, but it’s all somewhat in vain. Leeds simply move the ball over to the left hand side and a deep cross is met by a Jack Charlton header at the far post. Davies had already noted that Charlton wanted a goal that day.
By this point, the gaps in the midfield are massive. Gray gets away down the left and crosses to the far post for Lorimer to head back across goal for Mick Jones, who’s been the quietest Leeds player on the pitch, to scramble the ball over the line from three yards. 7-0, and there’s still more than a quarter of an hour to play.
Southampton spend those last 15 minutes chasing shadows. “To say that Leeds are playing with Southampton would be the understatement of the season”, purrs Davies, as Leeds set out on one of the most famous periods of possession in the history of English football that doesn’t result in a goal. Mick Channon seems to be furious at the rest of his team for allowing Leeds to make fools of them in this way. It’s all accompanied by a soundtrack of cheering as they keep possession of the ball until the final whistle. Leeds have proved their point.
***
But narrative arcs aren’t always smooth. This defeat wasn’t even the worst of Southampton’s season. They’d already lost 8-0 to Everton the previous November and they finished the 1971/72 season in 19th place, six points above the relegation places. They were relegated in third from bottom place in 1974, at the end of the first season following the expansion from two to three promotion and relegation places between the First and Second Divisions.
Leeds’ strong form continued throughout most of the rest of March, with wins against Coventry, Arsenal and Nottingham Forest (who they beat 6-1) and draws against Leicester and West Ham. But the title race contracted to one so tight that it’s never been seen before or since. By the end of the season four clubs—Leeds, Manchester City, Liverpool and Derby—were separated by a single point, but it wasn’t Leeds who ended up as the champions of England.
In the FA Cup, they sailed through past Spurs and Birmingham to the final and, in the year of the centenary final, beat Arsenal 1-0 to claim the competition for the first time. But by this point, their league season still wasn’t quite done. On the morning of Cup Final Day, Derby County were top of the table with 58 points, but had completed their fixtures and were already in Majorca on holiday.
But on Monday the 8th, just two days after the FA Cup final, came the denouement of the First Division title race. Leeds were at Wolves knowing that a draw would give them the title, while Liverpool were at Arsenal, hoping that Leeds lost because should they do so they could win it themselves by winning at Highbury. Manchester City, having already completed their fixtures, had already blown their chances over the last few weeks of the season with a run of just three wins from their last eight matches.
That this match was being played barely 48 hours after an FA Cup final was not uncontroversial. Leeds had requested a delay to the game, but Wolves commitment in the UEFA Cup final—the first leg of which they’d played five days earlier—the second leg of which was to be played on the 17th May, along with England’s crucial European Championship quarter-final against West Germany, which was to be played on the 13th, made this impossible. So Monday the 8th it was, then, whether Don Revie liked it or not.
Molineux was packed that night with a crowd of over 53,000 and with the gates shut long before kick-off, but Leeds came undone. The stresses and strains of another packed end of season had caught up with them. Mick Jones had dislocated his elbow in the closing seconds of that bruising FA Cup Final and was out, while several other players were now also carrying injuries. Allan Clarke and Johnny Giles had painkilling injections before the game, and Eddie Gray and Clarke both played with heavy strapping.
Wolves went two up before Leeds could get back into the game, and a Bremner goal wasn’t enough to get them over the line. Wolves won 2-1 and, with Liverpool only able to muster a goalless draw against Arsenal, Derby County were the shock champions. Leeds wouldn’t win the title again until 1974, the final valedictory trophy claimed by Revie’s Leeds.
The Wolves match would also prove controversial for other reasons, but not for some years. It has been repeatedly claimed that an attempt was made to fix the match so that Leeds got the result they needed. Four months after the game the Wolves players Dave Wagstaffe and Frank Munro told the Sunday People that attempts had been made to fix the game, although they both declined. Munro confirmed that he had two offers of large sums of money, one before and one during the game if he would give away a penalty. "I am not saying how much was offered but it was a lot."
Munro later repeated this allegation in more forthcoming terms in his autobiography Running With Wolves, alleging that Bremner, acting on Revie's behalf, had twice offered him £5,000 to give away a penalty during the match. He also claimed it was not just a spur of the moment decision on the pitch but a premeditated act before the game as well. Munro wrote:
I got a call on the Sunday from the Mount Hotel. That was when he first made the offer. He said I am to give away a penalty and I get five grand. I was tempted; five grand in 1972 would just about buy you a house. From what I understand I believe it had gone on for years. Don Readies they used to call him. I'm sure that's why he finished up so unpopular in the game.
Bremner later sued over the allegations, and the case ended up at the High Court in 1982 and was awarded £100,000 in damages. The publishers, Odhams Newspapers, and another Wolves player, Danny Hegan, were ordered to pay the damages plus the costs of the hearing, which were estimated at an additional £60,000.
After strolling to the 1974 First Division title at a canter, Revie left Leeds for the England job and an era came to a very sudden end. “Dirty Leeds” is a lasting epithet from that period, but the Leeds United of Don Revie weren’t solely cynics. They were also unlucky. In 1970, when chasing the treble, the domestic season was finishing early for the upcoming World Cup and they ended up falling at three hurdles in just a few short weeks. Two years later, they had to play a title-defining final league match of the season just a couple of days after an FA Cup final.
And they could play a bit, too. They demonstrated that on the 4th March 1972.
This piece is heavily dependent—particularly for the section on the Wolves match—on the incredible Mighty Leeds website, whose history of the club is as exhaustive as you could ever hope for.