Leeds were up for the double – but Wolves had other ideas
Division 1 Wolves 2-1 Leeds United
Monday, May 8, 1972
IN any other year the first Saturday in May would have marked the end of the domestic football season with the showpiece of the FA Cup final.
On this day in 1972 the match was indeed played but Wolves were left with two more huge games to contemplate. Leeds United overcame Arsenal to win the centenary Cup Final with an Allan Clarke header from a Mick Jones cross, before the latter fractured his collarbone to leave Wembley in a sling.
With the League and Cup double at stake and safely lodged in the Mount Hotel, Tettenhall Wood, on the Sunday evening, Leeds celebrated Jack Charlton’s 37th birthday. Derek Dougan made a fleeting visit to present the golden boot for the season’s top league scorer to Allan Clarke and said to Big Jack: “Seven out of ten times you’d beat us, but tomorrow night, sorry, there’s nothing for you.”
Charlton replied: “*** off, it’s a meaningless game for you.”
“A meaningless game in front of nearly 60,000 people?” recalled the Doog: “I dreamt we would go two up and hang on for a 2-1 win.”
Dave Wagstaffe added that there was no antipathy with the Leeds team as individuals though: “Everybody at the time hated Leeds, not the players but as a team because they were so good, so ruthless and so successful.” Derek Parkin agrees: “I certainly admired and respected Leeds. There were some great players and what Don Revie did was fantastic, but they were never really liked. They believed in each other so much and they must really have believed in Revie.”
It later transpired that attempts had been made before the game to bribe Wolves players, as Dave Wagstaffe remarked: “We were under pressure to get a result in that game because of the allegations. Before the game, (manager) Bill Mcgarry said: ‘I’m telling you anybody that doesn’t try I’ll make sure you’ll be investigated’. “Normally you’d be on holiday, but the atmosphere was tremendous.” Goalkeeper Phil Parkes felt particularly vulnerable: “If I made a mistake I was the first one they’d point the finger at. We won 2-1 and I was quite relieved.” In the event Parkes produced a man-of-the-match performance to foil Clarke and Billy Bremner and was singled out for praise by Leeds boss Revie. It was interesting to learn that the pre-match sleep of Manchester United’s players was disrupted
on the afternoon of Tuesday 2nd April 2019 in the build-up to a league clash at Molineux. They too were staying at the Mount Hotel and the fire alarm went off twice. Players had checked in the previous evening and prepared for the evening kick-off with a customary afternoon nap prior to the game. Their peace was disturbed when the hotel’s fire alarm went off twice, once at 2.30pm and then at 3pm.
Whether or not they chose to use tiredness as an excuse for their loss to the rampant Wolves they need to learn the lessons of history. Leeds players experienced similar sleep deprivation issues at the same hotel some 47 years earlier. Admittedly on that occasion it was rather more serious and directly attributable to raucous Wolves fans creating a lot of noise rather than some overnight act of God.
I dreamt we would go 2-1 up and hang on for the win Derek Dougan
With only 48 hours of rest and much of that disturbed, Leeds were able to field a full-strength, if exhausted, team. On a balmy May evening an official crowd of 53,379 packed into Molineux, although it is likely that the actual attendance was much greater given the kicking down of a South Bank gate and the numbers clinging to any available vantage points such as floodlight pylons. Somewhere between five and ten thousand people were locked out when the police ordered the gates to be closed a good half hour before kick-off.
A crush barrier on the South Bank gave way, injuring 32. As I watched proceedings from this end I recalls that we had never been so closely packed in, it was a struggle just to get your hands up far enough to scratch your nose.
Two key turning points in the game came in the second part of the first half. On 23 minutes Bernard Shaw appeared to have handled inside the area but referee John Gow waved away appeals, and three minutes before half-time Wolves took the lead.
Wagstaffe took a short corner to Shaw and his deflected cross fell to Frank Munro who stole in at the far post to stab the ball past Paul Reaney’s despairing lunge on the South Bank goal line.
In a feisty second half five players went into referee Gow’s notebook – Mccalliog, Shaw, Taylor, Clarke and Hunter. Although Wolves were on the back foot they doubled their lead on 67 minutes as Danny Hegan threaded a pass to Richards who helped it past Madeley into the path of Derek Dougan. From fifteen yards, the Doog strode on to calmly fire right-footed past Harvey.
An exhausted Allan Clarke, his left thigh heavily
strapped, was replaced by Terry Yorath, and Billy Bremner exchanged positions with Bates to move up front.
In the next Leeds attack, Bremner slid a pass from Paul Madeley high into the South Bank net. As Munro remembered, everything but the kitchen sink was now thrown at the Wolves’ defenders attempting to protect the South Bank goal: “Billy Bremner was already playing centre forward ... all of a sudden late on Norman Hunter and Jack Charlton were playing up front as well!” It was a frantic last twenty-plus minutes. Gerry Taylor cleared a Yorath header off the line and Leeds subsided in spite of the four minutes of injury time.
As a result of this and Liver- pool’s goal- less draw at Highbury, Brian Clough’s Derby
were handed the title.
Outraged Leeds players, including Charlton and Reaney, were said to have thrown their stocking tags at the referee’s door in disgust. Leeds had finished second, just as they had in four of the previous seven seasons.
John Richards, Wolves 1967 to 1983:
“One of my favourites was our game against Leeds United. There are many reasons for this – importance of match (to Leeds who were after the double), crowd size, buildup from both sets of fans, bribery allegations.
“It started off the Saturday before when I went to watch them win the FA Cup by beating Arsenal.i was only 21 and had never been to Wembley so I got some tickets and went with my pal from Warrington
and our girlfriends, knowing full well that we were playing Leeds at Molineux on the Monday.
“I departed the stadium amongst Leeds fans who were all talking about going to Molineux and beating Wolves. I was advised by my future wife Pam to keep my head down. My friend gave me his coat and hat and like a suspicious character from something like Maigret I shuffled through the jubilant Leeds supporters and managed to get through unrecognised.
“Whether there was any substance to (the rumours of attempted bribery) or not, none of the lads that had supposedly been approached ever talked about it. Whether they couldn’t or didn’t want to talk about it I don’t know but
Mcgarry made it absolutely clear that this was a big match for us even if we didn’t really have anything to play for. It just added a bit more spice to the game since we certainly didn’t want to be seen to be rolling over.
“All of our players were up for it and would have been anyway because Leeds were one of the top teams in the country. We had pride in our performance and didn’t want to finish the league season by not performing – remember we still had the second leg of the UEFA Cup final to come.
“Kenny Hibbitt, John Mcalle and me, we were only about 21 to 22 years old, young lads who’d only been professional for a few years, were suddenly in that floodlit arena. When we walked out of the tunnel you could see that you couldn’t have got any more people in that ground, nowadays it would be illegal. The attendance was officially 50,000 but there must have been at least 60,000 rammed in, the ground was literally packed to the rafters.
“The floodlights added to the occasion, whatever the reason, because in those days for most of your footballing career you played at 3pm on a Saturday. To play under the floodlights was an occasion – you had got to a higher level as the floodlights just gave it all that additional special something.
“We played out of our skins because of the accusations. It was probably the best we played all season, we were playing for pride. We played at their level, the highest level, we wanted to prove a point that the Wolves team wasn’t going to lie down and let Leeds, or anyone, get what they needed. We had some cracking games at Molineux in the early ’70s but the standard of play that night was magnificent – they were going for it, we were going for it and we went on to beat them.”
Kenny Hibbitt, Wolves 1968 to 1984:
“The Leeds match in 1972 was not necessarily my favourite but is the one that I remember most. It was a game of importance for both teams – them to win the double and us to win it because there was talk of backhanders going on.
“I thought they looked a bit tired. I remember Leeds walking into Castlecroft for training. Allan Clarke was in his slippers because his feet were so sore from the Cup Final. Don Revie had a massive job picking them up for the double, almost unheard of in those days. That wasn’t our problem though – we just had to go out and win the match to stop all the rubbish that was going around. We had to win it and we won it.
“It was tight and we did them! When Frank scored the fans were absolutely ecstatic – Leeds weren’t the most liked club around the country and the Wolves fans didn’t like them either. The whole crowd erupted and then Dougan scored the second goal. It was very enjoyable from then on, even though Billy Bremner scored and made it more touch and go.
“But we came out on top and I’ll always remember it, not just us for us winning the game but for other reasons too. We all know what went on during the game. Even years later we had national papers knocking on the door asking questions about it, but youngsters like me and John Richards never heard it.”
There must have been 60,000 rammed in, Molineux was packed to the rafters John Richards