A BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS FOR BILLY AND JACK
Two of Leeds United’s greats, Billy Bremner and Jack Charlton, are coming round from celebrating winning the 1972 FA Cup. on the breakfast menu are cigarettes, beans and toast.
‘oh, he liked his cigs,’ Charlton said of Bremner. ‘well, we both did. Smoking in them days was not as bad — the only places we weren’t allowed to smoke was on the train to games or on the team bus. Nowadays if you smoke, everyone looks at you in strange ways, but not then. Billy smoked, I smoked, a few of the lads did. I smoked during the close season but not when the season started.’
The 5ft 5in Scotsman and 6ft 2in Englishman look unlikely bedfellows but these two were together like fish and chips from the moment in 1958 that 16- year- old Bremner joined 23-year- old Charlton at Elland Road. Six weeks after his 17th birthday, Bremner made his Leeds debut at Stamford Bridge in January 1960 and Charlton was on the pitch with him.
That is where they would stay: Charlton made 773 Leeds United appearances, Bremner 772.
‘we roomed together for years and years,’ Charlton said. ‘I was at Leeds when Billy was a groundstaff boy. Billy would come babysitting for me and Pat. we lived near each other. There was a pub in the middle. we’d meet there. People reported us for that. Don Revie called me and Billy in one day and said, “Are you two drinking on a Thursday night?” we said, “No, we go to the pub, it’s domino night on a Thursday”.’
on that first night in London before playing at Chelsea, Bremner had a different room-mate, an even more experienced colleague: Revie. He had Bremner in bed by 9pm and up at 7am ready for a ‘ long walk before the streets became filled with the fumes of exhaust pipes. And all the time he talked football, football, football’.
Revie was a team- mate of Bremner and Charlton then. Soon he would be their manager and the three of them would change Leeds United and English football.
It took some work — Leeds were relegated the season of Bremner’s debut and stayed down for four years. And it took some shrewd persuasion by Revie because, if by the time the photograph above was taken both Charlton (1967) and Bremner (1970) had been named Footballer of the Year and had won eight major trophies together, in the early 1960s what the two had in common was disruption and a desire to leave Leeds United.
Back then Bremner was a homesick teenager playing wide on the right and desperate to go back to Scotland to join Hibs. Charlton was a roaming centre half on the pitch, who wanted to roam elsewhere for employment, and who had once been informed by Revie that, were he the manager, Charlton would not be selected.
‘I wasn’t the only one that Don Revie had to handle with care,’ Bremner said. ‘Jackie Charlton wasn’t exactly a yes man. Jackie spent quite a long time trying to get away from Elland Road, too, and he made himself a bit of a nuisance in the process, just as I did. In fact, Jackie has described himself as a “one-man awkward squad”.’
with some seriousness, Bremner blamed Leeds’s relegation in 1960 on ‘badly burned’ toast in a hotel near Blackburn before the must-win penultimate game of the season at Ewood Park.
PRESUmABLY Charlton heard this explanation at the time. Looking at this photograph back in 2010, he said: ‘Beans on toast. No matter where we were, on a Saturday morning Billy used to get it delivered on a tray in bed. He never used to get up with me and go down for breakfast. That’s probably what he’s just had delivered there, beans on toast.’
Bremner said Revie, who played in the defeat by Blackburn, ‘ certainly learned a lesson’ about preparation from that toast incident. Revie’s superstition may have been increased, too.
Appointed manager in march 1961, Revie built gradually, adding Bobby Collins and Gary Sprake, incorporating Albert Johanneson, then in 1962 bringing on Paul Reaney, Norman Hunter and a young Peter Lorimer. Then came Johnny Giles, , and the Leeds team which came to such prominence, near misses and success was recognisable. Bremner was switched to midfield and each new face entering the dressing room saw above the Scot’s peg the motto: ‘Always keep on fighting’.
Leeds beat Arsenal 1-0 in the 1972 FA Cup final, thanks to Allan Clarke’s flying header, but it was not their last match of the season.
That came just 48 hours after wembley, at wolves. Leeds could win the league title with a point at molineux, and therefore match Arsenal’s Double of a year before.
They lost 2-1, with Bremner scoring for Leeds. Derby County, managed by a certain Brian Clough, were champions.
It was, amazingly, the fifth time in eight seasons that Leeds finished second in the league. They lost six cup finals between 1965 and 1975 as well. Bremner didn’t know that total when he penned You Get
Nowt For Being Second in 1969. while there is a professional’s steel to that book title, the photograph, the deep friendships forged within that Leeds team, and all teams, show there is more to sport than medals.
Billy Bremner died young, at just 54. Jack Charlton is not a sentimental man but he spoke at a dinner following Bremner’s death with tears running down his cheeks. He took another look at the photograph and said: ‘I loved Billy. Billy was me pal.’