Even if Leeds spent hundre they would what T
HALF a century ago, Allan Clarke picked up an FA Cup winner’s medal from the Queen after his diving header proved the winner against Arsenal.
On the same day, this earnest scribbler won a runners-up bronze medal for playing the violin at the Watford Music Festival, returning home just in time to see Leeds United legend Clarke stooping to conquer from Mick Jones’ cross.
Show us your medals? If the eight-year-old violinist’s screeching was a tribute to scalded cats, Clarke was top cat at Wembley in the Centenary FA Cup final.
This weekend, Leeds play Arsenal again – with the stakes arguably even higher.
While the Gunners are chasing a return to Champions League orbit, Leeds suddenly look most vulnerable to join
Norwich and Watford back in the foothills. “I’m worried for the supporters,” said Clarke, now 75 and still a fiercely loyal torchbearer for the empire Don Revie built at Elland Road – to the extent he still insists on calling Leeds’ greatest manager Gaffer 33 years after his death.
The former England striker known as Sniffer – once Britain’s most expensive transfer signing at £165,000 in 1969 - is also righteously sniffy about the lopsided landscape of a league where money talks loudest.
He said: “Staying in the Premier League is a big achievement in itself now because it’s not a level playing field. You can go out and spend £1billion to buy success when you’re owned by a foreign government and money is no object.
“But even if Leeds United went out and spent hundreds of millions now, they would never,
replicate what the Gaffer t. These fans deserve to ch a team in the top league ause they stayed loyal when club was going through times. ut I would say Leeds have smallest ad, in terms epth, of the ms around m and they e had to e with a lot njuries to players ough the ne of the m – Phillips, Bamford, per and Ayling have all sed big chunks of the on. hope they stay up, but they suffered a lot for those ins and it’s going to be close.” arke is a venerable rence point on all things
Leeds because he played in a golden era where they were the de facto champions of Europe.
The cowardice of a French referee who failed to award a blatant penalty when Clarke was scythed down Franz Beckenbauer at 0-0 in the 1975 European Cup final against Bayern Munich in Paris still rankles in Yorkshire to this day, as does Peter Lorimer’s disallowed goal.
But this weekend is a happier anniversary, and the great Sniffer was amused to learn he shares it with the only ‘triumph’ in a violinist’s screechingbrakes solo.
“So you played well on the big stage that day, too,” he chortled. “I played in four FA Cup finals in five years, and 1972 was only one where I was on the winning side, but we won the big one – the centenary final, where the Queen presented the cup to our captain Billy Bremner.
“At least she saw what a fantastic team the Gaffer had built, and we deserved to win the Double that season, just as Arsenal had done the year before.
“But we had to go to Wolverhampton on the Monday night for our final league game of the season needing a point for the title and we lost 2-1.
“It was the only occasion we lost to Wolves in my time at Leeds, and Derby were champions, but it makes me laugh now when you hear managers complaining about fixture schedules.
“When was the last time a team won the FA Cup at
Wembley and then had to play a title decider 48 hours later?
“In those days, we didn’t play on bowling greens all year round. We had to negotiate ploughed fields.
“If you wanted to win silverware 50 years ago, you had to beat Leeds United.
We had worldclass players from all over the British Isles. We were the best of British. I was so proud to be part of that side.
“It was one of the greatest football teams this country has ever seen.”
Leeds fans deserve a team in the top flight because they stayed loyal when times were hard