‘I should’ve just booted the bloody ball in the crowd’ LEEDS LEGEND REVEALED HE NEVER GOT OVER THE MISTAKE THAT COST ENGLAND A SPOT IN WORLD CUP
IT says everything about Norman Hunter that for all he achieved in football, he never forgave himself for the mistake that cost England a place at the 1974 World Cup.
The Leeds United legend, who died on Friday aged 76 after contracting coronavirus, won two league titles during 14 glorious years at Elland Road and also lifted the FA Cup, the League Cup and two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups.
He was also belatedly awarded a World Cup winner’s medal for being part of Sir Alf Ramsey’s squad in 1966, after FIFA decided that even players who had not taken part in the final should be recognised.
But all footballers have their regrets. And as I found out when I spoke to Norman in the press room at Old Trafford before England’s crucial
World Cup qualifier with
Greece in October 2001, he was still haunted by an incident that happened almost 30 years earlier.
It was another vital qualifier, one England had to win. And earlier in the day there was footage of the 1-1 draw with Poland that ended Ramsey’s hopes of taking his team to West Germany the following summer and brought the country’s most successful manager the sack.
Hunter was at the peak of his powers. A few months later he would become the inaugural winner of the PFA’s player-of-theyear award as Leeds finished the season as champions.
But on that crucial night at Wembley, the normally ruthless centre-back hesitated as he went into a challenge on the touchline – and it was to prove fatal when Poland striker Jan Domarski fired a shot under the body of Peter Shilton.
And although Hunter’s Leeds team-mate Allan Clarke equalised from the penalty spot six minutes later, England were out.
When I mentioned 1973 to the big man an hour or so before Sven-Goran Eriksson’s men had their own date with destiny, I struck a nerve that was still raw.
Even 28 years later. Norman’s eyes clouded over. He shook his head and without uttering even a word of reprimand, he turned on his heel and walked away to get a cup of tea.
When I caught up with him at the end of the game to apologise he was a little more forgiving.
“Still haven’t got over that, you know?” he said in his strong north-east accent. “I should have just booted the bloody ball into the crowd.
“Mind you, that freekick from Beckham wasn’t bad, was it?”
Norman was smiling again because a few minutes earlier, David Beckham had sent England to the World Cup finals with a sensational equaliser.
I didn’t know Norman well. Just a few short conversations when I covered Leeds during the club’s incredible rise under David O’Leary at the start of the millennium.
I watched him play when growing up and he was a player everyone feared because of his ‘Bites-Yer-Legs’ reputation.
But he was always a gentleman – even when you stupidly brought back memories for him he had long tried to bury.