TWENTY FIVE YEARS ON...
Look back to Leeds United winning the Division One title in its final year
FROM promotion-winners to League champions inside two years, Leicester City’s remarkable rise rightly captured the world’s imagination.
Billed as an antidote to the way money has skewed not just the Premier League into the preserve of a cartel, but competitions all over Europe and beyond, the Foxes’ success was unprecedented. Or so the common consensus suggested.
Twenty-five years ago today, however, Leeds United capped their own meteoric rise from the second tier to the summit of English football inside exactly the same time frame.
Just as Jamie Vardy, Kasper Schmeichel et al became the poster boys for sporting romantics everywhere, Leeds’s title triumph was one that few expected. But, where Leicester’s triumph is likely to be lauded for years and years to come, Leeds’s own story of overcoming all the odds to prevail has largely been forgotten.
“Much of that is down to an accident of birth,” said Howard Wilkinson, the mastermind behind that title win, when speaking to
ahead of today’s 25th anniversary.
“The Premier League started a few months after our win and, to many, that is when football began. There is a clear line drawn between the start of the Premier League and what went before.
“Had we won the League in 1993, for instance, things would probably have been different as there would have been all the coverage by Sky and so on. But it is what it is.”
The wider world may have forgotten United’s third league title success. But Wilkinson’s men were worthy champions with a points tally of 82 having been enough to finish on top of the table in nine of the 10 previous seasons.
Leeds also won more games than anyone else, had the fewest number of defeats and the highest number of clean sheets. Only Arsenal scored more goals than the 74 plundered by the Yorkshire club, too.
For Wilkinson, that championship pennant hanging at Elland Road was justification for a decision taken almost three and a half years earlier that made little sense to those looking from the outside.
The ambitious young manager had taken Sheffield Wednesday into the First Division and established the club in the top half when Leeds let it be known they were interested via a journalist.
“You’re going to think this is a crazy phone call, but would you be interested in Leeds?” was the gist of the message relayed from an Elland Road board who had been pointed in Wilkinson’s direction by then England manager Bobby Robson.
Leeds were fourth bottom of Division Two and a succession of Don Revie’s great team – Allan Clarke, Eddie Gray and Billy Bremner – had been unable to halt the decline of a club who had become better known for the unseemly antics of their followers on the terraces rather than anything that happened on the pitch. On the surface, there seemed no decision to make.
The timing, though, could not have been better from a United perspective. Wilkinson felt he had hit a glass ceiling at Hillsborough and wanted a new challenge. He also had a plan that would revolutionise everything from the club’s academy to the training ground and even the make-up of a board that had become unwieldy and was dominated by the council, who back then owned Elland Road.
“The day I walked into Leeds my thinking was that we would stabilise in that first season and then win promotion the following year,” recalls Wilkinson, who went on to deliver exactly that.
“Then, within five years, we would be challenging for the championship. Those who joined us subsequently were made aware of those aims. Whether they believed me or not, I don’t know.
“But we were effectively telling those early signings that the league championship would be the target for the next generation.
“The reality, of course, was that the plan became skewed and the key to that was getting the building blocks in place quickly. Gordon Strachan (signed in March, 1989) was critical in that respect. I was looking for a cornerstone for the entire club and Gordon filled that role, both in terms of technical ability and leadership.”
Strachan’s revival of fortunes at Elland Road mirrored those of Leeds as a club. Despite being the wrong side of 30 when signing from Manchester United, the Scot enjoyed a remarkable new lease of life.
Together with the lifting of the Second and First Division titles, Strachan was named Footballer of the Year while at Leeds and won an international recall. He was far from the only signing to enjoy such a career bounce, as Wilkinson built a side so formidable – not least the midfield quartet of Strachan, Gary McAllister, David Batty and Gary Speed – that supporters were treated to some of the best football from an Elland Road team in many years.
The demolitions of Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday in front of the live ITV cameras during that title win were a joy to behold.
As, for the club’s supporters, was the manner in which Leeds held their nerve during the April run-in as their rivals from Old Trafford fell apart.
Wilkinson’s role in the latter was crucial, his strong leadership in the wake of fourgoal defeats at Queens Park Rangers and Manchester City that threatened to hand the title to Ferguson’s Red Devils often cited by members of that team as the reason why the momentum eventually swung back the way of Leeds.
“I spoke to the players on the Monday after the Manchester City (4-0) defeat (on April 4) and told them we were going back to the team that had got us there or thereabouts in the first place,” recalls Wilkinson when asked about that often fraught run-in.
“I said there would be one change for Liverpool on Easter Saturday, but, otherwise, we were going back to that team. And we did.
“I also said that if we could get four wins out of five and a draw from that trip to Liverpool then we would have a chance. The key was to be able to go into the Sheffield United game (on the penultimate weekend) in a good position.
“As it turned out, we ended up in an excellent position. We got the results we needed and then our match at Bramall Lane was moved to lunchtime, a couple of hours before Manchester United were due at Anfield.
“It meant we had a definite advantage if we could win. Instead of Manchester United running out at Anfield and thinking, ‘Leeds might slip up’, they knew by then what had to be done. So did Liverpool and there was no way they were going to let their big rivals win. The incentive for Liverpool was huge and one they embraced, as I thought they would.”
A 2-0 win for the home side meant the race was run and Leeds were champions. As his players headed out to celebrate with a meal at the Flying Pizza restaurant in Roundhay and the rest of the city partied so hard that West Yorkshire Police later likened that final Sunday in April to New Year’s Eve, Wilkinson stayed at home.
“Going out with players is a dangerous thing,” laughs Wilkinson when reminded of the celebrations that night that saw Batty hanging out of a sunroof in a car being driven round City Square by Steve Hodge. “So, I left them to it. We stayed at our house and people just came round. No invites, just friends and family turning up.
“Dave Bassett was among them, and it went on a long time. There were a lot of empty bottles of champagne by the time we had finished. It turned into a long week and the final game was a little bit of an exhibition. I really enjoyed Bournemouth when we won promotion, but not this one. I was exhausted.”