Why Yorath’s piece of European history is tinged with regret at result and injury

TERRY Yorath played more than 400 matches in his career. He managed almost the same number of matches.

And yet there is only one game he watches back.

“Why that one? I don’t know, perhaps it’s because I played great,” laughs Yorath of the match in question. “It’s obvious, though, isn’t it. It’s the European Cup final. Not many people can say they’ve played in the European Cup final.”

Not many at all. When Gareth Bale won his first modern-day version of the same competition in 2014, he was only the fifth Welshman to play on the biggest club stage there is. There was Ryan Giggs, Ian Rush and Joey Jones before him. But Yorath was the first.

It’s why the game is dusted off and watched again at his Yorkshire home, bringing back the images of 1975 in Paris when Leeds United faced Bayern Munich, two iconic sides of an iconic era.

Yet as has so sadly been the case with Yorath over the years, there has been no glory without pain, one that goes beyond Leeds’ failure to stop Bayern’s German juggernaut.

“We were cheated,” is Yorath’s blunt take, a view shared by Leeds supporters who, to this day, still chant of being champions of Europe in defiance of the events in Paris 42 years ago.

But the tinge of regret that has lingered with the 67-year-old native of Cardiff ’s Grangetown is of a more personal kind than the collective felt by the Leeds team of the 70s – sock tags and all – that could not add the European crown to their domestic dominance.

“You actually can’t see it when you watch the video of that game, it’s right in the corner of the screen and you can’t see it. A lot of people talk about it and criticise me without seeing it, but I can’t deny it. It was bad. It was a really bad tackle.”

Or, to use Bayern icon’s Uli Hoeness’ quote on the fourth-minute challenge committed by Yorath, “the most brutal foul I think I have ever seen”.

Yorath is right, though. You can’t really make out the severity of the challenge on Bayern’s Sweden international Bjorn Andersson. Tucked away as the cameraman in Paris stayed focused on the referee who had blown for an earlier foul, only slowed down replays catch the full force of the challenge.

But this was a different time, this was the Leeds side – the Damned United side – so often criticised by Brian Clough who had taken over from Don Revie at the start of the season and who had left long before the Yorkshire heavyweights had made their way to a first European Cup final in the May.

Bayern’s players spoke of Leeds players screaming at them in the tunnel before kick-off in an attempt to intimidate the side of Sepp Maier, Gerd Muller and captain Franz Beckenbauer – a trio of World Cup winners from the previous year.

Andersson had been told to try and contain Billy Bremner, the Leeds captain, but Yorath – known as a hard man but by no means lacking in skill and ability – had been told to win every ball to give Bremner and Johnny Giles their chance to take the game to the German champions.

It was what on Yorath’s mind as he went in, studs high, leg straight, to challenge for the ball and making contact with Andersson’s knee.

Revie, co-commentating alongside David Coleman that night, said: “Leeds have opened quite well… I think Terry Yorath went for the ball, but I don’t know what happened then.”

On the video Yorath watches, Anderson’s hands are immediately over his face, Beckenbauer caught between signalling for a stretcher and complaining to the French referee Michel Kitabdjian.

“It’s not a happy thought to think that people remember that tackle when they think of me playing in a European final,” says Yorath. “The game was different, we played hard and we played to win.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry about it. I didn’t go into hurt him, I went in to win the ball because we wanted to win that match so badly.

“Nobody said anything at the time, but I know it might have been different these days with all the cameras and replays.

“It was bad and I know it and I’m not allowed to forget it. Whenever I’ve gone to Sweden I’m asked if I remember it and of course I do. He never really played again.”

After nine months out, Andersson returned but never at the same level and, after a smattering of further games in Bayern red, retired.

Hoeness was another Bayern player forced off that night following a Frank Gray challenge, his own career eventually cut short and going onto become a Bayern suit. In 1995 he encouraged Andersson to help rebuild Bayern’s youth structure. He did just that; Andersson’s influence has been credited with the discovering and development of a string of German world champions including Philip Lahm, Bastien Schweinsteiger and Thomas Muller.

Yorath is well aware. “I’m not insensitive,” he says with genuine sincerity. “How do you think I know that about him, why I know what happened to him, what he did after finishing? Think about it. I do.”

As he does of the final in general. Though Leeds did not take a backward step, Bayern were no saints and, in the eyes of Leeds fans, it was the English club that were the ones who were sinned against.

Leeds dominated proceedings and should have had a penalty when Beckenbauer scythed down Allan Clarke inside the penalty area just before half-time.

Then, as Leeds pushed after the interval, Peter Lorimer had the ball in the net. It was disallowed amid confusion, controversy and, eventually, the judgement that Bremner had strayed into an offside position.

Bayern scored against the run of