WINNER Full house for Leeds after famous diving header from ‘Sniffer’ Clarke
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LEEDS UNITED
often enough, it sticks. What people don’t realise is that when we crossed that white line with Billy Bremner, we would have died for that club.
“I imagined opposition managers saying to their players, ‘If you try and play football with this lot, they’ll paralyse you’.
“So, they tried to beat us up... and we’d beat them at that, too.
“If you were in that Leeds team and one of us was kicked, nine of us would have responded.
“We knew the referee couldn’t book all of us. When one bled, all bled. And if we didn’t get you in that game, we’d get you in the next one.
“We had big Jack Charlton and Norman Hunter, but they were softies compared to Johnny Giles. You never knew when he was coming.”
That final was followed by further defeats 12 months later to Sunderland and although the club lifted the league title in 1974, the team began to break up.
The Leeds board turned to Brian Clough, who had masterminded Derby County’s success, but his stint in the job lasted 44 days amid accusations that playerpower had done for ‘Old Big ‘Ed.’
Clarke added: “The first thing Cloughie said to me was, ‘How many goals did you score last season, Allan?’ I replied, ‘26.’
“And he said: ‘Right, well I want 27.’ And I didn’t mind that. The board obviously felt he was the right man to replace the gaffer, but it was an impossible job to follow Don Revie. Brian Clough was the right manager at the wrong time.
Dirty
“He never realised how close we were. He went through us all, one-by-one saying we were all dirty bastards.”
Clarke, now 73, remains the only man to have scored the winner for Leeds in an FA Cup Final. He added: “We won silverware, but not as much as we should have. We left a lasting impression, though.
“I’ve always thought that Leeds team was one of the greatest the country has ever seen.”
MARCELO BIELSA has urged his Leeds stars to match the mindset of Manchester City and Liverpool.
The Whites take on 13-time FA
Cup winners Arsenal in tomorrow night’s third round with promotion to the Premier League their top target this season.
But Bielsa (right) has warned his Championship tabletoppers not to let their standards slip in any game and maintain a winning mentality – just like the
Premier League winners and Champions League holders.
“If we are going to play with another opponent, we are going to justify ourselves,” he said.
“Big teams play in a similar way in every match. They don’t need a great opponent and they don’t play bad against a lower opponent.
“If you watch Manchester City and Liverpool, that’s the reference in English football. They play similar every match.”