Farewell ‘bites yer legs’
One of the finest defenders in English football history and a stalwart of Don Revie’s great Leeds side
Norman Hunter, who played for Leeds and was in the 1966 England World Cup squad, has died of coronavirus, at 76.
NORMAN HUNTER, who has died of Covid-19 aged 76, was a footballer whose love of a crunching tackle earned him the nickname “Bites Yer Legs”. He played for Leeds United more than 700 times, winning two League titles, the FA Cup, the League Cup, and the Inter-city Fairs Cup twice; he was also a member of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning squad, finally receiving his medal 43 years later.
He was born on October 29 1943 at the village of Eighton Banks in Gateshead, Co Durham. Norman Hunter Sr, who died a couple of months before his son was born, had played for a time for Sheffield United; his widow, Betty, cared for Norman Jr and his older brother as best she could, taking in washing and ironing.
Leaving Birtley secondary modern with no exam passes, and having had little enthusiasm at school for anything except football, he began training as an electrical fitter. He was a Newcastle United fan, but was spotted by a Leeds scout while playing for Birtley juniors, and joined the club’s ground staff at 15.
In his early days at Elland Road he was given the ironic nickname of “Tarzan” on account of his puniness, and the club came close to letting him go, but when Don Revie came in as player-manager in 1961 Hunter was one of the first players to whom he gave professional terms.
Revie converted him from midfield to central defence, building him up with a concoction of raw eggs and sherry – “there was the odd occasion early on when it made me throw up” – and Hunter made his first-team debut in 1962, immediately forming a they-shall-not-pass partnership with Jack Charlton.
Two years later Leeds won the Second Division, and in 1965 they lost the FA Cup final to Liverpool and were pipped to the League title by Manchester United, the beginning of their reputation at the time of “nearly-men”.
The honours would come, however, with Leeds’s crunching physicality offset by the sublime talent with which the squad was laced: in 1968 they won the knock-out double of the League Cup, beating Arsenal 1-0 at Wembley, and the Fairs Cup – the forerunner of the Uefa Cup and the Europa League – beating the Hungarian side Ferencvaros.
It was in the run-up to the League Cup final that Hunter earned his famous nickname: as Leeds ran on to the pitch they spotted a banner – “Norman bites yer legs” – and the epithet stuck.
In a two-legged Fairs Cup final Leeds won at Elland Road, 1-0, then in the return leg Hunter and Charlton held firm in defence in front of 76,000-strong crowd to secure a trophy-winning goalless draw.
The following season Leeds won their first League title, losing only two games. They finished six points ahead of Liverpool – when it was two points for a win – and secured a draw at Anfield in the last game of the season to take the glory.
At the end of the match Revie told his players to salute the Kop.
In his 2004 autobiography, Biting Talk, Hunter recalled that as they approached, “there was a deathly silence and then, all of a sudden, a guy was hoisted up on someone’s shoulders and he started chanting, ‘Champions, champions’. The rest of them picked it up and the chant echoed around the ground.”
In the 1969-70 season it was back to the “nearly-men” tag: Leeds were beaten into second place in the League by Everton and lost to Chelsea in the FA Cup final, following a bruising replay at Old Trafford.
There was a return to winning ways in 1971 when they reached their second Fairs Cup final (in the competition’s last year before being renamed the Uefa Cup). Having beaten
Liverpool 1-0 over two legs in the semis, they faced Juventus in the final.
The first leg, in Turin, was abandoned after 51 minutes due to torrential rain, and two days later Leeds secured a 2-2 draw which, with away goals counting double in the event of a tie, made them favourites. A 1-1 draw back at Elland Road gave Leeds the trophy.
Although they were pipped by a single point to the League title by Arsenal, they got their revenge the following year when they beat the Gunners in a dour centenary FA Cup final. The team could not celebrate as enthusiastically as they might because two days later they were in action at Wolverhampton Wanderers in a crucial League game.
Needing only a draw at Molineux to take the title, they went down 2-1; Brian Clough’s Derby County, their season over and sunning themselves in Spain, resigned to the runners-up spot, could scarcely believe their luck.
In 1973 came the lowest point of Hunter’s career. Leeds were overwhelming favourites to see off Second Division Sunderland in the FA Cup final, but the underdogs, fired up and tactically astute, won 1-0, thanks in part to their heroics of their goalkeeper Jim Montgomery: “I felt total despair and disbelief,” wrote Hunter.
Leeds also reached the final of the European Cup-winners’ Cup final, losing 1-0 to AC Milan in a bruising encounter at Thessaloniki in which Hunter was sent off for retaliation in the closing minutes. There were rumours that the referee had been “bought”, and he was subsequently banned for life, though in connection with other matches. Leeds’s attempts to have the game replayed came to naught.
In 1974 Hunter became the first recipient of the Professional Footballers’ Association’s Player of the Year award as Leeds held off Liverpool to take the League title. But at the end of the season his mentor Don Revie departed to take the England job to be replaced – for 44 stormy days – by Brian Clough, an appointment which left Hunter and his team-mates incredulous: “I admit I never liked Clough and I don’t think he liked me, either,” Hunter wrote.
Clough’s replacement, Jimmy Armfield, was a safe pair of hands who steered the side to the biggest match in their history, the European Cup final against Bayern Munich in Paris. They were the “nearly men” again, however, losing 2-0 – sparking rioting by Leeds fans which led to the club being banned from Europe for four seasons, later reduced to two.
With Armfield rebuilding the side after the Revie era, Hunter was on his way in 1976 after more than 500 games, joining Bristol City, where he stayed for three seasons. In 1979 he moved to Barnsley, managed by his old Leeds team-mate Allan Clarke, becoming player-manager in 1980 when Clarke went back to take the reins at Elland Road.
At international level, Hunter made his England debut in 1965, but in the era of Bobby Moore and Jack Charlton he was restricted to 28 caps. He was in the 1966 World Cup squad but never made it into the starting XI, and along with other squad members who had not played in the final, he was given a medal by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Downing Street in 2009.
He was also part of the 1970 World Cup squad, but his only appearance was as a late substitute in the quarterfinal defeat to West Germany,
He would probably rather have forgotten the best-known incident of his international career. In 1973, with England needing a draw against Poland at Wembley to qualify for the following year’s World Cup, Hunter went to make a tackle out wide but trod on the ball; Gregor Lato burst down the wing, cut inside and laid the ball off to Jan Domarski, whose low drive under Peter Shilton’s body ended England’s hopes.
Hunter was sacked as Barnsley manager in 1984; he coached at West Bromwich Albion for a year or so, then managed Rotherham and coached at Bradford, who sacked him in 1990.
In retirement Hunter became a busy after-dinner speaker, and worked as a match summariser on local radio, as well as getting his golf handicap down to single figures.
In 1968 Norman Hunter married Sue, who survives him with their daughter and son.
As a puny youngster he was ironically named ‘Tarzan’ but Don Revie built him up with sherry and raw eggs
Norman Hunter, born October 29 1943, died April 17 2020