Beating the Leeds booze ban and the day I told Norman Hunter to **** off!
Ian Baird a cult hero at Elland Road, but as one of the architects of little Sutton's Cup adventure he would enjoy it even more if they can create another giantkilling
FROM Billy Bremner’s storytelling to Howard Wilkinson’s alcohol ban and the unusual prematch rituals of Gordon Strachan, former Leeds United striker and Elland Road cult hero Ian Baird is steeped in the traditions of one of English football’s great clubs.
Yet in a strange twist of fate that seems to be the preserve of the FA Cup, he will be hopping around the technical area at Gander Green Lane this afternoon trying to urge non-League Sutton United to cause a major fourth-round upset against his beloved former side.
Part-time Sutton are one of the Cup’s most famous giantkillers, knocking out Coventry City when they were a topflight team in 1989, but face a serious test against opponents riding high in the Championship.
Baird, who scored 58 goals in two spells for the Yorkshiremen between 1985-90 and played in their last FA Cup semifinal, is Sutton’s head coach these days but probably knows more about Leeds than anyone in Garry Monk’s line-up.
His first two managers after joining from Southampton as a robust young centre-forward were Eddie Gray and Bremner, both part of Don Revie’s legendary team of the Seventies.
Indeed, Bremner was captain of the side that played some of the best football ever seen in England during their heyday but were also dubbed ‘Dirty Leeds’ by rival fans.
‘I was from a generation brought up on the great Leeds side,’ says Baird. ‘When I played for Billy Bremner, he was still the best player in training even though he’d retired and couldn’t run. Peter Lorimer was still playing and Norman Hunter would come in on a Friday morning, so youngsters like myself and Denis Irwin thrived in this environment.
‘After training, Billy would just sit in the dressing room telling you stories, drinking tea and smoking a cigarette. He’d tell you the antics Allan Clarke would get up to, stamping on players’ feet and pulling them up by their ears. How Billy and Johnny Giles would pick out one player in the opposition and get into their head.
‘But for all their antics, when you trained with them, you realised what great players they were. We’d train on Fullerton Park by Elland Road and it would be that heavy, we’d all need long studs on. Billy would wear a pair of adidas trainers, his balance was that good.
‘And he was brilliant for the young players. On away trips, we’d play cards, I’d lose money, Ian Snodin would lose money, and he would give us a tenner each to go out with in the evening. It was a lot of money for us and he’d tell us to go out and enjoy ourselves. He was unbelievable.’
Leeds were in the Second Division during Baird’s first spell and had fallen on hard times following the glory years under Revie.
The title of his autobiography, Bairdy’s Gonna Get Ya, gives a clue to his passionate approach to the game, and he collected 11 red cards during a colourful career with 10 clubs.
At Elland Road, though, he was loved. Fans still wear Baird shirts and he will get a big ovation from the travelling support in a capacity crowd of 5,200.
In 1987, Leeds narrowly missed out on a place in the final against Tottenham, going down 3-2 to Coventry City at Hillsborough in the semi-final.
Baird says: ‘After the game on the coach, one of our older players Bobby McDonald, who’d played in the 1981 final for Manchester City, said it didn’t seem like defeat had hurt us enough. I disa- greed with that but he said these games didn’t come along very often and we might not get another chance. And I never did. I always remember that and it turned into a nightmare season because we also lost in the play-offs to Charlton to get into the First Division.’
Leeds’ poor finances saw Baird sold to Portsmouth for £285,000 but they resigned him a year later and soon after Wilkinson was appointed to take the club on a journey that ended up with them being champions. Baird played in the first half of the 1989-90 promotion season that got Leeds into the top flight. ‘Howard started bringing in all the information about diets and how to look after your body that players take for granted these days,’ he says. ‘He banned alcohol on away trips after games and brought in vitamins. He came in with a clean broom, got rid of the old pictures.
‘Before Howard, we’d have pints in the players’ lounge after matches and we’d have booze on the coach on the way back. When Howard banned it, we’d still try to sneak on cans of lager but he was nobody’s fool, was he?’ Wilkinson’s new signing, Strachan from Manchester United, was another big influence.
‘Before a game, he’d walk around the dressing room in his shorts and he’d be pressurising the top of his breastbone and down the sides. With his fair skin, you’d see the red marks and I’d say “What the f*** are you doing Strach?” He’d never tell us but it transpired he’d gone to see a doctor or someone and they said you’d feel better if you pressed
these places in your body. He’s living proof that it worked — he played until he was 40!’
Vinnie Jones was also signed and left an impression on Baird. ‘He always wanted to be the loudest in the dressing room but deep down he was a very nice lad. He’d be first to the bar and would always buy cakes and stuff for the tea ladies.’
Leeds were pushing for promotion when Baird then made the worst decision of his career, demanding a transfer midway through the campaign after learning that Wilkinson was signing another striker, Lee Chapman.
‘I was very headstrong back then and had it in my mind that Wilkinson was out of order,’ he says with regret. ‘I couldn’t see the wood from the trees and it didn’t matter what anybody said
‘In hindsight, I was absolutely ridiculous because two weeks after I went to Middlesbrough another forward, Bobby Davison, got injured and I would have played. It was just me spitting the dummy out and Howard was right to sign Chappy, absolutely.’
That was the end of Baird at Elland Road, though his legend at the club was further enhanced when he scored for Boro against Leeds’ promotion rivals Newcastle at the end of the season, ensuring Wilkinson’s men went up. Having also played for Bristol City, Hearts
and Brighton, Baird’s managerial career has been at a more humble level, taking charge of non-League Havant and Eastleigh before becoming Paul Doswell’s assistant at Sutton in 2014.
The rougher edges of his youth have gone — ‘embarrassing’ episodes included telling the legendary Hunter to eff off after being substituted at Leeds — but the fire in his belly still burns brightly.
‘I don’t invariably sit in the dugout, I am normally standing up in the technical area. Yup, I am animated,’ he says with a smile. ‘With experience, you have to show a calm head but also it’s football, you get over-excited and say things you shouldn’t. Because both technical areas are trying to win the game.’
He is full of admiration for the job Monk has done at Leeds, having watched him as a young player at Southampton where he lives, but thinks Sutton have a group of players well balanced between youth and experience, decent footballers and non-League workers. I did some work for Radio Leeds at the start of the Massimo Cellino era and some of the things that were going on, it was like Jeremy Beadle was going to turn up in a minute.
‘Garry has managed to temper all that by getting winning performances, but I think he knows if he hadn’t got a result against Blackburn after a poor start, he could have gone through the revolving door. He has done very well, comes across as very calm and how he got the sack at Swansea, nobody knows. Credit to him for keeping that monster quiet.’ As for Sutton, one of the few genuinely part-time clubs in the fifth tier National League, he is delighted how the team have beaten Football League opposition Cheltenham Town (2-1) and AFC Wimbledon (3-1) to reach the last 32. ‘We’ve got people like Nicky Bailey, a £2million footballer who was at Middlesbrough and Craig Eastmond, who has played in the Champions League for Arsenal,’ says Baird. ‘And then we have dyed-in-thewool non-League players who haven’t come out of academies, which is a non-contact sport. When those kids get released they’ve got to come into our environment where the ball is screaming in pain after 15 minutes! It’s like an exocet missile going from back to front until the game calms down. ‘We believe we have the right mixture. We are not a long-ball side but we do go long. We are not a total-football side but we do like to play a lot of football.’ A bit like some of the great Leeds side from the past.