It is Saturday 11th April 1970. The whole family sat in front of the telly watching Leeds v Chelsea FA Cup Final on the mud bath that the Horse of the Year Show had turned Wembley’s hallowed turf into.
Those of you acclimatized to the set piece occasions in the English soccer calendar will notice the unusually early date of the Cup Final. It traditionally took place on the first Saturday of May, now latterly the third weekend of that month after the completion of the league programme. But that year the season was brought to an end four weeks early in order to facilitate England’s defence of the World Cup in the tournament scheduled to commence in Mexico on 31 May/1 June 1970 (cannot remember the exact date).
This early curtailment of the season and the resultant fixture congestion was undoubtedly a factor in the collapse of our brave and unprecedented attempt at winning the Treble of League Championship, FA Cup and, most sought after, the European Champions Cup. It was not the first and would not be the last time that officialdom would blight Leeds United.[1] I do recall the 1978 and 2002 World Cups at least beginning at the start of June and there was no early end of the season on these occasions. Anyway, it is the Peps and the Sir Alexs that call the shots these days, not the Alan Hardakers.
Anyway, rant over. Leeds play a quality of football probably never witnessed previously at English football’s set piece occasion. Eddie Gray (who arch Leeds antagonist turned temporary gamekeeper, Brian Clough, during his 44-day tenure as manager at The Damned United would have had put down had he been a racehorse) was absolutely sublime. Our George Best. Our Jimmy Johnstone. But with none of the dysfunctional “wildness” associated with these contemporary masters of the flanks. But twice from winning positions we contrive to lose the initiative through a horrendous boo-boob from our hapless goalkeeper Gary Sprake (who would be cast out of the LUFC family for collaborating in a tabloid investigation into alleged match fixing by the Donald – Revie that is) and lack of concentration at the near post in the 86th minute two minutes after Mick Jones has seemingly won it for us. 2-2 after normal time. No further score in extra time though an Alan “Sniffer” Clarke effort which twangs the crossbar which causes my mum to emit a shriek. I blame the parents!
It therefore goes to a replay for the first time in 59 years at Old Trafford. One of the most violent encounters on a football field ever televised. A top referee from the millennial era would have dismissed six players from each side. Leeds again take the lead in the first half from a superlative run and finish by Jones again. However, we do not add to it and Peter Osgood equalizes for Chelsea with twelve minutes remaining with a flying header. We almost snatch a winner in the last minute but again it goes into extra-time when we suffer the denouement of a winning goal for Chelsea by David Webb from a long throw by Ian Hutchinson with an unwitting assist from Jack Charlton. Buckets of tears shed. The seeds of generations long hatred between fans of both clubs are sown and would be acted out at grounds and service stations in the decades ahead. But I have been initiated into the psychodrama that is Leeds United.
Fanatical but a pathologically anxious attachment to LUFC follows. At least up until the Chemistry Lab event. As the club goes into its post-Revie / post-Bremner era of decline leading to our first period of banishment from the top flight, so my devotion becomes less intense. Other allegiances vie for my attention. Northern Ireland’s football team which twice qualifies for the World Cup in 1982 (Leeds are relegated the same year) and 1986. Alex Higgins’ whirlwind second triumph at the World Snooker Championship in 1982. Fellow Northern Irishman and Tyrone native’s black ball triumph at the same tournament three years later. 1985 also sees an Irish Rugby Triple Crown and a world title crown for pugilist Barry McGuigan. 1986 will see former Leeds hero and World Cup winner Jack Charlton become manager of the Republic of Ireland national squad.
However, my cathexis is channeled into the study of politics and the adoption of political positions. On autopilot since coming out of depression, I enter Queen’s University Belfast as a second year undergraduate and storm to an Upper Second Honours degree (when Upper Seconds meant something) in Political Science and Economic and Social History to be followed by a Master’s degree in Irish Political Studies including a path-breaking thesis on the emergence of women into the legislature of the Republic of Ireland; at least I think it is as no-one, including myself, encouraged me to publish it or network with other scholars of feminism/women’s movements; it didn’t help that I was told that certain feminist academics were refusing to cooperate with my because I was a man. Eat your heart out Andrea Dworkin, Catherine McKinnon! Virgin territory scholarship indeed!
I also made a reputation for myself as a strident speaker at Student Union general and representative council meetings. My support for the SDLP is particularly vocal and I enthusiastically canvass for the party at every election time. I of course ran the risk of making a target for my back in what in the 1980s was a very polarised student community. I also threw myself in the de rigeur left-liberal causes of the time: CND, Anti-Apartheid Movement, the demo against the visit of US President Reagan to Ireland, Community Action projects and solidarity activity with the striking miners in Britain. But the most consequential encounter I had at Queen’s was with probably Ireland’s leading feminist academic, Ailbhe Smyth, who addressed my Masters group on the emergence of Irish women’s activism. That sowed the seeds of the afore-mentioned MSSc thesis and later my PhD and provoked awareness of the repressive sexual politics of Ireland both sides of the border. I become friends with a leading gay right activist and dipped my toes in what was then (in Ireland anyway) the mother of all taboo subjects, the abortion debate. My pro-choice opinions and speeches attracted the chagrin the otherwise right-on, particularly at one SDLP conference where my attempts to plead the women’s case is met by sustained volleys of “pro-life” diatribes; that occasion ranks with my witnessing of the banana throwing at black players at Elland Road as the most shaming and sickening experiences of my life.
Anyway, rant over. Leeds play a quality of football probably never witnessed previously at English football’s set piece occasion. Eddie Gray (who arch Leeds antagonist turned temporary gamekeeper, Brian Clough, during his 44-day tenure as manager at The Damned United would have had put down had he been a racehorse) was absolutely sublime. Our George Best. Our Jimmy Johnstone. But with none of the dysfunctional “wildness” associated with these contemporary masters of the flanks. But twice from winning positions we contrive to lose the initiative through a horrendous boo-boob from our hapless goalkeeper Gary Sprake (who would be cast out of the LUFC family for collaborating in a tabloid investigation into alleged match fixing by the Donald – Revie that is) and lack of concentration at the near post in the 86th minute two minutes after Mick Jones has seemingly won it for us. 2-2 after normal time. No further score in extra time though an Alan “Sniffer” Clarke effort which twangs the crossbar which causes my mum to emit a shriek. I blame the parents!
It therefore goes to a replay for the first time in 59 years at Old Trafford. One of the most violent encounters on a football field ever televised. A top referee from the millennial era would have dismissed six players from each side. Leeds again take the lead in the first half from a superlative run and finish by Jones again. However, we do not add to it and Peter Osgood equalizes for Chelsea with twelve minutes remaining with a flying header. We almost snatch a winner in the last minute but again it goes into extra-time when we suffer the denouement of a winning goal for Chelsea by David Webb from a long throw by Ian Hutchinson with an unwitting assist from Jack Charlton. Buckets of tears shed. The seeds of generations long hatred between fans of both clubs are sown and would be acted out at grounds and service stations in the decades ahead. But I have been initiated into the psychodrama that is Leeds United.
Fanatical but a pathologically anxious attachment to LUFC follows. At least up until the Chemistry Lab event. As the club goes into its post-Revie / post-Bremner era of decline leading to our first period of banishment from the top flight, so my devotion becomes less intense. Other allegiances vie for my attention. Northern Ireland’s football team which twice qualifies for the World Cup in 1982 (Leeds are relegated the same year) and 1986. Alex Higgins’ whirlwind second triumph at the World Snooker Championship in 1982. Fellow Northern Irishman and Tyrone native’s black ball triumph at the same tournament three years later. 1985 also sees an Irish Rugby Triple Crown and a world title crown for pugilist Barry McGuigan. 1986 will see former Leeds hero and World Cup winner Jack Charlton become manager of the Republic of Ireland national squad.
However, my cathexis is channeled into the study of politics and the adoption of political positions. On autopilot since coming out of depression, I enter Queen’s University Belfast as a second year undergraduate and storm to an Upper Second Honours degree (when Upper Seconds meant something) in Political Science and Economic and Social History to be followed by a Master’s degree in Irish Political Studies including a path-breaking thesis on the emergence of women into the legislature of the Republic of Ireland; at least I think it is as no-one, including myself, encouraged me to publish it or network with other scholars of feminism/women’s movements; it didn’t help that I was told that certain feminist academics were refusing to cooperate with my because I was a man. Eat your heart out Andrea Dworkin, Catherine McKinnon! Virgin territory scholarship indeed!
I also made a reputation for myself as a strident speaker at Student Union general and representative council meetings. My support for the SDLP is particularly vocal and I enthusiastically canvass for the party at every election time. I of course ran the risk of making a target for my back in what in the 1980s was a very polarised student community. I also threw myself in the de rigeur left-liberal causes of the time: CND, Anti-Apartheid Movement, the demo against the visit of US President Reagan to Ireland, Community Action projects and solidarity activity with the striking miners in Britain. But the most consequential encounter I had at Queen’s was with probably Ireland’s leading feminist academic, Ailbhe Smyth, who addressed my Masters group on the emergence of Irish women’s activism. That sowed the seeds of the afore-mentioned MSSc thesis and later my PhD and provoked awareness of the repressive sexual politics of Ireland both sides of the border. I become friends with a leading gay right activist and dipped my toes in what was then (in Ireland anyway) the mother of all taboo subjects, the abortion debate. My pro-choice opinions and speeches attracted the chagrin the otherwise right-on, particularly at one SDLP conference where my attempts to plead the women’s case is met by sustained volleys of “pro-life” diatribes; that occasion ranks with my witnessing of the banana throwing at black players at Elland Road as the most shaming and sickening experiences of my life.
Battling as I was to establish an identity; I ran into the anomie and existential angst familiar to most thesis writers and which I would reenter a decade later when I commenced my PhD research at Essex University. I belonged to what was most qualified dole queue in Western Europe, but the claimant regime was not as policed harshly as it is now with its mandatory 35 hour a week job search on Universal Job Match. It is also fair to say that many of my contemporaries used the time afforded by the “broo” to similarly study for advanced degrees or for “startup” alternative cultural or publishing ventures like fanzines. Not having a bona fide “professional” qualification like law or accountancy to get a “proper job,” I did sit the Civil Service exams for both parts of Ireland, applied for the Tax Inspectorate and a SCONUL (Standing Conference of National University Libraries) entry scheme. But to no avail.
By virtue of my two-year signing on period (no grant for my Master’s degree course), I qualified for participation in what was a rite of passage for many young Northern Irish adults – the Action for Community Employment Scheme (ACE). I was recruited by an organisation headed up by a Board of Directors of the great and good of Northern nationalist society whose mission was “to build a social archive of the Irish nation” through the collection of folklore, genealogical (my “department”) historical site and traditional music material. Such grandiose plans did not match the reality on the ground where I and ten other graduates were initially tasked with putting together a development plan for this vision but were constantly thwarted by the interference of a grossly incompetent and bullying manager who had scraped a third in Irish Studies at University of Ulster Coleraine and who found my yet to be diagnosed neurodivergent traits in somebody on the verge of a Master’s degree, to be a source of much mirth and sarcasm. Retreating into the shrinking horizons of my bedsit off the Lisburn Road, Belfast, Irish Parliamentary records at Queen’s University and the sheer loneliness of the Master’s experience, I did welcome my first taste of the world of work (or make work as so many ACE schemes were).
However, I soon began to struggle with the lack of routine, competent organisation and enforced supervisory role on this project. I was soon going nowhere fast, nosediving to the infinity of nowhere. Socially, my loneliness impelled me back to the only other worlds I knew – the family home and my weekend drinking buddies in my home town. I was going nowhere fast and had spiraled into a black hole of temporal and spatial nothingness. Clinical depression was diagnosed, and I was prescribed Gaminil, a ghastly medication which completely numbed my physical senses and nullified any thinking and planning capacity. It also dramatically upped my smoking habit.
However, I soon began to struggle with the lack of routine, competent organisation and enforced supervisory role on this project. I was soon going nowhere fast, nosediving to the infinity of nowhere. Socially, my loneliness impelled me back to the only other worlds I knew – the family home and my weekend drinking buddies in my home town. I was going nowhere fast and had spiraled into a black hole of temporal and spatial nothingness. Clinical depression was diagnosed, and I was prescribed Gaminil, a ghastly medication which completely numbed my physical senses and nullified any thinking and planning capacity. It also dramatically upped my smoking habit.
April 1987
The second weekend in April. On the Sunday, I listen to commentary on BBC Radio 2 of our FA Cup Semi Final against then top flight Coventry City at Hillsborough, home of Sheffield Wednesday and traditionally a standing venue for Cup semi-finals. Excitement had been building all weekend, as I sniffed the prospect of our first piece of silverware since the late 1970s. After fourteen minutes, we take the lead with a header from David Rennie resulting from a corner. We could have been three up by half time as we put on a scintillating display of football. The lead lasts until 66 minutes when a misjudgment by captain Brendan Ormsby enables Micky Gynn to equalize for the Sky Blues who shortly afterwards get their noses in front. But in the 82nd minute Keith Edwards (a prolific forward at Sheffield United but who had largely misfired lor us) equalized to the rapture of the Leeds following and takes the game into extra time. However, Dave Bennett scores a winner. Coventry go onto win the Cup for the only time in their history, winning also by a score of 3-2 and also in extra time against Tottenham at Wembley
Disappointment yes, as was coming within twenty minutes of promotion to the First Division only to lose in the play-off replay against Charlton at St Andrews, Birmingham, after a trade mark free kick goal by terrace hero John “Shez” Sheridan had put his side ahead. But all the passion and commitment and expectancy comes flooding back although to what extent was this euphoria generated by my (premature) coming off Gaminil antidepressants is a fair question. All I do know that a dormant volcano has been activated.
At this point, it is necessary to give a sombre postscript. At Hillsborough, Leeds fans were accommodated at the away, Leppings Lane part of the ground. Leeds fans including some of my acquaintance complained of overcrowding to the point of being squeezed jam tight. To relieve the congestion, the match was delayed by half an hour. Two years later, at the1989 semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, it was Liverpool fans who were funneled into the Leppings Lane End, with catastrophic consequences that we are all aware of – 97 dead supporters. Why in the name of the Almighty was the kickoff on this occasion not delayed? Incredibly Leeds fans were complaining of overcrowding and discomfort at the very same Leppings Lane end at last week’s fixture with Sheffield Wednesday. Have all the lessons of April 15th, 1989, really not been learned?
1987 was the year I was thrown a life belt in terms of career by an unconditional offer of a postgraduate degree place at the College of Librarianship Wales, now part of the University of Wales Aberystwyth. I needed to take control of my life, or so I thought, by doing something “useful,” “practical” or “professional” in order to “get a job” or “get qualified.” Without fully realizing it, I had internalized a particularly insidious mantra of the Thatcherite/neo-liberal era and successive eras; a degree in social sciences, arts or humanities are not passports for the “real world.” But I had also decided to leave my hometown and my drinking buddies who were being cast to the four winds anyway and Northern Ireland, politics and SDLP and all. I had embarked on achieving my dual ambitions; professional work and seeing Leeds United promoted to the top flight. Both were realised in May 1990. But then …
April 1991
The second Saturday in April 1991. I am on the Leeds Corporation bus ferrying fans back from Elland Road to Leeds City Centre. I have watched an almost Lazarus type recovery from 4-0 down to reigning Champions Liverpool (it will be another three decades before that appellation can be used again) to an eventual 4-5 defeat. He struggles to hold it together on the bus. Not because Leeds have lost. Far from it. This spirited comeback confirms Leeds United’s ability to compete with the best in Division One after eight years exile (three decades later Leeds would announce their return to the top flight now titled the Premiership after serving double that tariff after their early millennium financial implosion). No, the enthrallment of the wonderful event that I had witnessed collides with the devastation of the words imparted to me earlier in the week. An eminent occupational psychologist to whom he was referred to after the termination of his employment with Essex Libraries Service due to an unsatisfactory extended probationary period pronounced to him after I had undertaken the Myers-Briggs personality test that “you will always have problems in organisations”; this after being given virtually a life sentence by the library service (what library authority would employ a failed, first-time probationer with a damning reference; that he was failed on lack of proficiency at library housekeeping routines rather than professional librarianship skills on the absurd logic that competence on the former was an essential passport to progress in the latter would cut ice with few). Oh, protection against unfair dismissal did not apply to persons serving less than two years’ employment in that fin de Thatcher era.
The elephant in the room during my consultation is of course my undiagnosed dyspraxic/development coordination and autistic spectrum conditions. Such information would have given context to the various pearls of wisdom that the psychologist dispensed such as “You are 21”. “You didn’t really help yourself in your final probationary hearing.” “You put people off, you put me off” (jokingly or half-jokingly). But he is able to read off that I was a lapsed Catholic, had struggled with the statistics component of the first year of my Social Science degree (now that is a story for another day) and that “growing up in Northern Ireland hasn’t helped.” Now he was talking sense. He does detect from my responses to the Myers-Briggs diagnostic investigation and, presumably from my demeanour, that I am experiencing high anxiety, gives me a leaflet from the Westminster Pastoral Foundation but his lack of practical solutions for finding employment (apart from vague suggestions about “sorting out personnel records when the recession is over”. I walk out into Brick Lane from the Employment Service building and walk down it stunned by this seemingly terminal diagnosis.
NB The following paragraph is fictional.
But back to Leeds. I allow myself to go with my emotions. I break down in tears after I dismount from the bus to make my way towards Leeds City Rail Station where I am to catch a supporters’ train back to King’s Cross. My distress is noted by the yellow, blue, and white clad tribe around me and some motion to assuage it. A blue beret clad female supporter (a frequent blogger an author on all things LUFC) embraces me, hugs me, and says, ‘I am so sorry for what you are going through but you are part of the Leeds United family, and we are here for you always.” She will also give me crucial emotional support during that nerve-shredding season when promotion looked so horribly likely to elude us again before Covid-19 intervened. For much of my life, being an LUFC supporter has been an almost pathological solitary pursuit. LUFC is my real community, identity, and tribe. It is wonderful to be able to consummate it.
April 1992
The second weekend in April. 22 years to the exact day of Chelsea Cup Final Act One, in an another encounter with Chelsea I watch from the Kop end at Elland Road, a moment of sublime wizardry from Eric Cantona as he turns, controls the ball with his knee and volleys it into the Chelsea net to seal a 3-0 win. Howard Wilkinson had gambled upon signing this mercurial but unpredictable and combustible French enfant terrible earlier in the season after an injury to top striker Lee Chapman. His fights with French football authorities are legendary. But he brings a continental pizzazz not traditionally associated with Leeds United or Yorkshire generally. This sublime moment finally lifts he gloom, and despair engendered by the unexpected Tory win in the General Election held earlier that week. I return to Essex satisfied with the second position in the League that I expected. It had been an exhilarating season the highlights of which were 6-1 victories at Hillsborough and 4-1 at Villa Park. If nothing less, we had sent out the message that we were well and truly back in the big time.
So, it was time to get on with the rest of my life starting with putting together a research proposal for a PhD stimulated by the notorious X-case saga of that year in Dublin concerning the unmentionable – abortion. This would be the opportunity to revisit other unexamined aspects of my life. But then, for me, the totally unexpected and magical happened. As a result of a triple run of defeats for Manchester United who were leaders, the opportunity opened for Leeds to win the title and this was achieved on 26th April 1992 with a 3-2 victory for us at Brammall Lane, courtesy of a bizarre own goal by Sheffield United defender Brian Gayle and by a 2-0 defeat for Manchester United at, of all places, Anfield where our previous two titles had been secured; a 0-0 draw in April 1969 and a winning goal for Arsenal ‘s Ray Kennedy (later to join the Liver Birds) in April 1974. But for me it was the final whistle at Brammall Lane that signified it, and I went into rarely experienced Leeds United generated ecstasy.
A week later, I would celebrate the open top bus parade in Leeds City Centre of the Last Champions in a crowd of 150,000 – the largest crowd to have assembled in the city since VE Day in 1945. We all basked in the spring Yorkshire sunshine and the reverie of reflected glory. We cheered our heroes, and a special cheer went up for Monsieur Cantona who proclaimed to the yellow, blue, and white masses “I don’t know why but I love you.”
Bliss was it to be in that summer of joy, triumph, and redemption. We had finally struck silver for the first time since the Revie era. The first of many? But as surely as night follows day, Leeds United anticlimax was to follow Leeds United climax. We started the inaugural Premier League season of 1992-93 indifferently, seemed to struggle with the new rule prohibiting goalkeepers from picking up the ball from a back pass and could not buy an away win. Going out of the European Cup to Glasgow Rangers 4-2 on aggregate was a major disappointment. This precipitated an even more appalling development for Leeds fans three weeks later when Eric Cantona with whom Leeds fans had fashioned an almost sexualized relationship was signed by bitter cross-Pennine rivals Manchester United for a fee of £1.2m having paid £1m for him. It is fair to say that Leeds fans felt jilted by what to them is the ultimate act of treachery. Leeds ended the season in 17th place, the worst title defence since the relegation of reigning champions Manchester City in 1933. We failed to win a single game away from Elland Road and it was only home form (one home loss to Nottingham Forest 1-4) that kept us up. But the most sickening outcome of that season for many of us was Manchester United’s first title win of the Alex Ferguson era in which Cantona played the talismanic role that he had played for us the previous season. He would be central to the Red Devils successes until he retired the iconic No 7 shirt in 1997 that had been worn by George Best and would later be donned by David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Nevertheless, I had occupied a front row seat in Leeds United’s return to glory and would do again as a season ticket holder in the rest of the 1990s through to the boom and bust era of Peter Ridsdale and the austerity years of Ken Bates courtesy, I must admit, of the Bank of Mum and Dad. The other major beneficiaries of it being the University of Essex as I could not get any research funding for my CV. After a twelve month rewrite, I obtain my PhD in July 2000 when I am also diagnosed with dyspraxia; a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome (or High Functioning Autism or Autistic Spectrum Condition which are now the preferred ND definitions due to the role of Hans Asperger in the Nazi eugnenicist T4 programme. I also train as a psychodynamic therapeutic counsellor and do the requisite BACP training hours for professional accreditation. But again my career goals get thwarted by neurotypical prejudices in a supposedly woke society. My millennial Leeds United journey takes me from a Champions League semi-final to a tour of League One grounds and promotion back to the Championship in the duration of its first decade. A return to the Premiership would take another decade by which time I had ceased travelling to Elland Road. MOT.
[1] For a full account of the real and imagined injustices inflicted on Leeds United, read superfan Gary Edwards’ take on them in No Glossing Over It. How Football Cheated Leeds United. Mainstream Publishing 1 August 2013. PS The full title of the book is an allusion to Gary’s trade as a self-employed painter and decorator and his famous aversion to the colour red; he refuses to paint anywhere in the colour of Manchester United, the sworn enemy of most Leeds fans; removes red paint for free for customers and is known to paint over red safety signs and bus stops.
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
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