The club has also had an often strained relationship with the city of Leeds itself, which was dominated by rugby league prior to the success under Revie. That has perhaps never been better illustrated than at the end of the season, in which Leeds, targeting a clean sweep of trophies, were ultimately left empty handed after fixture congestion forced Revie to abandon plans to retain the league and instead focus on the FA and European Cups, only to lose in the final of the former and the semi-final of the latter.
We did it with something like 15 players getting to the final of the FA Cup, semi-finals of the European Cup and second in the league, which they should have won. Revie apologised over and over. The Mayor was fuming because all the civic plates and cutlery had been brought up from the cellars and they had to cancel an order of pork pies and sandwiches. That story seems to me to sum the Revie era up. The answer, as ever, can be found somewhere in the middle.
Because rugby league came first and was so dominant and we had so many good rugby league teams. They were all pretty much attached to churches. That would be Saturday afternoon, Sunday would be church and church socials. By Rob Conlon. You really should. Please update your billing details here to continue enjoying your access to the most informative and considered journalism in the UK.
Accessibility Links Skip to content. Menu Close. Log in Subscribe. Rod Liddle. But longterm fans of any club unlucky enough to have suffered a similar decline know the roots often lie very deep indeed and that previous administrations are seldom willing to share the blame.
Even in the short term, however, it always seemed astonishing that such a star-crossed club could have put an attempt to regain their former eminence in the hands not just of Ken Bates but of Dennis Wise. The Damned Utd was what David Peace called a remarkable novel devoted to an imaginative reconstruction of Brian Clough's 44 days at Elland Road in the immediate aftermath of the Revie era.
Some of Revie's old players, most prominently John Giles, reacted to the book's publication last year by railing against its supposed inaccuracies. Many readers, however, sensed a deeper strain of what is usually called emotional truth beneath the portrayal of an institution corrupted by Revie's paranoia.
Football clubs are like garden spades. When the blade wears out, you replace it. Then the handle breaks and you replace that, too. But, somehow, it is still the same spade. Which is perhaps why the men currently in charge of Leeds United seem so familiar. When it comes to paranoia, Bates could have given Revie lessons.
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