Mike O'Grady, great bloke

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Just had a phone conversation today with Mike O'Grady, Leeds winger from the Seventies, wanting to put the record straight about his involvement (or lack of it more like) in the bribery scandal when United lost at Wolves two days after the 1972 FA Cup final and thus lost the Double.
The Mirror claimed Mike was involved and Andrew Mourant said that he had admitted it. All b******s according to Mike, who was pretty upset about the whole thing.


The Mirror later claimed that Don Revie tried to fix the game. Andrew Mourant: "It was alleged that Mike O'Grady had been approached by Revie as an intermediary to see if the Wolves players might be bribed so that the game would go in Leeds' favour. The Mirror article, quite explicitly, had O'Grady claiming that Revie made the offer, and O'Grady made the approach on his behalf.”
O’Grady strenuously refutes those allegations to this day. He insists that he was never chased by the Mirror for an interview or in fact spoke to them on any occasion about the matter.
This isn’t the first or last time that Fleet Street has been less than straightforward with its stories and O’Grady was clearly very upset by the speculation. He is a supporter of functions to raise money for Leeds causes such as the erection in 2012 of the Don Revie statue at Elland Road, and was mortified by a story that had got out of hand and damaged his reputation.
Whatever the motivation, O'Grady's Wolves team mates were certainly fired up for the game, winning 2-1 to deny United the double.



Mike was also a bit confused as to why when you do a search for him on Google it comes up with a picture of an American guy next to a summary about when Mike played for England. do a search and see for yourself.
Anyway, Mike is a fantastic bloke and one of United's true greats.

Glad to be of help, Mike, the updated version of his life story will be available soon at http://www.mightyleeds.co.uk/players/ogrady.htm

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