League champions 1974 - day after the night before
We really are champs
Peter Milburn
Life at the top for Leeds United today was champagne at 1.0 in the morning, Don Revie arriving after an all-night party and players wading through crowds of cheering schoolchildren.
It was the day after the night before as Elland Road came to life and the manager said: “We really are the champions.”
Manager Don Revie stepped out on to the field where the players were training and hugged each one. They started singing and cheering. “It’s a grand old team to play for,” they sang, which is a favourite number the team sings on the coach to away matches. The players held Revie shoulder high.
Trainer Les Cocker, calmly sipping tea in his changing room, said: “I don’t think these lads will have any trouble with the European Cup after this.
“They’re such a fine crowd – always ready to work hard and to listen to any advice.”
Les was watching television last night when his son, David, who lives in Pudsey, telephoned with the Liverpool result.
“I rang up the boss and found that he had gone out to dinner. Then Don rang me and asked me to a party at his house.
“It has been a grand week for Don – the championship, a great match last Saturday, This Is Your Life, and he even beat Val Doonican at golf,” he smiled.
“I am really looking forward to the Queens Park Rangers match on Saturday. The pressure is off and I just know they will all play a great game.”
Chief coach Syd Owen paid tribute to the Leeds United wives. “This is not a nine-to-five job and it is a blessing that we have wives who understand what’s involved. They deserve a big thank you.”
Cyril Partridge, first team coach, said: “I hardly thought about the result, but when it came up on television that was it, I was speechless.”
“I am proud to belong to Leeds United today.”
Physiotherapist Bob English, who has had the job of dealing with United’s injury problems, said: “There is a big hole in the roof at home, and my head just fits it. Particularly with all their injury troubles, the players have done a great job.”
Mrs Kathleen Smith of Rosedale Gardens, Belle Isle, Leeds, one of two laundry women at the club, said: “We must wash about 200 shirts a week, but this has made it all worth while. I am just overjoyed by it all.”
The men at the centre of it all, the players, were either too dazed or overcome by the Revie party to say much today. They arrived to find hordes of schoolchildren eagerly waiting for their autographs.
One of them, Julie Cornell (9) of Cross Flatts Place, Beeston, Leeds, waited for more than an hour. She won the race to be the first to congratulate Allan Clarke and asked for his autograph.
One absentee from early morning training was skipper Billy Bremner: “But he has a good excuse for not being here,” said one of the players.
Yorkshire Evening Post Thursday, 25/4/74
United’s finest hour
Title win is team’s best ever
Don Warters
The greatest achievement in the last 13 years of Leeds United’s history is how manager Don Revie rates his side’s latest League championship triumph.
Revie, who has recently completed a 13-year unbroken period as manager at Elland Road, puts this season’s title win on a higher pedestal than the club’s first Division One championship win in 1968/69.
“I really do think this win is a greater achievement than the first one. When we won the First Division title last time we were able to keep a more settled formation,” Revie said.
“This season we have had to play without as many as five internationals at a time. It speaks volumes for the players who have come into the side and helped us so well that we have been able to win the title.
“I simply cannot praise all my players enough. They have worked tremendously hard throughout the season, and I feel they have deserved the reward which has now come their way. I am proud of them all,” he added.
The championship finally came United’s way last night when Liverpool’s great-hearted challenge, which creaked against Everton, cracked completely when they lost their home record to Arsenal 1-0.
A Ray Kennedy goal in the 55th minute sent United fans into rapture.
As he sifted through greetings telegrams which piled up on his desk today, Revie expressed relief that the championship race which Liverpool had prolonged much longer than seemed likely at one stage of the season when United were nine points clear at the top of the division, was at last over.
“I feel as though someone had come along and lifted six tons of coal off my back. It’s a great feeling. I feel as though I am walking on air,” he said.
“By winning the League we are of course now in the European Cup.
“This gives us a second chance to have a crack at winning the European Cup. I’ve made no secret of the fact that it is my biggest ambition to see Leeds United win the greatest of the European trophies.
“It is a dream I have had ever since I became a manager, and now the possibilities of that being realised have opened up to us again.”
Revie, celebrating the club’s achievement with his staff today, recalled one particular period in the season as being crucial to United’s chances of being able to lift the big prize.
“After we lost at Stoke and Liverpool, at home to Burnley and down at West Ham, everyone said we were cracking up,” he said. “I thought then that there was a chance of Liverpool being able to catch us.
“But the players got their heads down, put their heart and soul into their play and in the period around Easter we managed to take six points out of eight available. At the same time we did not concede one goal.
“That to me showed the tremendous ability and character of the players we have at Elland Road. Never was the test greater than it was at that game. But they came through it well.”
One of the first calls Revie received in his office today was from his great friend and rival, Bill Shankly, manager of Liverpool.
Swallowing his disappointment, Shankly told the United boss: “Leeds United are truly great champions. My congratulations to you, your team, and to everyone at Elland Road. I know Leeds care about everyone, from the cleaning ladies right through, and that is how it should be.”
United striker Peter Lorimer was highly delighted with Arsenal’s performance.
“Secretly all the players were praying that Arsenal would do it because otherwise the tension at Queens Park Rangers on Saturday would have been unbearable,” he said.
“Now the crowd will see a much better game as a result. With the pressure off we will have the confidence to go out and show everyone just how well we can play.”