Collins joined Leeds and taught entire club how to win – Gray
Yorkshire Post 14/1/14
Leeds United yesterday lost one of their greatest ever players. Richard Sutcliffe looks back on the impact Bobby Collins made at Elland Road.
BILLY BREMNER’S statue stands outside Elland Road as a fitting tribute to Leeds United’s most successful captain.
Fifty or so yards away down what in his heyday was called Lowfields Road stands the bronze figure of Don Revie, the manager who turned an unremarkable provincial club into one of Europe’s most feared teams.
But, if those two Leeds greats are forever to be remembered as the driving force behind United’s decade at the very top, Bobby Collins surely deserves his place in history as the foundation on which all that success was built.
The Scot, who sadly passed away yesterday afternoon at the age of 82, moved to Elland Road in March, 1962, at the age of 31. The transfer fee was £25,000, equivalent to around £400,000 in today’s money. To some, it seemed an inflated fee, especially as Everton had paid an identical sum to bring him south from Celtic four years earlier.
Collins had enjoyed a fine career, lifting the Scottish League title while at Parkhead along with the Scottish Cup, twice. He had also been a regular for Scotland.
But by the time Revie lured Collins across the Pennines, that career appeared to be winding down. Joining a team locked in a fight for survival at the wrong end of Division Two only seemed to reinforce that notion.
Revie, though, was adamant that 5ft 4ins Collins would be a success and immediately made him captain.
His impact was instant, with United going on to lose just one of their final 11 games that season to escape relegation on the final day.
Within two years, Leeds were celebrating promotion back to the top flight with Collins, by now joined by Johnny Giles in midfield, the driving force behind that success.
The momentum from lifting the Division Two title continued into 1964-65 as United only missed out on the title by the slimmest of margins, goal average. A home defeat to eventual champions Manchester United in April proved decisive.
Easing the pain slightly as the Championship trophy went to Old Trafford was that Leeds had beaten the Red Devils in the FA Cup semi-final to book a first trip to Wembley.
Again, though, United were to be cruelly denied as Liverpool triumphed under the Twin Towers after extra-time.
That loss meant the West Yorkshire club ended the campaign empty-handed.
Collins, though, did not, with the Scot, who missed just four of the club’s 52 league and cup games despite passing his 34th birthday in the February, being named Footballer of the Year.
Few, if any, argued with the award. Nor did they with Collins’s recall to the Scotland side after a six-year absence.
Sadly, the following season – United’s first in European competition – would see Collins suffer a broken thigh in an ill-tempered Inter-Cities Cup first round tie against Torino in Italy. Collins did not play again for more than seven months. Seven more appearances followed in 1966-67 but the injury – and time, that old enemy of all footballers – inevitably took their toll. Collins joined Bury before returning to Scotland with Greenock Morton, where he spotted the potential of Joe Jordan and immediately alerted his old boss at Elland Road.
Once retired from playing, management jobs with Huddersfield Town, Barnsley and Hull City followed but it is, undoubtedly, as the captain who led Leeds from the depths of Division Two to within a whisker of a League and Cup double that Collins will always be best remembered.
“Bobby was the main man,” says Eddie Gray, one of the many youngsters who Collins captained in their early days at Leeds. “I am certain that without Bobby signing, we would not have seen the Leeds United that we did. He taught the entire club how to win.
“Don realised he had to get someone in who could bring us younger lads on and that he had to get a born winner. A shrinking violet would have been no use.
“Nothing fazed Bobby and it was his determination to win that was passed down to both Billy Bremner and Norman Hunter.”
Small in stature, Collins may have been. But, even among the galaxy of legends that helped Don Revie transform Leeds into one of Europe’s top sides, Collins was huge in standing.
Leeds United yesterday lost one of their greatest ever players. Richard Sutcliffe looks back on the impact Bobby Collins made at Elland Road.
BILLY BREMNER’S statue stands outside Elland Road as a fitting tribute to Leeds United’s most successful captain.
Fifty or so yards away down what in his heyday was called Lowfields Road stands the bronze figure of Don Revie, the manager who turned an unremarkable provincial club into one of Europe’s most feared teams.
But, if those two Leeds greats are forever to be remembered as the driving force behind United’s decade at the very top, Bobby Collins surely deserves his place in history as the foundation on which all that success was built.
The Scot, who sadly passed away yesterday afternoon at the age of 82, moved to Elland Road in March, 1962, at the age of 31. The transfer fee was £25,000, equivalent to around £400,000 in today’s money. To some, it seemed an inflated fee, especially as Everton had paid an identical sum to bring him south from Celtic four years earlier.
Collins had enjoyed a fine career, lifting the Scottish League title while at Parkhead along with the Scottish Cup, twice. He had also been a regular for Scotland.
But by the time Revie lured Collins across the Pennines, that career appeared to be winding down. Joining a team locked in a fight for survival at the wrong end of Division Two only seemed to reinforce that notion.
Revie, though, was adamant that 5ft 4ins Collins would be a success and immediately made him captain.
His impact was instant, with United going on to lose just one of their final 11 games that season to escape relegation on the final day.
Within two years, Leeds were celebrating promotion back to the top flight with Collins, by now joined by Johnny Giles in midfield, the driving force behind that success.
The momentum from lifting the Division Two title continued into 1964-65 as United only missed out on the title by the slimmest of margins, goal average. A home defeat to eventual champions Manchester United in April proved decisive.
Easing the pain slightly as the Championship trophy went to Old Trafford was that Leeds had beaten the Red Devils in the FA Cup semi-final to book a first trip to Wembley.
Again, though, United were to be cruelly denied as Liverpool triumphed under the Twin Towers after extra-time.
That loss meant the West Yorkshire club ended the campaign empty-handed.
Collins, though, did not, with the Scot, who missed just four of the club’s 52 league and cup games despite passing his 34th birthday in the February, being named Footballer of the Year.
Few, if any, argued with the award. Nor did they with Collins’s recall to the Scotland side after a six-year absence.
Sadly, the following season – United’s first in European competition – would see Collins suffer a broken thigh in an ill-tempered Inter-Cities Cup first round tie against Torino in Italy. Collins did not play again for more than seven months. Seven more appearances followed in 1966-67 but the injury – and time, that old enemy of all footballers – inevitably took their toll. Collins joined Bury before returning to Scotland with Greenock Morton, where he spotted the potential of Joe Jordan and immediately alerted his old boss at Elland Road.
Once retired from playing, management jobs with Huddersfield Town, Barnsley and Hull City followed but it is, undoubtedly, as the captain who led Leeds from the depths of Division Two to within a whisker of a League and Cup double that Collins will always be best remembered.
“Bobby was the main man,” says Eddie Gray, one of the many youngsters who Collins captained in their early days at Leeds. “I am certain that without Bobby signing, we would not have seen the Leeds United that we did. He taught the entire club how to win.
“Don realised he had to get someone in who could bring us younger lads on and that he had to get a born winner. A shrinking violet would have been no use.
“Nothing fazed Bobby and it was his determination to win that was passed down to both Billy Bremner and Norman Hunter.”
Small in stature, Collins may have been. But, even among the galaxy of legends that helped Don Revie transform Leeds into one of Europe’s top sides, Collins was huge in standing.
