john68 wrote:Yay Mikhail...great memory of that Leeds game....From memory, summat nudged me to ask wasn't that game Denis Law's debut as a City player 1st time around?
Yup, quite right John :- our £60,000 mega signing from Huddersfield Town (why, oh why was he allowed to leave City ??).
If you remember, in that game partway through the second half, City were leading 3-2 and Leeds threw everything into the attack. They were doing an early version of Wimbledon, Watford, Stoke, Big Fat Sam sides etc in perpetually hoofing the ball into City's box, from anywhere.
It was all aerial rough and tumble stuff and Bert was leaping like a salmon catching everything they were throwing at him (if a low flying aircraft had come over the ground at that stage, I swear Bert would have jumped up and caught that as well). With about ten minutes to go, my chum and I had to leave the ground in order to catch our train from nearby Beeston Station.
In those days there were huge slag heaps in between Elland Road and Beeston and we took a short cut by climbing over them, but although we kept looking back from our elevated route, we couldn't quite see into the ground to catch a glimpse of play. However, when there must have only been minutes left, we heard firstly one giant roar, followed almost immediately afterwards (or at least it felt like that) by a second one.
My chum, who happened to be a Leeds fan, was happily convinced that his team had scored twice in the last few minutes to win the game. I couldn't accept it and it was only when we finally got home that the result was confirmed (talk about Fergie time) and, being so angry, I actually fell out with my chum over it. This anger persisted through to Monday where, at school, I deliberatley picked a fight with the school thug and a couple of his gang, simply because I was that way out and because they were all Leeds' fans. I got absolutely battered by them but was given a detention for starting the fight in the first place.
In those days, detention evenings after school were on Thursdays, which coincided with the school chess club evening and there was no way I was going to miss that; so I skipped detention and was 'rewarded', for that action, with a Saturday morning detention instead. Saturday morning detentions required you to report to the school caretaker to be given menial, manual tasks such as shovelling coal and coke in the school boiler room, weeding the rose gardens, polishing tables in the staff room etc. etc. However, Saturday mornings were the time when I played football so I skipped the detention again and ended up finally by being caned with 'six of the best' (however did it get such a description ??) from the headmaster (who I already hated, but this only cranked up the animosity.....but that's another story altogether).
All in all, by a convoluted story, my lifelong distaste for Leeds Utd started here; all occasioned by one game (and one lad, in those days, with a volatile temper). In the intervening years, compounded by Don Revie and his 'method' football, I've never been able to warm to the Elland Road outfit (except for last year in their FA Cup visit to the Swamp) and have disliked them ever since.
Bert Trautmann really did play a blinder that day though and was epically magnificent. When I close my eyes, I can still see him in that game commanding his area......my hero still, now and forever.
