Frank Worthington, Sheffield Wednesday, 1982 ⭑ Great Leeds goals
Frank's next touch was with the inside of his left boot, taking the ball away from Lyons and goading the goalie, Bob Bolder, out of his six yard box. And with that done, he switched to the outside of his left boot, before anyone else was ready.
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I pulled this one at random from a list of 100 best Leeds goals voted for by fans for a dvd in 2003 — no.51 is Frank Worthington against Sheffield Wednesday in 1982, but it doesn't say which goal and the dvd then shows them both. So this is a two-for-one special.
The easiest way to be optimistic is to feel weekend sunshine on your face in September. Leeds United were down in Division Two in 1982 but far from feeling out. Two draws and then a win, in midweek at Leicester City, sent buoyant Peacocks to face the Owls of Sheffield Wednesday, followed there by Match of the Day's cameras.
The BBC was preceded by 29,050 spectators, the biggest crowd Hillsborough held that season. "With most of the crowd in shirtsleeves," commentator Barry Davies observed, "indeed, if they are wearing shirts at all." The Owls had won their first three, 3-1, 3-0, 3-1, and again, this was a warm sunny day in September and it was easy to feel good and want to watch Wednesday.
And to want to fool yourself. "It will be just like playing in the First Division again," said United's player-manager Eddie Gray, and that was what everyone in Leeds wanted but couldn't have. Not since relegation in May, and not until promotion, hopefully, next May.
Eddie was out on the pitch, player-managing in a Leeds' shirt and shorts of vivid buttercup, while his opposing manager, a certain Jack Charlton, sat on Wednesday's bench where he could smoke cadged cigarettes in peace. Gray was new to managing but was giving himself every advantage at left-back, with energetic winger Arthur Graham ahead of him. He also had Trevor Cherry, his teammate of ten years, dropping as a sweeper between Paul Hart and Martin Dickinson so Gray could prowl forward, helped by his younger brother Frank in midfield, to terrorise Wednesday's right flank.
In place of Peter Shirtliff, Charlton had put young full-back Melvyn Sterland back into his team to stop Graham. Sterland might have coped with him, but not with Eddie Gray plucking his brother's passes out of the air and sashaying forward as well.
The Peacocks' hope in the penalty area was the extravagant striker who many felt could have kept them in the First Division if he'd only arrived sooner than March. Now fans were hoping Frank Worthington would stay long enough to help Leeds back up. Against Wednesday, he put Leeds two up, and he did it with the reassuring aplomb of someone sent from a higher plane.
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