Ian Baird, Newcastle, 1989 ⭑ Great Leeds goals
And here came Baird. His speed was top, the ball was slow, his leap was high. Baird needed gymnastics up there, throwing his head upwards as the ball came down, tilting his heels up behind him to keep his body suspended, neck muscles needed next to send his whole skeleton sideways.
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Everyone wanted to be part of Leeds United in December 1989. In bitter cold at the month's beginning, one snowless Saturday declaring winter the new in thing, the biggest football crowd of the day was at Elland Road. It was the biggest Second Division crowd of the season so far, 31,715, for Leeds United against Newcastle United, 2nd against 3rd, closing on Sheffield United at the top.
It was a crowd managing director Bill Fotherby was desperate to increase, stalking the stands with a tape measure, trying to fit an extra seat here, open a disused corner there. The touchlines were crammed with double stacks of sponsors' boards, Umbro and Top Man and Mitre, Sony Centre and Tetley, Flying Pizza and the Hilton Hotel. Elland Road was the place to be. It was David Batty's 21st birthday party. The main question was whether it was better in the stands or on the pitch.
Leeds had another question, about how to avenge their opening day defeat, 5-2 on Tyneside. A different looking day in the rave-heat of August, St James' Park feeling empty, wide and big. After relegation, Newcastle's gate was 12,000 short of their 36,600 capacity but big striker big Mick Quinn filled the gaps with four goals. Momentum swung away from Howard Wilkinson's expensive Leeds team, who had to come back to Beeston and build.
They won seven in a row at home before Newcastle came down, and as the tallest floodlights in Europe illuminated the rugby-chopped turf Leeds pressed the Magpies into giving up an eighth. Newcastle had John Burridge in goal, a 38-year-old with Peter Shilton's curly hair wearing one of Peter Shilton's favoured Umbro goalie tops, green with jagged stripes and shoulderpads. He was like Shilton's mad younger brother, amusing fans who had arrived early, fearing a lockout, by warming up with forward somersaults and backward somersaults, forward rolls and backward rolls, walking on his hands and doing the worm.
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