It's a long time since there was such enthusiasm: 1931/32 season, part two

Two away wins and two home defeats were an awkward start to 1931/32's attempt at getting back into the First Division first time, with a squad Dick Ray claimed — with pride, and by design — was the youngest in the league. After jeers in their own ground and angry letters in the local papers, United seemed relieved to have two games away from Elland Road to recover themselves.

In the Leeds Mercury Hugh Whitfield puzzled over the contrast in their display while drawing 1-1 at Notts County. 'Certain rather noisy critics of Leeds United in the Elland Road crowd would have been astonished if they had heard the Nottingham crowd cheering clever play by the Leeds men and waxing facetious over the efforts of their own players,' he wrote. 'It seems that footballers, like prophets, have little honour in their own country ... on one occasion the crowd cheered gleefully while (goalkeeper Jimmy Potts) engaged in a long tussle with a Notts winger on the touch-line. We may miss Turnbull's pranks at present, but, thank goodness, there is still Potts in United's team to remind us that football is a game to be enjoyed.'

On a revenge mission to Millwall, Leeds took the lead three times to eventually win 3-2, and 'No cup-tie could have provided more thrills', according to the Yorkshire Post. The Daily Herald wrote that, 'Football of the kind served up by Leeds United at Millwall is bound to win matches.' The Daily Express said, 'It was a terrific battle between the slick certainty of the First Division style, and the desperate enthusiasm of the Second. Class won, Tom Cochrane got the winning goal a quarter of an hour from the end, and from then on Leeds were always on top. Splendid science beat splendid grit.'

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'The Mystery of Leeds United', as the Mercury called it, continued in the next two matches. Welcoming Plymouth Argyle to Elland Road, Leeds picked up their first home point of the season but still couldn't score, drawing 0-0, not making the best of their early chances and leaving their tilt for victory too late. 'United knew how to get going, but on the way, were woefully irresponsible, even to the point of suggesting apathy. It would not have been so disappointing had they not occasionally flashed out a first-division experience. It was that, and their overwhelming last-gasp recovery, which puzzled the crowd.' Then it was off to Bristol City for more of the 'Two Way Play of United', winning 2-0 through 'sustained attacks, in which all the forwards maintained position, and found each other with well-judged passes'.

To some, the mystery of United's Jekyll and Hyde home and away form could be solved by looking to the terraces at Elland Road. Charlie Keetley in particular had been 'barracked' during the defeat to Millwall, and after the deluge of complaints, the Yorkshire Evening Post received a flurry of suggestions for improving the crowd rather than the team. One correspondent, the YEP wrote, 'says there should be more hooRAYS at Elland Road when Leeds United football team are at home. He would like to see a complete cessation of that well-known ejaculation that ends with "oo" ... The plea has come at the right time, for the reception that has been given to the players at their two home matches has not, to say the least, been helpful.'

The paper had sent a reporter down to the ground to talk to the players, 'and found that every member of the team has had a painful experience of barracking in the two home games. Among those who were out training were three of the older players, Potts, Edwards, and Turnbull, and all three agreed that barracking is getting worse at Elland Road ... (this can) easily upset a team, especially the younger men, who have found a different state of affairs at away matches.'

Here are three experiences that all the players have noticed in the first two home fixtures:
- They have heard someone booing as soon as they went on the field.
- One of the young players was barracked the first time the ball was taken from him.
- There was hilarious shouting when a player fell.
The players have a shrewd idea of the identity of the Elland Road barrackers. Most of them are youths who group themselves in gangs round the three popular sides of the enclosure. Their tactics are so noticeable that Mr. Ray, manager of the club, had to confess to our reporter that in his long experience, extending over 37 years, he has never known barracking as bad as it is at Elland Road today.
"There in no doubt about it, the boys are a totally different side when they are away from home, and I can say that if they are given a decent chance on their own ground by their supporters they will not disappoint," added Mr. Ray.
In other words, if the barrackers can change their tone of voice just for one match, they will not dare to open out again in a jeering tone of voice. Therefore let there be more hooRAYS.

That plea came before the goalless draw with Plymouth, but it was the following home match, against Oldham, that heard Elland Road in its best mood. Charlie Keetley, once booed, was cheered from the field. The Oldham goalkeeper was offering his congratulations to his old England teammate Willis Edwards. The team, without a goal so far at home, had suddenly found five. 'On Leeds United's own ground,' wrote Hugh Whitfield in the Mercury, 'and not at Oldham, Oswaldtwistle, or Oshkosh, as one might have expected ... The team is to be congratulated on making a big effort to dispel the shadows that have been hanging over Elland Road.' Keetley scored a hat-trick, two in the first half that an old Leeds City player said were among the best ever seen in Beeston: one a passing move that Keetley finished with a trick and a powerful, rising shot; the other scored by bringing down Cochrane's cross and beating an opponent all in one motion, then hitting a 'lightning drive' into the net.

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This fine win was, as was hoped, a turning point in United's season. Including the win at Bristol City and this watershed win at home over Oldham, Leeds won nine in a row, then drew two and won another before they were beaten again. First they went to Bury, the league leaders who had won all four at home. The Peacocks beat them 4-1. For twenty minutes Leeds looked destined to be defeated by a strong team and a referee with some odd ideas about tackling, but Joe Firth gave them a half-time lead and strong performances by Edwards and Ernie Hart helped the side come on top of a flurry of goals just after the break. Next, Wolverhampton Wanderers visited Elland Road. 5th with a game in hand and a record to equal the top teams, Wolves were the top scorers in the division, and Leeds had to fight to win this one. They were behind from the half-hour until fifteen minutes from the end, when a renewed rally got an equaliser from Billy Furness, followed three minutes later by the winner from Keetley; caps were thrown in the air, and Whitfield wrote, 'It is a long time since there was such enthusiasm and excitement at the ground.'

Another strong team, 3rd placed Stoke City, were beaten 2-0 in a close game at Elland Road. 15,524 turned out, the biggest crowd of the season yet, drowning out any barracking that might still be coming from the stands. Willis Edwards and Ernie Hart were proving valuable to the building promotion challenge, but their young fellow half-back Wilf Copping was beginning to stand out as an imposing and clever presence alongside them. Edwards wasn't with them at Old Trafford, after being called up to represent the English League to play the Scottish League in Glasgow, but Leeds had few problems winning on the ground of a team that came down with them from Division One. It was 1-0 at half-time, and in the second half Leeds had two disallowed, fell 2-1 behind, then regathered themselves to score four without reply, a fine 5-2 win.

'As they are playing at the moment,' noted the Daily Herald, 'Leeds have no serious rivals for the leadership of the Second Division. There does not appear to be a single weak spot in the side, and the fact that the absence of Edwards does not lower the standard of their play increases their prospects of a speedy return to top-class football.'

A columnist in Thomson's was less certain:

The manager of one of the Second Division promotion aspirants was unburdening his soul to me the other day. He said, "You can say what you like about Leeds United, but the team I am frightened of are the Wolves." I find that the Wolves are fancied for promotion in various quarters. The opinion is that their workmanlike style is better suited to the task ahead than the cleverer methods of teams like Leeds United and Plymouth Argyle.

But back in Leeds, at the Mercury, it was Dick Ray taking the plaudits for keeping his faith in the club's young players and not bending to calls for expensive transfers. Recent form:

...stamps United as a much better side than the majority of their supporters imagined. Mr. Ray had confidence in the lads and stuck to his belief when things were going just about as badly as they could do, and he is now fully entitled to the satisfaction he must feel when the team is justifying his judgment ... The foresight of much criticised management is being abundantly justified. Last year at this time the all-conquering Everton of today were not doing better than Leeds United, but it had cost them about thirty times as much to get there by the end.

In a one-sided win over Preston North End at Elland Road the crowd were shouting for more goals than Leeds scored in the 4-1 win. The team obliged next time out, winning 5-0 away at Burnley, whose fans loudly admired the play of their guests, some saying Tom Cochrane was the best, some Bill Menzies, some Ernie Hart. Even the referee was standing back to watch; with Cochrane through the defence, he blew his whistle and gave the goal as soon as the ball left the winger's boot — and before it swerved away and hit the post. 'Naturally, there was something of a scene', reported the Yorkshire Post, and after consulting a linesman — and Cochrane himself — the ref had to change his decision.

United scored three in each of the next two games, and the same way, two for Charlie Keetley and one for Billy Furness each time. But they also conceded three in each game, first throwing away a 3-1 lead in the last fifteen minutes at home to lowly Chesterfield, then after being 2-0 up away to Nottingham Forest in the first fifteen minutes. At Forest Leeds faced a team taking a spirited, physical approach to stopping the league leaders, and this was a concern, whether United's young side would be able to withstand teams going 'all out' to stop them. Against Tottenham Hotspur at Elland Road they faced a team playing closer to their own brand of 'clever' football and, after taking an early lead through Harry Green, came through a 'fast, desperate battle for supremacy' as 1-0 victors. Wolves were looking like strong rivals for the title and on the same day won away at Port Vale, 7-1. But Leeds were three points clear at the top of the Second Division. ⭑彡