Mick Jones, Crystal Palace, 1970 ⭑ Great Leeds goals

Has anyone had a better plan for enjoying the football than Gillian and Jim? They were off to watch league-leading Leeds United play Crystal Palace at Elland Road, at the end of February 1970, there with 37,138 others to watch a 1-11 plus substitute of pure class: this was a Sprake, Reaney, Madeley, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles, Gray day, with Cooper on the bench. Entertainment enough for anyone, but these two were putting an extra edge on it.

"He won't admit that Leeds are the best team," Gillian Towle said of her fiancé James Cleary, especially not on this day. Jim was a Crystal Palace fan, who lived a few minutes walk from Selhurst Park, in a street called Selhurst Place, and aged nineteen had a trial for his beloved club. Gillian had moved from her home in Cookridge Avenue to be near him, testing her love of Leeds United against her newer love for Jim. They'd met, the previous summer, while they were both on holiday in Majorca. Gill had moved to London for love, and now they were back in Leeds for the love of football — and to be married.

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Here was the plan. First, they were going to Holy Trinity Church, in Cookridge, to get wed. They'd not known each other a year but this sporty couple in their mid-twenties were living at the speed of the swinging sixties. Rushing into marriage? Look, that was their business. But after the reception, they were planning on rushing down to Elland Road, her to watch her beloved Leeds, him for his beloved Palace. We can assume they'd gone to the Selhurst Park fixture in October, when Gerry Queen and Peter Lorimer each scored in a 1-1 draw. This would be their first time watching as man and wife.

But that wasn't enough for this pair of funsters. That was only half the plan. Once the game was over they'd be rushing into town and heading straight for Leeds station and counting out the goals they'd seen and looking along the platforms. Their romantic idea was to add up the final score, go to whichever platform that number gave them, and get on the next train. At the other end of the line, at that random train's final destination, they would find a hotel and have their honeymoon. 

It could be Barnsley or Bournemouth, said the Daily Express, or nowhere at all: in the event of a goalless draw, they were just going to camp where they were. "We're prepared to go anywhere, even Land's End," Jim told the Yorkshire Post. "All I hope is that at least one goal is scored," said Gillian. "I don't think you can camp on the station." It would certainly be no place for wedding night frolics, without attracting the attention of a local constable or two. 

"I don't know what we shall do if the platform we end up on is for goods trains only," Gillian went on, and I can only assume the Express journalist was coming up with these scenarios to worry her — or that Jim was the free-spirit in their relationship.

There was nothing free-spirited about Palace's play and for half-an-hour that was sending Jim and Gill no further than camping on the cold end of Leeds station. Palace were in the bottom three, without an away win all season. Bert Head, their manager, had tried selling an upside before playing a team closing in on its aim for four trophies. Palace's away record, he said, "was deceptive ... we've managed eight draws. If we can add to that at Leeds, I won't be complaining." Leeds were unbeaten at home and had drawn just four of seventeen, averaging 2.6 goals per game. Palace, basically, were putting everyone behind the ball and hoping.

So even Palace die-hard Jim, even if he wouldn't admit Leeds' superiority when Gillian insisted, had to be glad when Mick Jones gave them a goal to count towards their honeymoon. Jones and the happy couple all had Billy Bremner's brilliance to thank for it.

Norman Hunter had laid the ball wide for John Giles then sped into Palace's box, a sign of how many players Leeds were throwing forwards towards the Scratching Shed. Giles put a cross in and Mel Blyth headed away, not the first or last time, sending the ball high and looping away outside the area, where Bremner was running to get there. And Bremner, without waiting for the ball to drop, met it on the run with his instep, twisting his hips to make it a mid-air version of the flicked heel passes he loved to play, sending the ball back where it had come from, behind him. It was impudent, unexpected, and perfect for the one player on his wavelength: the ball went up high and dropped low at the back post, right in front of Jones, who flung himself at it, diving, heading, down into the sandy pitch for a bounce up into the bottom corner.

That didn't put Palace in the mood for making the game any more freescoring, but Jones did add another just after the hour. Hunter held off Gerry Queen on halfway, taking the ball off him and sending it into a 50-50 that Paul Madeley won. Madeley played with a complete picture in his mind and so his dart right, to the centre of the pitch, was prelude to a no-look pass left, behind the defence, where Jones was expectant between the full-back and centre-half. Of course the pass was superb, of course Jones took the ball into the area with one touch, fired it beneath John Jackson's dive with the next. 

Roger Hynd hit the post for Palace, almost sending Jim to platform three with slightly more spring in his step, but at full-time the maths were simple. Jones plus Jones equalled platform two. The newlyweds hotfooted it to Leeds station, dark and dieselly-thick with shoppers, commuters, and football supporters on a winter Saturday teatime. A group of their friends, photographers and Leeds fans who'd read the paper were there to cheer them on.

Elbowing them all aside on the concourse, Jim and Gill got to the departure board, looking for platform two, looking for the next train, looking for the first trip of the rest of their lives.

Barnsley or Bournemouth, the Express had wondered. But what about Blackpool? Or Newcastle, Manchester or Liverpool? Edinburgh or Penzance? Sheffield or Scarborough?

Had Hynd's shot gone in, they would have been off to Skipton. If the score had been four, a train was waiting on that platform for York. Five would have made their destination London.

But 2-0 meant platform two, the Wharfedale line, the train leaving at 5.45. Stopping at Guiseley, Menston, Burley-in-Wharfedale and Ben Rhydding, taking James and Gillian Cleary for their honeymoon night a grand total of sixteen miles to Ilkley. "All we needed was a three shilling ticket," said Gillian.

It wasn't exactly the Orient Express, but "We are very happy," Gill told the Express, in time for their Sunday morning edition. From the Crescent Hotel, she told reporters that they were planning a longer honeymoon for September, back to Majorca, where they'd met. 

And although Jim was disappointed by the result, he was being won over by the football he'd seen. "Actually, Leeds are a good team," he said. "Since watching them up here with Gillian, I think they are a really great team." Gillian, however, was not looking forward to seeing more of Jim's favourites Palace. "I don't think I will be going to watch them very much," she said. "It's not worth going." ⭑彡

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