The rule books backwards: Leeds, Chelsea and the 1967 FA Cup semi-final
"For about half an hour after the final whistle, I felt completely numb," said Don Revie. "When I met my son, Duncan, outside the ground. He was sobbing — and I felt like sitting down and crying with him."
By 1967 there was a sense around the First Division that Leeds United's glory years could be coming to an end and an empty cabinet. Since promotion in 1964 the Peacocks had been to an FA Cup final, a Fairs Cup semi-final (with another to play) and finished 2nd in Division One, twice. How much longer could Don Revie's team continue without tangible success?
Most agreed it was a great team, but as it lined up for an FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea at Villa Park, it was not yet the great Leeds United team fans recognise today. Mick Jones and Allan Clarke hadn't joined, and Revie was still trying to muster a strike force from Rod Belfitt, Jimmy Greenhoff and even Paul Madeley, to fill the gap being left by Alan Peacock. Greenhoff and Belfitt got the nod against Chelsea, with Madeley needed in defence to cover Jack Charlton's broken toe.
Gary Sprake was in goal, and the full-backs in front of him were Paul Reaney and long-serving Willie Bell. Madeley, Norman Hunter and Billy Bremner were the half-backs, Terry Cooper was outside-left and John Giles was outside right, teenager Eddie Gray was through the middle. The even younger teenager Peter Lorimer, already famous for the power of his shot, was substitute.
It looks now and felt then like a team that was still trying to become something, and that was the problem. Nobody but Revie could foresee the simple alterations that would turn this team into a world famous powerhouse: buying Jones and Clarke, moving Giles to the middle with Bremner where Bobby Collins had ruled, replacing Bell with Cooper, putting Gray and Lorimer on the wings and Madeley everywhere. And without Revie's foresight, they looked like a team at the limits of its potential that needed to put a trophy in the cupboard before it was too late.
That was one reason why referee Ken Burns' decision to disallow Lorimer's last minute equaliser in the semi-final and send Chelsea to Wembley instead felt like such a kick in Leeds United's teeth. "For about half an hour after the final whistle, I felt completely numb," said Revie. "But the remorse really began to hit me when I met my son, Duncan, outside the ground. He was sobbing — and I felt like sitting down and crying with him."
The other reason was that the decision felt so incomprehensibly cruel. Leeds had fallen behind to £100,000 striker Tony Hateley's first half strike, but wrested control of the game in the second half and, with Lorimer on for Belfitt and Bremner throwing himself up front, they did all they could to batter an equaliser out of Chelsea. The Blues defenders hurled themselves in the way of every shot until Cooper, latching onto a knockdown from Bremner, smashed a cross-shot past Peter Bonetti — that was ruled out for offside.
There were only seconds left when Hunter, charging up the left towards the penalty area, was fouled. Chelsea lined their wall up in front of Giles, while Lorimer loitered in the middle of the pitch, a slight young figure with a Beatle cut whose reputation for shooting seemed to have been temporarily forgotten. That was Chelsea's mistake. Giles knew what he'd get when he rolled the ball square. Lorimer, first time, twenty yards out, hammered that ball into Bonetti's top corner. It was a wonderful strike, sending the Leeds fans delirious and, when referee Burns ruled it out, sending the Leeds players mad.
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