The young blood slogan: 1931/32 season, part one
Leeds United were relegated from the First Division in 1931, denting soccer's growth in a rugby obsessed city. But the manager was backing his young players to bounce back — and backing himself.
I'm sure I wasn't alone, as Leeds United ground their way through the winter of 2024/25 season, whose mind went back to 1931/32's attempt at promotion from the Second Division.
A stubborn manager, a board that wouldn't pay for new players, a disputed style of play, bored fans: Elland Road in 2024 felt a lot like Elland Road in 1931.
I decided to use the next couple of weeks to tell the story of that season, when the future of the young Peacocks was hotly debated in their own city.
Mr Richard 'Dick' Ray was, through and through, Leeds soccer. Born in Staffordshire he played for Burslem Port Vale long before they became a thorn in the future of the club he joined in 1905, Leeds City. He was City's first captain in league football, playing in their first ever game, making 44 league and cup appearances across the first two seasons. When City's financial malpractice and Port Vale's complaints had the Leeds club closed down in 1919, Ray returned as part of the efforts to form the new Leeds United club, managing it in the Midland League then assisting Arthur Fairclough in the first few seasons of league football. He left in June 1923 but, in summer 1927, after the team suffered its first relegation from the First Division and Fairclough moved on, Ray took over as manager. He, to coin a phrase, knew the club. Or, to use the nickname from his playing career, he was 'Chief Peacock'.
As a manager he was blunt, single-minded. "How should I know?" he growled at a reporter, who had enquired if the players were training over Christmas. He guided Leeds United straight back to Division One and to a 5th place finish in 1929/30, after topping the league in autumn and getting the city truly excited, for the first time, about association football. The next season, after Ray and the selection committee tried to bring more youth into an ageing side, Leeds did a Leeds and were relegated to Division Two.
To start 1931/32 the club did something quite radical. While United were going down, City's former manager Herbert Chapman had been winning his first league title with Arsenal. In his time at Elland Road, Chapman had been on the verge of building a side ready for the top division, and he'd insisted on doing it by managing the players his way, without interference from the board of directors. That approach had since brought two league titles to Huddersfield Town, and an FA Cup and now a league title to Arsenal. Having the directors keeping their nose out of things would suit Dick Ray's way of working. Leeds United disbanded the selection committee that had, until now, debated and chosen every first eleven, and put the job entirely in Dick Ray's hands.
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Writing in the Sunday Express, Chapman brought national attention to the question of his 'old friend's' new role — 'a daring course to take', he wrote, but the right one:
His intimate knowledge of the players under him and his experience in balancing a side have, of course, stood him in good stead, but he exposed himself in a position from which most officials would have shrunk, and he must have been prepared for a fusillade of critical half-bricks if his work did not bring the points.
It was a daring course to take, but it went close to the root of the question, because I have always contended that the best judge of how matches may be won must be at the heart of the game, knowing and understanding life in the dressing-room, and sharing the thoughts of the players. An amateur selector, or one who attends matches occasionally, is not fitted for the job. He may be a famous old player, but unless he keeps in close touch with the game he is very seriously handicapped.
Where in my opinion many selectors go wrong is in attempting to decide the merits of one player against those of another. That is not the way to build up a successful side. In choosing a team my first thought is the balance of it, and whenever it is necessary to change it, my endeavour is to preserve the balance.
Ray's sense of balance was tilting, quite defiantly, one way. The club as a whole was strapped for cash and not keen on buying new players, while Ray was firmly of the opinion that the youngsters he'd been bringing through in the First Division would be good enough for the Second. At pre-season training Ray ran through the players' ages for a reporter's benefit and all but a few were under 24. Fifteen were under 21 and the average age was judged to be about 23 — by all accounts, the youngest group of players in the league. All bar one had been with the club last season, and Ray was refusing to get involved in an English league trend for signing new players from Scotland. "Because they're not as good as our own boys," he said. "Some English managers are in for big disappointments from their so called captures."
"I won't definitely say that we can win our way back right away," to the First Division, he said, "but at the least we have the men and the ability to hold our own with anyone in the Second Division. If we can only shake off the terribly bad luck that perpetually dogged us last season — in my 37 years of football I have never seen a team have such rotten luck for so long — the rest will just be comfortable work for us."
The team was going to be relying heavily on two stalwarts who were lifting the average age. Willis Edwards was by far the most valuable part of the squad, an England international signed from Chesterfield for £1,500 in 1925. He was a wing-half — a defensive wide-midfielder — and at 28 years old was one of the best around in his position. A year older but even longer serving, Ernie Hart had played in United's first league season in 1920/21, captained the side, played for England, and was the talisman on which the defence was built and, often, the attack depended. With him at the back was Bill Menzies, another older head but frail, and Wilf Copping, the 'Iron Man', a ferocious young defender starting his second season. Either Jack or George Milburn, or both, rounded out the defence in front of their brother-in-law, goalkeeper Jimmy Potts, practically a veteran at 32. Although this set of backs hadn't kept Leeds in the First Division, they conceded fewer goals than sixteen of the 22 teams, and only let in three more than runners-up Aston Villa.
Only three teams had scored fewer than Leeds, though, and the forward line was the raw department Dick Ray was hoping would mature in the Second Division. The wingers were Harry Duggan, a 28-year-old who had been waiting his turn as deputy to Bobby Turnbull, and Tom Cochrane, aged 23, who had signed from St Peter's Albion and been sharply criticised by fans comparing him with Tom Mitchell. The inside-forwards were Joe Firth and Billy Furness both aged 22, the latter bought for £50 from Usworth Colliery. At centre-forward was one of ten footballing brothers, Charlie Keetley, who had scored in double figures in four consecutive seasons for Leeds, backed up by nineteen-year-old Arthur Hydes. Supporters had their doubts, but Dick Ray was so sure of his young team that he let a host of experienced players leave. George Reed, Tom Mitchell, Ben Underwood, Bill Johnson, Russell Wainscoat, Tom Townsley and Tom Jennings all left, taking 948 games of combined experience with them.
The early season signs were as comfortable as Ray confidently predicted. In their first games Leeds beat Swansea Town 2-0 and Port Vale 2-1, both away — the latter being United's tenth consecutive win over Port Vale. Thomson's Weekly News described United coming through these games 'with distinction', not troubled by the absence of club legends and England internationals Willis Edwards and Ernie Hart in the Potteries. Alex Stacey and Bob Danskin, two 23-year-olds, stood in. Other reports noted Leeds were 'far cleverer and faster than Swansea', while at Port Vale, 'the forwards delighted the crowd with their clever movements'. The team, 'had always an extra touch of class, and on this showing the opinion that they will be serious candidates for promotion will be strengthened'.
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Then, however, the team returned for the first time to Elland Road. 'Leeds United surely never can play such unfinished, down-in-the-dumps football again,' wrote Herbert Campbell in the Leeds Mercury, adding that 'Leeds United deserved defeat — as a lesson' from their game with Barnsley. Defeat is exactly what they got, 1-0, despite it being 'a moral certainty (Barnsley) would have been well beaten had United brought any enthusiasm into their efforts. It was all very annoying to an Elland Road crowd who braved a wetting to cheer United on a mission of recovery which had started so well' at Swansea and Port Vale.
4,600 people didn't come back for the next game, but the stay-at-homes may have been even more annoyed than the ones who made it to Elland Road. The result was announced on the radio — in the nine o'clock news from the North Regional Station and at 9.40 from the London National — as 'Leeds United 3 goals, Millwall 1'. The annoyance came when fans opened their newspapers next morning and read the correct score — Leeds United 0 goals, Millwall 1.
'It would have needed a very optimistic pair of glasses to see the First Division when the final whistle blew,' wrote F.W. Schofield in the Mercury. 'United tried hard enough but theirs was all push and no plan. A side does not force twelve corners, as they did, without effort, but for the most part the forwards were running about hoping that something would turn up.'
The two defeats prompted a deluge of letters to the Yorkshire Evening Post. 'Deplorable and shocking are the mildest of the adjectives used', the Post said in their round-up.
'The defence is alright,' wrote Anglo-Mac, 'but the forwards simply won't do, not that I blame the little fellows, they are giving their best ... Against Barnsley they were merely at sixes and sevens and an old hand to steady them might have made a big difference ... Something must be done promptly, if for no other reason than the duty to the supporters who deserve and demand something better.'
EJB added, 'The style was so amateurish as to suggest that the team was a lot of novices. Last season the selection committee was blamed, and rightly so in my opinion. This year we are told that the manager is responsible for choosing the team, but immediately there is a reverse he has followed the same policy of rushing wholesale changes. With what result?'
Letters kept coming in and the following day's round up was headlined 'If I were Dick Ray'. The general opinion was that, 'the Elland Road men (are) keeping the ball too much in the air for the lightly-built and small forwards', but the specifics were, of course, varied. Most writers wanted Duggan to play. Some said Copping should be moved from half-back to inside-left to see if he could score as well as stop. Others said Copping was the only defender worth keeping in the back lines. Some wanted to try full-back George Milburn at centre-forward. F.D. of Beeston, though, said that such mixing up was already a problem on the pitch, the inside-forwards going too far back and getting involved with the half-backs instead of being up with the play. J.M.S. wanted Turnbull and Wainscoat back in the side — Ray was yet to transfer them out — as did Disheartened and Standite. 'The young blood slogan is all right one at a time, but a forward line of young blood, with a half-back and full-back thrown in, is going too far.' ⭑彡