Trevor Cherry
As United's greatest team broke up in the second half of the seventies, Cherry gave the best years of his career to forlorn efforts at making Leeds what they had been before.
After he joined the FA Cup holders in 1972, and while the team was reaching another FA Cup Final and the Cup Winners' Cup Final, breaking records as it won the league and getting to the European Cup Final, Trevor Cherry was the odd man out.
He was almost always in the team during those three seasons, taking over at left-back from injured Terry Cooper, but in a first eleven that many said was the best in the world, Cherry was the only starter who was not an established international. Not only that, he hadn't even won a cap; signed from Huddersfield Town for £100,000, Cherry was a major part of some of the Revie team's greatest achievements, but he didn't play for England until 1976.
It was Don Revie who picked him for England, and he at least recognised his qualities, as did the Leeds supporters, although his contribution has been underplayed in the years that have passed since. Perhaps that's because, younger than Bremner, Hunter, Giles and the rest, it was his fate to stay with Leeds during the decline, all the way to Division Two.
As United's greatest team broke up in the second half of the seventies, Cherry gave the best years of his career to forlorn efforts at making Leeds what they had been before. Cherry, Eddie Gray and David Harvey were all born within a month of each other, and were now in their prime; with youngsters Joe Jordan and Gordon McQueen and signings like Tony Currie, fans were optimistic that Leeds had the nucleus of a team that could recapture glory. But manager Jimmy Armfield was replaced by Jock Stein for 44 meandering days, then Jimmy Adamson for two disastrous years; Jordan and McQueen quit for Manchester, and Harvey, Gray and Cherry, who looked like kids when they played with Bremner and the rest, suddenly looked very old themselves.
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