A pack of wolves

​Leeds United head to Molineux again on Saturday afternoon, hoping for another clean sheet – and not at the away end for once.

Unfortunately, I have a sense of doom, which has absolutely nothing to do with the current Leeds team (before the haters see this opinion piece as fuel) and everything to do with football history.

Most LUFC fans will remember some memorable encounters against Wolves, not least those in the Premier League when we invaded the West Midlands, each time looking to get out of trouble towards the bottom of the league.

On 18 March 2023, we won 4.2, after being 3.0 up early in the second half. Illan Meslier – never one to turn down une pièce de théâtre – then promptly hurtled out of his goal to get a better view of Wolves defender Jonny’s volleyed finish flying past him and into an empty net.

Cunha then made it 3.2 before Jonny (whose terrible defending had helped lead to our third goal) really stamped his presence on the game and his studs on Luke Ayling, who had accepted the invitation to score our second goal. Down to 10 men, Rodrigo made it 4.2 in injury time, a result that lifted Gracia’s team four places and two points above the bottom three.

Quite ridiculously, while writing this, I felt my heart begin to pound in the hope that it might have been enough to save us from relegation…

Exactly a year earlier, also in the Premier League, Wolves found themselves 2.0 up at half-time before Jimenez, who had already been booked, collided with Meslier chasing a 50-50 ball. Referee Kevin Friend – defying every piece of official advice when it comes to games featuring Leeds - decided the Mexican was at fault and produced a second yellow card.

Wolves had been in total control up to that point and had been cruising past us in the laybys on the wings favoured by Marsch. In the chaos that followed, the 10 men were hit by an onslaught from the Whites, with Bill again scoring – this time, an injury-time winner.

We were saved, but the executioner’s axe wasn’t staved off for long, was it? If anything, sticking with Marsch meant that, in my mind anyway, we were still doomed.

On 7 April 1973, 50 years and a lifetime earlier, the two teams faced each other at Maine Road in front of 52,488 in that year’s FA Cup semi-final. The teams had fought out an attritional 0.0 draw just before this match, and with Jack Charlton pulling a hamstring and Leeds having to reorganise their defence, while Wolves goalkeeper Phil Parkes seemed destined to keep out everything we could throw at him, my radio couldn’t have announced the half-time whistle quickly enough.

In those days, though, we had Billy Bremner – quite simply the best captain we have ever had and possibly our greatest player, who never bothered about time or officialdom, simply never knowing when he and his team were beaten. As in the cup semi-finals of 1965 and 1970, he popped up with the winner.

As the cup holders, we were favourites to win it again, but that other team just got in the way of us, in the same way as the corrupt referee did in the Cup Winners’ Cup Final a few days later. Suffice to say, I couldn’t drink Mackeson for years afterwards as the name reminded me too much of that other team’s nickname.

So, three wins against Wolves, which simply preceded doom and gloom. So Leeds, that.

When we first moved to Worcestershire, on hearing that I was a lifelong Leeds United fan, our new neighbour, Paul, told me that he had been part of the police presence at the most infamous meeting between the two teams to date.

It came, of course, a year earlier, at Molineux on 18 May 1972. Paul had been drafted in to help control a crowd of 53,379, the biggest turnout at the ground for five and a half years and one which has not been bettered since.

Leeds had won the FA Cup on the Saturday for the first and only time but were forced to play Wolves in the First Division on the Monday evening, such was the contempt for our club that even the monstrous fixture congestion of 1970 had failed to modify in supposedly higher places.

Writing in The Guardian, Eric Todd commented:

‘For the second time in two years, the Fates, with whom may be associated the Football League, are making it very hard for Leeds United to win anything…I believe that Leeds have been treated scandalously and are having to pay the penalty for lack of foresight by the League and the FA

Sympathy can find little room in football these days, but sooner or later the League and the Football Association must realise that the football season is far too long and far too congested with a multitude of competitions. There is no space to manoeuvre and none to provide for contingencies, such as bad weather, replays and international demands.’

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Leeds would become League champions for the second time in three years and do the Double if they avoided defeat (mathematically, a draw might have allowed Liverpool to finish above Leeds on goal average, but they would have had to beat Arsenal 11-0 at Highbury, and that’s an awful lot of late, injury-time goals!).

In those days, referees stuck to their tasks. Phil Parkes collided with Allan Clarke in the area, yet appeals for a penalty were turned down. In the 25th minute, after Bremner's shot was blocked, the ball ran again to Clarke on the edge of the area with his lob towards goal being turned away with both hands by Bernard Shaw. His namesake may have enjoyed drama even more than Meslier, yet appeals for a penalty were turned down.

Although Leeds United had been accused of attempted bribery before the match, it was apparent for all to see during the game itself that all that glittered was not gold.

Munro and Dougan put Wolves 2.0 ahead before Billy – again – smashed a goal back. It wasn’t enough. We lost 2.1, and I was distraught. I had to have the next day off from school. My Mum cited ‘a bad cough and cold,’ but, really, I was just heartbroken.

Derby won the title, with triumphant manager Brian Clough moaning that ‘I believe they played four and a half minutes of injury-time at Molineux - if seemed like four and a half years to me.’

Try 44 days…

If we do win on Saturday, let’s hope some of the dark clouds will move away this time. But we are Leeds, and we know how it goes: the downs follow the ups, especially when faced by a pack of wolves.
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Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.​

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