Flying High

Fifty years ago, to help me get over the devastating Leeds United field trip to Paris, my parents took me on a different kind of road trip to the north-east coast. We were accompanied on the radio for a lot of that journey by two sound engineers from Trojan Records – Jeff Calvert and Max West – who called themselves Typically Tropical. Their hit ‘Barbados’ has been bouncing around my head again this week, slightly amended, as I declare loudly and to nobody in particular: ‘Oh! We’re going to The Emirates.’

I wonder what songs the radio was playing on the way back from LUFC to Everton on the M62 on Monday night? One thing’s for certain, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall would have been looking out of the coach window, wistfully wondering why the lights at Elland Road are brighter than anywhere else he’s ever been to or, more likely, checking in the side mirror that Ethan Ampadu wasn’t still coming after him.

It was great to start with a win over Everton, wasn’t it? If he’d spent a few minutes longer at Elland Road David Moyes’s eyes would probably have burst out of his head. They will no doubt get better, but I think we will too.

So now we march on to face Arsenal on Saturday. We first played them on 20 December 1924. They weren’t in an especially Christmassy mood as we lost at Highbury 6.1. James Brain scored four of their goals. Hopefully, we now have the intelligence, data and physicality – not to mention Daniel Farke’s disarmingly understated Germanic ambition – to make more of a game of it.

We’ve had some great battles with The Gunners over the years, haven’t we? I can just remember the League Cup win in 1968, before which Terry Cooper dreamed that he’d score a winning goal. Don Revie had him on toasted cheese and mushroom sandwiches every night for months after that, hoping he’d be able to repeat the performance.

Four years later, we had the ‘Clarke... One Nil!’ FA Cup final, which I can recall much more clearly. The goal, obviously; the injury to Mick Jones, obviously, but what stayed with me for the longest time was Norman Hunter’s masterclass in defence. Everyone knows about his tackling, but his reading of the game in that match in particular was absolutely fantastic. Hopefully our new centre-halves have taken a look on YouTube…

The game I still have my own dreams about (and not good ones) also came in the FA Cup, in the fourth round. We’d already drawn 1.1 with them at Highbury before returning for the replay at Leeds on a Wednesday evening, 2 February 1983. After the nightmare of relegation the previous season, we again matched Arsenal all the way until practically the end of extra time, before Aidan Butterworth somehow got on the end of Terry Connor’s cross to put us 1.0 up in the 118th minute. After that goal, I was swept around on a one-way tour to parts of the Kop that I’d never been to before. Utter and Glorious Mayhem.

We are Leeds, though. Graham Rix – never one to avoid a punt – equalised from 30 yards just two minutes later and, suitably satisfied with his evening’s work, the referee then blew the whistle. We lost the second replay at Highbury, obviously…

Finishing as runners-up in the Premier League for three seasons in a row and Champions League semi-finalists last season, Arsenal are undoubtedly one of the best club sides in Europe we’re going to face this season. Neville wouldn’t want to come near us, and Carragher has no doubt already written us off. Nobody expects us to get anything from the game, so it’s a bit of a free hit for Leeds with the pressure off. However, if that means we can spread our wings…

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.​

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