Classic Match Report
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In the spirit of LLL magazine, Jon Classic Howe takes a retro look at some of our most memorable Match moments. HANKIN HAWLEY E GRAY FLYNN CURRIE GRAHAM F GRAY HART MADELEY CHERRY HARVEY Leeds United 4 Southampton 0 Football League Division One Saturday November 25, 1978, 3pm Elland Road Attendance 23,592 Goals Graham (14), Madeley (22), Currie (56), Golac og (65) Referee PG Reeves (Leicester) Southampton (4-4-2): Gennoe, Golac, Peach, Williams, Nicholl, Waldron, Ball, Boyer, Hebbard, Holmes, Baker. Two words: “Tony Currie”! Let’s be handsome with it. I’m told the ladies the net from just inside the box after honest, we’ve been spoilt rotten over love him, but personally he could a decent move involving Cherry, the last 10 years or so watching a look like Attila The Hun as long as Hankin and Flynn. The second goal team so wonderful we may never see he continues to bang them in like came from an unlikely source when their like again. Things might be on he did today. Paul Madeley’s deflected shot beat the slide a bit at the moment, and it’s the disconsolate Gennoe eight going to take some time to re-build, Looks like Jimmy Adamson has minutes later. sorted this mess out? Yes, this but players like TC give you hope. These were just a tantilising hors This game was heading towards a “transitional period” evolving from Revie’s departure is taking a bit longer d’oeuvres, though? Correct, the first regulation victory over an improving half was a case of teasing the taste Southampton side, but Currie, never to negotiate than we expected, but we hit a rock bottom when Jock Stein buds, and the disappointing 23,000 one to accept a mundane back-seat crowd had just cleansed their palate role in proceedings, took the game by resigned in September. Adamson appears to have steadied the ship at half-time when Tony Currie took the scruff of the neck and illuminated a hold of the game and left us fully Elland Road with a sublime goal. and has presided over an upturn in home form and progress into the nourished and contentedly satisfied. It’s impossible not to love him, isn’t Fifth Round of the League Cup. Then In truth, ignoring his goal for a it? Elland Road is going weak at the today, we strolled to an emphatic moment, Currie did look a class apart knees at the moment. At a time when win and showed signs of eying loftier in the second half, and patrolled we are desperate for a new hero, it ambitions again. midfield with his normal imperious is not difficult to see the qualities and elegant authority, as the busy Currie possesses. He is cool, stupidly The goals? Arthur Graham started Flynn did the leg-work around him. talented and, erm, undeniably things off in the 14th minute, finding Magic Number 180Degrees on TC’s convex curve-shot! But it’s That Goal we want to talk, about... After that? The ground was buzzing for the Okay! On 56 minutes Currie dispossessed rest of the game, and when Southampton’s Saints winger Graham Baker just inside Yugoslavian right-back Ivan Golac comically the Southampton half. He ran forward over-hit his back-pass and notched with the ball and, faced with few options, Leeds’ fourth with an own goal, it barely found himself just outside the box with registered with the Elland Road crowd. two defenders in front of him. Rather All the talk was of Tony Currie. than wasting needless energy trying to How were the Leeds fans? A month ago beat them, Currie promptly sized up the we also beat Derby 4-0 and while the situation and in mid-flow simply curled crowds are still sparse there are signs of the ball around them, and the goalkeeper encouragement. We’ve seen plenty of false Gennoe. With a freakish amount of bend, dawns over the last four years, so you can the ball arced into the far corner of the net. understand the fans’ reticence, but slowly, The fans in the Kop adjusted themselves things might be turning around. from a cowering position as the ball sped Flynn’s endeavour was towards them, to a transfixed state of Best Leeds player? there for all to see, and Arthur Graham was awestruck wonder as the ball defied a live wire also, but Tony Currie stood head the laws of science and landed in the and shoulders above everyone else. onion bag. In a nutshell? May I introduce; the banana Presumably TC was ecstatic? Not really, shot. no. As the ground exploded and toilet rolls Tony Currie (top) and rained onto the pitch, in trademark fashion, Brian Flynn Currie just blew kisses to the Kop and Paul Madeley clapped them. He clapped them. Talk about under-playing it! Follow Jon Howe on Twitter @jonhowe1971 68 69.