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Home , Billy Bremner, Bill Shankly, Brian Flynn, Carlton Palmer, Carl Harris, Chris Fairclough

LEEDS UNITED – THE GREATEST 50 PLAYERS Online: 24 March 2009. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/football_league/article5966594.ece

1) (1959-76) 771 appearances, 115 goals

"You can't put into words what Billy Bremner meant to football." So said another irascible, preternaturally aged Scot, Sir . There are more skilled players in this list, but nobody better epitomised the bloody-minded brilliance of prime-time . John Wray, of the Telegraph & Argus, pinpointed this will to win, writing: "To sit in on a card session with the little fellow losing his cash is to experience something akin to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the explosion of an atomic bomb. He is an extraordinary competitor." He was the totem of the side whose football has been besmirched by selective editing.

Signed by Bill Lambton as a 15-year-old and rooming with a veteran named , the homesick Bremner asked for a transfer. When Revie became the manager, he asked again, but the manager priced him out of the market by slapping a £30,000 price tag on his head. For his next trick, Revie converted him from an inside right-cum-centre forward to a midfield general. He was in the team for 17 years and then came back as manager. When he was dying, Allan Clarke, his closest friend, wanted to see him. "He sent word back that he didn't want me or any of the lads seeing him like that," Clarke recalled.

His achievements are manifold. The glory years began in 1964 with the second division title and took in two championships, an FA Cup, a League Cup and two Fairs Cups. It might have been so much more, but for Leeds fans it was enough. They have always liked hard players at and Bremner could merge silk and steel. It is entirely right that the belligerent firefly is immortalised in bronze outside the ground, and entirely in keeping with the myopia of modern times that it took his death to prompt it. What is football about? "Days when you can cry your eyes out and walk on air," Bremner summarised. "There is nothing to compare."

2) (1947-57 & 1962) 327 appearances, 157 goals

Over a pint in 's pub, John Charles once told me how he had signed for Juventus despite never having heard of them and how he saved Omar Sivori, the 1961 European Footballer of the Year, from a Mafia bullet. The Argentinian had been threatened with sudden death if he scored in a particular game. Almost inevitably, a ball ricocheted off the back of his head and into the goal. Charles and his team-mates formed a protective cortege around Sivori and shuffled down the tunnel. Charles then scored the winner, but it was disallowed. He asked the referee why. "Like Mr Sivori, I want to get home safely," he said.

He was more than just a great raconteur. Equally at home up front or in defence, he was a softly spoken Everyman, although took issue with the Gentle Giant moniker. "When he went on a surge he would leave a terrible trail of human devastation in his wake," he said. "Bloody gentle giant indeed!"

To get a real indication of how good Charles was, you have to look beyond Leeds. He scored 23 goals in 34 games for Juventus in 1960 and ended up with 93 from 150 in . His billing reputedly turned Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren green with envy, he sang on the same stage as Nat King Cole and he caused a national debate when he gave up a certain goal by kicking the ball out of play as an opponent lay injured in the Turin derby. That night, Torino fans gatecrashed his house and drank his wine cellar dry.

Utterly unpretentious, he reacted to getting his CBE by asking what it stood for. At his funeral, read a self-penned poem. "A giant with a gentle touch, just watching him we learnt so much, I think you know the one I mean, the greatest player that’s ever been.” He later added: "We thought the sun shone out of his backside." 3) Peter Lorimer (1962-78 & 1984-85) 703 apps, 238 goals

As a kid, I can remember the hairs standing up on the back of my neck when Leeds got a free kick and the Kop started singing "Ninety miles an hour". The youngest player in the club's history at 15 years and 289 days, Hotshot bagged a staggering amount of goals for the club in 17 years and then, pushing 40, returned for more. He was older, fatter and slower, but he was still the cleverest player in the team.

Lorimer is still the most readily visible of Leeds legends, having been recruited to the board and entertaining punters at his nearby Commercial pub. He also had interesting views on the decline and the era, not least the suggestion the champions should throw their medals in the bins. "You can take the piss out of young lads but not seasoned pros," he said. "I respected what he did at Derby and Forest, but Cloughie was a bully who came in to prove a point."

4) Allan Clarke (1969-78) 364 apps, 151 goals

"I thought I'd better leg it. I remember Mick taking on Bob McNab and , the full back, coming across to cover. As the ball's coming over I'm thinking right-foot volley and I fancy my chances. But when it was about ten yards from me it started to lose pace and I'm thinking it ain't going to get to me. Now you've only got a split second to make up your mind, so I think I better take off. So I did." And that was how Sniffer won the FA Cup for the only time in the club's history.

Simply the best finisher ever seen in a Leeds shirt, with 151 goals to prove it, Clarke was also an outsider, signed for a British transfer record £165,000 from Leicester City having turned down . He was a volatile figure but a defender of Leeds's reputation for dirty deeds. "I'd been on the other side of the fence. I'd been in opposition changing-rooms with the manager saying, 'Try and outfootball this side and they'll destroy you so rough them up a bit.'" The thoroughbred to Mick Jones's high-class workhorse.

5) (1963-75) 525 apps, 114 goals

Johnny Giles was out of favour with Matt Busby at Manchester United but was enticed to the second division by Don Revie and Bobby Collins. Later, alongside Billy Bremner, he was the epicentre of the glory years. "The football we played from 1969 to 1974 was unbelievable," Giles said. "Some of the matches we played, particularly at Leeds - well, I've never seen better football before or since. People don't mention that."

The legacy might have been different, too, had the board accepted Revie's recommendation to appoint Giles as his successor. Instead, they chose voluble Leeds-hater Brian Clough. The sure sign that Giles was a legend, who could easily have topped this list, was being immortalised in song by Ronnie Hilton.

6) (1988-96) 311 apps, 57 goals

Frequenters of the Pit of Smug Self-satisfaction, aka , often harp on about stealing . Well, Leeds stole Gordon Strachan and Johnny Giles for half the price. Strachan recalls a halcyon age when Manchester United (note to all in the media, do not call them "United", you wouldn't have in 1991 so why now?) were useless.

Strachan had fallen out with Sir Alex Ferguson by 1988. "He's a difficult man to like," he said of Taggart's less vivacious sidekick. Strachan got the man-of-the-match award on his Leeds debut at Portsmouth and realised there was a problem when he was given 24 cans of beer as his prize. Under his stewardship, Leeds became more professional to telling effect. They won the old second division title in 1990 and won the last first division title, in 1992, before the era. Strachan was 34 and the heartbeat of the side.

"You can only do so much at a club and then it's like David Bowie, you have to reinvent yourself," he said of his move to Leeds. Strachan reinvented himself as Billy Bremner and we loved him for it. He even made look good.

7) Eddie Gray (1965-84) 577 apps, 68 goals

The image of Eddie Gray, neck disappearing into his shoulders, dribbling towards a hapless full back was one of the indelible ones of Revie-era Leeds. Just about the nicest man in football, Gray might have been a global legend but for injuries. "If Eddie had been blessed with any sort of luck at all, he would have been a bigger name than ," Revie said. He then added: "When he walks on snow he doesn't leave footprints." Gray ruptured a thigh muscle aged 16 in Leeds reserves. "There were complications and, as a result, I never had the opportunity to play to my full potential," he said. "The thigh injury restricted me in every way, whether it be pace or striking the ball. I was always aware of it."

Which is quite something given that he was wonderful and made close to 600 appearances. Periodically shafted by the hierarchy afterwards, being sacked as manager on the back of a seven-game unbeaten run a particular low, Gray remains one of the good guys.

8) Jack Charlton (1952-73) 772 apps, 95 goals

He may not have been the most gifted of players and he admitted he watched in the World Cup final and thought, 'I'll never be able to play this game,' but Jack Charlton was the igneous core on which Leeds's success was built, albeit that he had left before the second title was secured in 1974. A self-confessed jack-the-lad, who trained to be a miner, it was Revie who changed Charlton's life. However, in 1962, Leeds were almost relegated to the third division and Revie said he would sell him. was interested and so was Matt Busby. In the end, he stayed put and formed a bad cop-bad cop combo with Norman Hunter.

They made a combined total of almost 1,500 appearances for Leeds, with Charlton named as the football writers' player of the year in 1967. The only other Leeds players to get the award have been Bobby Collins, Billy Bremner and Gordon Strachan.

9) Bobby Collins (1962-67) 167 apps, 25 goals

If anybody set Leeds on the road to the top, it was Bobby Collins. He was 31 when he pitched up in West from Everton, not having got Bill Shankly's covetous phone messages until too late, and he proved the forerunner of a timeline of diminutive, hard-boiled Scots who punched above their weight. Collins helped Leeds to survive dropping down to the old third division on the last day of the 1962 season and three years later was there as they lost the first division title on goal average.

His career suffered an inexorable shift when he was brutalised in a Fairs Cup match away to Torino. He broke his femur. Jack Charlton recalled that he ended up with a bolt through his leg like something from a scrapyard. "He thought it was funny," Charlton said. He also added: "Bobby would kill his mother for a result." When times were hard, it was Bobby Collins who was the difference.

10) Gary McAllister (1990-96) 294 apps, 45 goals

It was tempting when compiling this list to consider nobody until the Revie team had been covered, but that would be putting the collective efforts of a team over individual attributes. McAllister was arguably the most skilful midfield player to represent Leeds. Some fans were unhappy to see Vinnie Jones discarded after his role in the 1990 promotion season, but in terms of ability it was like comparing Sinatra and Sinitta. Gordon Strachan recalled that McAllister initially terrorised his team-mates verbally because he could not understand why they did not do as he did. The answer was they were not as good. The best £1 million spent in the past 30 years, McAllister formed the flair part of a perfectly weighted midfield quartet along with Strachan, Speed and Batty.

11) Norman Hunter (1961-76) 724 apps, 21 goals

One of the great myths of Leeds is that the place was full of hard-faced hatchet men crawling from sooty black buildings with poisoned studs. A few years ago Pat Collins, one of the country's best sports scribes, wrote of Leeds: "Thuggery was cherished." It is a view that grates with Leeds fans as it was only one side of a team. Hunter was a rock for Leeds and had the backing of his peers, winning the first PFA Player of the Year award. "He did not get enough credit for his skill," , who voted for him. said. "He could flight the ball beautifully with his left foot. A great player."

Keegan thought so highly of him that he travelled from his home in to play in Hunter's testimonial. "I drove 100 miles and the first thing he did was chop me down."

12) (1976-79) 124 apps, 16 goals

If I was allowing personal prejudice to blind me to the facts then I would have put Currie at No 1. He is my favourite player because, by the time I was serious about football and not just reading the programme and watching Fred Dibnah wannabes climb the tallest floodlights in Europe, he was the ringmaster. He could pass and shoot - remember that banana shot against - and would sit on the ball and blow kisses to the crowd. Currie was pure entertainment, but he was no luxury player like Alex Sabella. In a different age (ie, now), he might have had 70 caps, but he got 17 and, ironically, was cast into the international exile by Don Revie.

It was sad that Currie joined Leeds in 1976, as the team began the slow transition from best side in Europe to ne'er-do-wells heading for oblivion. But as the National Front peddled their propaganda outside the turnstiles and the hooligan years kicked in, Currie was the shining light. My hero.

13) (1995-2003) 242 apps, 63 goals

I know this will have you spitting blood in Beeston, but ignore the inflated ego, the farcical exit and the failure at and remember just how good Kewell was in his pomp. He was such a beautifully balanced runner with the ball and the goals he scored were astounding - the deft flick with the outside of the boot against Wednesday, the 35-yard screamer against Aston Villa, the thunderous half-volley at Highbury. After the depression of the George Graham era, when any old lag could get a game, Kewell was the cure.

He has since been demonised in Leeds, which is shame because, in terms of natural talent, Kewell was as good as anyone on this list. Have a look on YouTube if you don't believe me.

14) (2000-04) 166 apps, 72 goals

It is satisfying for the bitter fan to note that a lot of players have gone on from Leeds to hit a career lull. Kewell, Bowyer and Smith are the most obvious, but Viduka is another. Neutrals may now have him painted as a double barrel-chested Aussie with the mincing gait of a stuffed sloth, but Viduka was, and probably still is, lustrously talented. He was also prolific, bagging four goals against Liverpool at Elland Road in one afternoon, and when Leeds had a vast array of striking talent - Smith, Keane, Kewell, Bridges, Fowler - was the best of the lot. He scored 72 times from 162 starts and, given that most of those were deft chips or volleys, that is some return. His lofty position here should not be judged by what happened afterwards.

15) Mick Jones ( 1967-75) 312 apps, 111 goals

With all due respect, Mick Jones did not have half the skill of the man above him in the list, but he worked tirelessly for the cause and effectively provided the legs for Allan Clarke to help himself into Leeds lore. It was grimly apposite that Jones should dislocate his elbow in providing the cross from which Clarke scored the club's solitary FA Cup Final winning goal. Jones weighed in with his fair share of goals, too, but it was Clarke who took the glory. Clarke remembered bumping years later into Frank McLintock, who said of "Jonah": "There were so many times a ball was running out of play and he'd chase it. It was obvious nobody could catch it, but he kept running all the same, and because he was running I had to track back just in case. He'd never catch it, but he never gave up. I used to think, 'I could do without this.'" Clarke's only regret was he never got to play with Jones for England. "We were the most feared partnership in Europe," he said.

16) (1961-78) 745 apps, 9 goals

Speedy Reaney was the best right back Leeds have ever had. He was fast, strong in the air and had a penchant for shackling prime-time George Best. Reaney made more than 700 appearances for Leeds and would have been even better but for the broken leg he suffered a week before the 1970 FA Cup Final. Reaney can still be spotted at Elland Road and, among his varied roles, he now acts as the agent for No 4 in this list. How did that happen?

17) (1996-2003) 273 apps, 0 goals

Goalkeepers have never had it easy at Elland Road. From 's battle against his foibles to letting in five at home to Arsenal, the No 1 has often been the weak link. Nigel Martyn, recruited for a record fee for a goalkeeper, was different. The rest were just odd, as evinced by this remark from Sprake about a young rival. "I remember David Harvey coming in one day," he said. "His pet monkey had committed suicide. It had put its head in the oven."

18) (1987-93 & 1998-2004) 382 apps, 4 goals

To understand the importance of David Batty, you really have to come from Yorkshire. As down-to-earth as a subterranean grouter, his approach was summed up in the penalty shoot- out that did for England in the 1998 World Cup. Batty missed, of course, but there was no pizza advert as with , no tears and six-year wait for an exorcism as with . Batty just poked out his tongue and walked back to the halfway line. "I thought I'd score," he said bluntly afterwards. "I knew he'd miss," his dad added. An underrated player with a joyous economy of ambition, his goals were celebrated as titles.

19) Terry Cooper (1961-75) 350 apps, 11 goals

Bought as a winger but converted into an attacking left back, TC has become part of Elland Road folklore because, not only did he start the Revie era in earnest by getting the winner in 1968 League Cup Final against Arsenal, but he also wore white boots. That may sound inconsequential to the modern generation, well used to seeing players don pink, green and blue footwear, but this was an age when men were men and skin grafts were encouraged. But Cooper turned up in white boots set off nicely by his natty sock tags. The left has never looked so good.

20) (1994-2005) 262 apps, 3 goals

The man who spawned the , Radebe was just about the loveliest man to play for Leeds since Eddie Gray. In his early days in , he was shot in the back in and thought he was going to die, but he survived the violence and started out at Leeds on the, er, right wing. "Christ! Right wing!" he recalled. "I didn't have a clue." Having rewritten history, was clearly losing the plot. He signed and said he was emotionally disembowelled after the 1996 Coca-Cola Cup debacle. He left and, under George Graham, Radebe flourished as a centre half. Athletic, passionate and more smiley than the old badge, the way he became the lifeblood of Leeds was especially satisfying in light of the tragic and lonely end that befell Albert Johanneson.

21) (1962-80) 724 apps, 34 goals

For those poor, ill-fated Leeds fans who only really got into things when things had got bad, it is hard to pinpoint what Madeley did. Endless videos will instruct you in the brilliant ways of Gray and Giles and Bremner, but Mr Versatile? However, despite a lack of video evidence, Madeley was clearly the ultimate deputy. Famously, he played in every outfield position, was never knowingly miffed about his lack of a regular slot and was another to top the 700 games tally. The stand-out stand-in.

22) (1988-96) 311 apps, 57 goals

I will never forget the first day of the 1996 season. I was listening to the radio and Mike Ingham, the BBC Football Correspondent, was adamant that the world had gone mad because Everton had paid Leeds £3.5 million for Speed. "I don't think he' s worth that," he opined. He was actually worth double. In his pomp, in 1992 and 1993, he had long hair and was a goalscoring winger, that volley against a particular gem. Later reinvented himself as a holding midfield player and set the record for Premier League longevity. Not worth £3.5 million?

23) John Sheridan (1982-89) 267 apps, 52 goals

In the 1980s, Elland Road was a bitter place where they had a riot every other week behind the Lowfield Road terrace. There was a smattering of half-decent players such as Tommy Wright and Scott Sellars and an awful lot of dross; I seem to remember Kevin Hird's haircut being voted player of the season one year. But then there was Sheridan, the first flair player the midfield had seen since Tony Currie left. He had an agressive streak to tether the skills to gritty Northern reality, but he was the reason for believing in the dark days of the second division.

24) (1991-97) 208 apps, 5 goals

Gordon Strachan said he felt the game was too easy for Dorigo. "Maybe it was the way he looked, his hair all neatly in place, the fact he was never dirty," he told me. "I was very happy with his effort, but I always felt he had another 10 per cent to give." Dorigo had pace, panache and a powerful shot. When , a rampaging wildebeest for whom the game always looked a matter of life or death, was tearing down the right, Leeds had the best left-right combination since Sugar Ray Leonard.

25) Lee Chapman (1990-93 & 1996) 174 apps, 80 goals

I tried to put Chapman lower in the list, too. He had the staccato gait of a badly constipated zombie and a numb first touch. He was very much the artisan to Eric Cantona's tortured artist. However, Chapman was also a gilt-edged goal machine and utterly fearless. He got Leeds promoted and then was the star man of the title turn. Sure, Cantona came in for a few end-of- season bows, but the rewriting of history to suggest the Frenchman was the key to the 1992 championship is an insult to his less gifted but more prolific team-mate.

26) (1996-2003) 265 apps, 55 goals

I tried to put Bowyer farther down the list. Although found not guilty after the protracted court case into the savage beating of a student in , Bowyer became a malodorous presence and his post-trial behaviour was reprehensible as he refused to pay a club fine. Yet, for a while, Bowyer was the complete midfield player, lung-busting breaks from midfield, goals aplenty and, shall we say, a penchant for a tackle. Brilliant home and abroad in 2000. Has done nothing since leaving.

27) Wilf Copping (1929-34 & 1939-42) 183 apps, 4 goals

One of the prewar greats, Copping was the original Iron Man at a club who have long prided themselves on an ability to go in hard. "The first man in a tackle never gets hurt," was his mantra. Unlike the mollycoddled megastars of today, Copping juggled half-back duties with Leeds, Arsenal and England with serving as a sergeant-major in North Africa. Things were a bit different then.

28) Albert Johanneson (1961-70) 200 apps, 68 goals

One of the saddest stories in football history, Johanneson was the first black player to play in an FA Cup Final, and the second for Leeds after , but died in an alcoholic haze in a bedsit in 1995. I once visited his grave in Lawnswood Cemetery where there was a headstone with a Maya Angelou verse inscribed: "I am a black ocean leaping and wide." The South African had the raw talent to rival George Best, according to Johnny Giles, but suffered crises of confidence after freezing against Liverpool at Wembley in 1965 and was hampered by the rise of Eddie Gray. After his death, he lay in an unmarked grave until a Leeds teacher, Paul Eubanks, got in touch with the club, who said they would pay for a wooden cross while a tombstone was made.

29) (1997-99) 87 apps, 42 goals

Hasselbaink always seemed to be in danger of tripping over his quivering bottom lip, but he could be fabulous as well as fabulously sulky. When he got his head down within 40 yards of goal, it was a throwback to the days when you knew Peter Lorimer would not be bothering with any deft chips or such nonsense. He was Hotshot Mk II. He also had a wonderful way of shooting with minimal backlift, thus surprising many a goalkeeper and helping himself to bucketloads of goals before it all got too much for George Graham and he was offloaded to Atlético Madrid for £12 million.

30) (1972-82) 484 apps, 31 goals

The first game I saw live was the European Cup semi-final against . To be honest, I was 6 and not very interested, but I remember my dad harping on about Trevor Cherry and someone called . Cherry was always there after that. He was a left back or a centre back, even a midfield player. He played 27 times for England and managed to get sent off in a friendly. For some reason, my abiding memory is not his shackling of Cruyff but that late goal against Manchester City in the fifth round of the FA Cup in 1977.

31) Willis Edwards (1925-43) 444 apps, 6 goals

They had a different slant on loyalty in the old days. Where Cantona tried to wriggle his way into Elland Road's book of legends on the back of one sublime volley against Chelsea, Edwards's love affair with Leeds lasted 35 years. He was a much-admired wing half who formed a lustrous half-back combo with Wilf Copping during the prewar years of strife. Later he set the trend in popular former players failing as the club's manager. He ended his life working in a jam factory after starting it down a pit. He had no diamond earrings, Ferraris or tattoos.

32) (1991-98) 256 apps, 66 goals

Some players never quite make it into the hearts of the fans and Rod Wallace was a prime example. We liked Lee Chapman because he was a semi-arthritic carthorse and we could all identify with that, but Wallace was too mercurial. He mixed brilliance with anonymity, but he was crucial to the 1992 title win and deserves inclusion for that goal against Spurs alone. 33) (1989-95) 240 apps, 23 goals

Leeds fans with short memories will cite Woodgate and Ferdinand as the best defenders since the glory days, but Chris Fairclough was far more significant than both. Quick, athletic and tough, he was a key cog in the 1990 and 1992 title-winning campaigns. He only looked bad when, in keeping with Leeds tradition, he was played out of position in midfield.

34) Duncan McKenzie (1974-76) 81 apps, 30 goals

If you didn't like Duncan McKenzie, you didn't have a pulse. He was P. T. Barnum with an Admiral tracksuit. Signed by Brian Clough (see, he wasn't all bad), McKenzie did things such as trap the ball with the backside and jump over Currie and . McKenzie was more than a show pony, though, and worked well as Allan Clarke's post-Jones partner. Being the top scorer in 1975 he was, of course, sold. Cue decline and fall.

35) Alan Smith (1998-2004) 228 apps, 56 goals

"He was mean and I don't like players like that," said after Leeds had been humbled by Barcelona in 2000. He didn't, but Leeds fans did. With Aled Jones looks and Vinnie Jones savagery, Smith was a local hero from the moment he scored at Liverpool with his first touch for the club when 18. He showed moments of real class, notably in Europe, where he scored four in Florence and humbled Anderlecht.

Opponents hated him. Five minutes after his introduction into a game at Arsenal in 1998, he was head-butted by Gilles Grimandi, and he allegedly riled , a recovering alcoholic, by asking if he fancied a post-match pint. But pious journalists lamenting his late sending-off as Leeds crashed out of the Champions League semi-final against just did not understand the emotion of losing. It was the best foul ever.

He blotted his copybook by moving to Manchester United and saying they weren't rivals because they weren't in the same division. This was some months after he had pledged his future to Leeds even if they were relegated. Despite several managers' selectional whims, he was also a useless . "I'm a better player than Viduka and Bridges put together," he told David O'Leary. He wasn't, but he was the best-loved player since David Batty.

36) (1977-82) 177 apps, 11 goals

He looked like a fey Subbuteo player, but little Brian Flynn was a pint-sized colossus at a club that has specialised in them - Collins, Bremner, Giles, Strachan et al. Flynn would have made the list for the simple fact he once scored the winner at Old Trafford, but he was also a wolf in sheep's clothing, fiercely competitive and the perfect foil for Tony Currie's flamboyance.

37) (2000-02) 73 apps, 3 goals

Lists are basically the domain of listless journalists and they come fraught with problems. Do you reward longevity or fleeting brilliance? Ferdinand did not stay around for long after his £18 million move, but he was arguably the best defender the club has had since the Revie era. Classy, strong and occasionally elegant, he was better than Woodgate if not as popular. To all at Leeds's immense satisfaction, he was not the same player at Old Trafford the next season.

38) Mel Sterland (1989-93) 146 apps, 20 goals

Like a runaway stag party, the Yorkshire stormed up and down the right with a crowd- pleasing zeal. That he did so while always looking slightly overweight only endeared him to the fans all the more. Sterland also had a habit of scoring great goals and was one of those rare players who looked as if he actually enjoyed this pro-football lark.

39) (1995-97) 66 apps, 32 goals

It was a brief affair but in the mid-1990s Tony Yeboah was the most incongruous thing Elland Road had seen since Queen pitched up a decade earlier and started singing about Fat Bottom Girls; this was long before Paul Robinson was in goal. The strikes against Wimbledon and Liverpool rank among the best scored in Leeds colours. Gorgeous George then continued a time-honoured Leeds tradition in deciding the best thing to do with a precocious goalscorer was to sell him.

40) Gordon McQueen (1972-78) 171 apps, 19 goals

For the hair alone. Could not have epitomised the Seventies more succinctly had he turned up for training on a Raleigh Chopper.

41) (1990-93) 146 apps, 6 goals

Clubs are only as good as their cult heroes and Chris Whyte was up there with the eccentric best. He was a mainstay of the 1992 championship side with the sort of elasticated legs that made look like a stunted hobbit. You watched him and felt he was overreaching in every way, but for that year he was fantastic.

42) (1977-83) 260 apps, 47 goals

The Scot's inclusion is also a vote for because, although next to useless in the 1980s, Leeds did at least have two high-class wingers. I had a soft spot for both of them and Harris did turn down Manchester United for Charlton Athletic, but Graham gets the nod for the top 50. His speed was more iffy wiring than electric, but he was clever and when he scored his hat-trick against Wolverhampton Wanderers, the world seemed to make a bit more sense. He still lives near Leeds, coaches at the academy and, when he visits schools, says he encourages the kids to sing Marching On Together. What a man.

43) (1997-2003) 142 apps, 4 goals

Woodgate would have been one of the best defenders in Leeds's history had it not been for his involvement in the events that led to the savage beating of Sarfraz Najeib at the start of 2000. Until then, Woodgate had bristled with promise and nascent class, but he faded to a cadaverous relic as the court case dragged on. It is often forgotten that it was Woodgate, not the more easily dislikeable Bowyer, who was convicted of affray. To his credit he rebuilt his career and when he was sold against 's will, it was symptomatic of the crash. I went to Spain to watch his debut for Real Madrid. He scored an own goal and was sent off, but gave post-match interviews in Spanish and English. He had grown up.

44) (1970-78) 220 apps, 48 goals

Subtle as a Glaswegian kiss, he arrived at Leeds in 1970 for a bargain £15,000, underscoring Don Revie's eye for spotting potential, and lost his front teeth in a reserve match. Thus was born the most frightening smile this side of in The Shining. Jordan also had to contend with the Clarke-Jones axis before finally becoming a regular. His best tally in a season was only 12, but he was more important than that and was sorely missed when he went to the Theatre of Lost Souls across the Pennines.

45) (1967-76) 196 apps, 12 goals

The blond Welshman was another version of Mick Bates, a high-class stand-in for any part of the most illustrious midfield in Britain. Yorath's contribution to Leeds is oft overlooked as he actually played in 28 games of the 1974 title campaign and was even more prevalent the next season, when post-Revie Leeds made it to the European Cup final.

46) (1971-79 & 1981-85) 404 apps, 35 goals

A very reliable full back and sometime midfield player, Eddie's brother was all unfussy efficiency and, to this memory, the slow side of shuffling. That said, he was positively fuel- injected when compared with the steadily deflating space hopper that was . Gray never let Leeds down, though, and kept a rock-steady beat before going to Nottingham Forest to win the European Cup. Allan Clarke re-signed him for Leeds and he made close to 400 appearances, almost unnoticed.

47) Tom Jennings (1925-31) 179 apps, 117 goals

Have a look at that strike record again. A pre-war phenomenom who scored three successive hat-tricks, Jennings was one of the club's first Scottish heroes, starting a trend that would reach its apotheosis with Billy Bremner and overcome the behind-the-sofa cringing at David McNiven.

48) Gary Sprake (1962-73) 506 apps, 0 goals

Before you start looking, David Harvey is not in this list. Why? I just thought he was a good, competent keeper. Sprake, by contrast, had miracle moments, although his legacy has inevitably been tainted by high-profile errors and his ostracism from the Leeds family for speaking ill of Don Revie's finances. If you prefer unspectacular reliability over fairly regular brilliance, then substitute Harvey here.

49) (1999-2004) 82 apps, 21 goals

Bridges deserves his place in this list because of the 21 goals he scored in his debut season and the sheer determination he showed during the injury hell that followed. Bridges could have been one of the best strikers in the club's history - he was the record signing when bought for £5 million and scored a memorable hat-trick at Southampton - but there was a meningitis scare, drilled bones and no end of failed comebacks. "You think, 'What the hell have I done to deserve this?' but I wasn't ever going to tie a knot in the ceiling and put my head in it," he told me. "I thought about people worse off than myself." When he scored for United at Elland Road in January, it was hard not to feel happy for him and sad that he never achieved what he should have.

50) Eric Cantona (1992) 34 appearances, 11 goals

Cantona gave Leeds some much-needed impetus in 1992, but while his subsequent sale to the Theatre of Short Memories has been widely used to damn Howard Wilkinson, nobody, including I suspect Sir Alex Ferguson, could have envisaged the bit-part player becoming such a global icon. "I don't recall him getting too many clinchers," Gordon Strachan said of the 1992 title campaign, but there were occasional moments of brilliance. It was scarcely a surprise that Leeds's Rimbaud-reading maverick did not gel with Sergeant "Last of the Summer Wine" Wilko. "Eric likes to do what he likes when he likes and then f***s off," Wilkinson said. "We'd all want a bit of that."

Article © Rick Broadbent, Times Online, 24 March 2009. Converted to Microsoft Word by Andy Hiseman www.hiseman.com