Matches – 5 May 1973 –Leeds United 0 Sunderland 1 FA Cup final – Wembley – 100,000 Scorers: None Leeds United: Harvey, Reaney, Cherry, Bremner, Madeley, Hunter, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles, E Gray (Yorath 77) Sunderland: Montgomery, Malone, Guthrie, Horswill, Watson, Pitt, Kerr, Porterfield, Halom, Hughes, Tueart One of the lowest points in the history of Leeds United Football Club came in early May 1973, as they sought to defend the FA Cup they won for the first time twelve months earlier. They were the hottest favourites for years, considered certainties to beat their Second Division opponents, rank outsiders Sunderland. A day that should have been one of celebration and triumph ended instead with United in a trough of depression and despair. “Everything points to a United victory” read the unusually confident headline of Don Revie‟s column for the Yorkshire Evening Post the Saturday before the final. The Leeds manager was in buoyant mood, The Leeds United team wave to the crowd before the match: writing: “Leeds United‟s experience of playing at Billy Bremner, David Harvey, Paul Reaney, Johnny Giles, Wembley is likely to prove the decisive factor in next Norman Hunter, Trevor Cherry, Peter Lorimer, Eddie Gray, Saturday‟s FA Cup final against Sunderland… As far Paul Madeley, Mick Jones, Terry Yorath, Allan Clarke as the FA Cup final is concerned, I consider the Sunderland players will suffer to a certain extent as none of them has played at Wembley previously. “This will be Leeds‟ fifth Wembley Cup final in eight years (including the 1968 League Cup final against Arsenal). Apart from this, most of the players have also appeared on this ground in international matches. With such a background, they are less likely to be affected by the tension of the occasion. Playing on the Wembley turf for the first time can prove a tremendous ordeal … as, indeed, I discovered when making my FA Cup final debut for Manchester City against Newcastle United in 1955. “I found it almost impossible to relax in the weeks leading up to the final, when City were caught up in the traditional Wembley ballyhoo. During this period, all the players are inundated with requests to attend special functions, endorse various products and do newspaper, radio and TV interviews and it is always difficult to know where to draw the line if you haven‟t encountered this type of problem before. “Any player who has appeared in the Cup final will no doubt confirm that the most nerve wracking moment comes about 20 minutes before the kick off. You feel the sweat waiting in the tunnel for www.mightyleeds.co.uk - Matches – 5 May 1973, Leeds United 0 Sunderland 1 1 the signal to take the field. Believe me, those few minutes can seem like hours… “I was very tense during the early part of the game, when my legs felt as heavy as lead and I just couldn‟t get going. This was true of all the City players and Newcastle, slightly the more experienced of the two teams, took advantage by going ahead in the first minute. They eventually won 3-1. “No doubt, Sunderland‟s manager Bob Stokoe, ironically Newcastle‟s centre-half against City in 1955, will spend a lot of time next week telling his players what to expect … but I doubt whether his advice will fully compensate for their lack of experience. “This final will present a tremendous challenge to the Leeds players as, since the war, only two clubs have won the FA Cup for two years in succession, Newcastle (1951-52) and Tottenham (1961-62). If only because of our big match know how I must rate our chances of becoming the third.” Sunderland manager Bob Stokoe, who had revived Sunderland‟s fortunes, was pitted against Don The experience upon which Revie laid such heavy emphasis Revie as a player in the 1955 Cup final was epitomised by his Irish schemer, Johnny Giles, making a fifth appearance in the Wembley showpiece. He was only the second player in 60 years to do so, repeating the feat of Joe Hulme, who did the same for Huddersfield and Arsenal. Giles commented, “There is nothing quite like reaching the FA Cup final. Playing in such a game at Wembley is fantastic. There is nothing really to rival the feeling of Cup final day when you are taking part. I am looking forward to this game against Sunderland just as much as I did my first final when I was at Manchester United. I am as excited now as I was then.” Away from the frothy veneer of the media‟s Cup final previews, there was a darker story of revenge and mind games unfolding. Bob Stokoe, appointed as Sunderland manager in November when they were fourth from bottom of Division Two, had inspired an astonishing upturn in the Wearsiders‟ fortunes. The North Easterner held a bitter grudge against Don Revie, dating back to 1962 when, Stokoe maintained, Revie had attempted to bribe him to throw a match against United when he was player-manager of Bury. Playing up his avuncular image, Stokoe launched a master class in public relations in Cup final week to undermine Revie and United, as outlined by Rob Bagchi and Paul Rogerson in The Unforgiven. “Bob Stokoe was an even more virulent critic of Revie than Clough. It was the definitive David versus Goliath encounter. A team from the Second had not won the FA Cup since 1931 and, under- standably, the media consensus was that Sunderland did not have a prayer against probably the finest club side in Europe. „No way Leeds can lose it,‟ asserted the Daily Mail on the morning of the match. While Revie made his routine noises about respecting his opponents, in private he was less equivocal. „Before the game I could not see any way we could lose,‟ he later admitted. „We had the players, the experience, the firepower and the team spirit.‟ Ever-cautious, however, he would not countenance any public display of confidence, and once again this would contribute to his team‟s undoing. As his squad set off for London, he explained how the „quiet route to success‟ www.mightyleeds.co.uk - Matches – 5 May 1973, Leeds United 0 Sunderland 1 2 meant treating this game „as just another match‟. “It was a catastrophic misjudgement. A carefree Sunderland had been grandstanding in London for days, determined to extract every last ounce of enjoyment from an occasion they can never have expected to grace. Moreover, with United in purdah Bob Stokoe had free rein to begin an unsubtle but effective bout of psychological warfare against his opposite number. His first outburst was the usual nonsense about the allocation of „England‟s dressing room‟, which had gone to United, and the matter of having the Leeds fans at the tunnel end, where the teams would enter the stadium. The latter complaint was especially meretricious. Stokoe knew full well that 81,000 of the 100,000 crowd - the Sunderland supporters and 62,000 „neutrals‟ - would be rooting for his team. “Rather than dismissing or simply ignoring Stokoe‟s absurd gripe, Revie unwittingly revealed that it had fed his neurosis, commenting wearily that, „We get blamed for practically all it is possible to get blamed for these days.‟ Wolves manager Bill Billy Bremner presents Allan Clarke to the Duke of Kent before the McGarry‟s attack of sour grapes gave Stokoe 1973 Cup final more ammunition, as he declared himself „stag- gered‟, in the aftermath of his side‟s semi-final defeat, „at the way Bremner went the whole 90 minutes disputing every decision that went against his team‟. „I am not trying to knock Leeds in any way,‟ agreed a disingenuous Stokoe, „but we are playing a real professional side and, let‟s face it, the word professionalism can embrace a multitude of sins as well as virtues. The case about Bremner is the only comment I want to make about Leeds. My message is simple. I want Mr [Ken] Burns, the Cup Final referee, to make the decisions and not Mr Bremner.‟ Holed up in the team‟s hotel, Bremner declined to get drawn into a slanging match. „It‟s like Wilfred Pickles‟ “Have a go” week‟ was the Leeds captain‟s gnomic response. “It is impossible to prove that Stokoe‟s bid to prejudice Burns had an effect on the outcome of the match, but when the game came around, the Leeds captain would be uncharacteristically out of sorts. We also know that Burns‟ relations with Leeds had been strained since the 1967 semi-final. Certainly the Sunderland boss had no doubts: „They [the media] did a marvellous job for me,‟ confirmed Stokoe, proving himself a master of the gamesmanship he had so hypocritically con- demned to some credulous journalists. „I‟m not saying the referee was influenced, but he didn‟t allow Bremner to get at him.‟ “By the morning of the match the Leeds players were unsettled, their manager‟s innate anxieties heightening their own. A team used to snapping and scrapping and battling against the odds was acutely uncomfortable in the role of overwhelming favourites. One photographer in the team hotel who was rash enough to take a picture of the team had his camera torn from his hands. Revie did not like the team being photographed before games - another daft superstition. “Dave Watson, the craggy Sunderland centre-half who would later play under Revie for England, recalled watching the Leeds players being interviewed at their hotel. „They were very subdued,‟ he www.mightyleeds.co.uk - Matches – 5 May 1973, Leeds United 0 Sunderland 1 3 observed.