Today I'm going back 40 years to 1982 and Leeds United's Milk (League) Cup 2nd Round 1st Leg tie against Newcastle United in an all-Second Division clash. The match was played at Elland Road under the lights and was attended by 24,012. My West Stand seat for the game cost me the princely sum of £3 for the evening's entertainment.
Today's programme cover star is, of course, Arthur Graham shown in action against Sheffield Wednesday during United's visit to Hillsborough the previous month. The programme contained a heartfelt message to both sets of supporters to "please behave" since "misbehaviour by so-called supporters could cause very serious problems for the club". Whilst all very worthy, one has to wonder whether any of the trouble makers would have invested in a copy of the programme that night or even whether they cared very much if their club did encounter serious problems. I rather doubt it. Sadly, before the month was over, the club's hooligans had caused major problems in the Football League match against Newcastle at Elland Road and the club was forced to take the entire front page of the programme for the following game to issue an even sterner warning suggesting that the "loathsome actions (of the hooligans) now place the very existence of Leeds United in jeopardy". Once again I would doubt that such warnings made any difference whatsoever.
There was a two-page centre-spread in the programme on a very youthful (he was 20) Aidan Butterworth who was selected by player-manager Eddie Gray to take part in the featured match. He regularly played as a centre-forward for Leeds (although not in the featured match where Frank Worthington played in that position) and scored 17 goals for Leeds in 74 appearances before becoming disillusioned with professional football and taking some time out to go to college. He briefly returned to play football for Doncaster Rovers and non-league Guiseley before finally leaving the game to work for Adidas.
The programme also carried a team photo of United's Junior side including youngsters Neil Aspin, Tommy Wright and Dennis Irwin. Strangely the photo of the line-up shows only ten players with no goalkeeper in evidence. Perhaps the Juniors didn't find a goalkeeper worthy of a place in the side? Irrespective, it's worth pointing out, if there were three Juniors who made it all the way into the first team, that's actually one heck of a good return. When I look at old Spurs programmes from ten or more years ago it's rare to find more than one Junior who eventually played for the first team. It all goes to illustrate the tremendous number of young players who fall by the wayside in the professional game.
Finally, the Leeds United club shop were proudly displaying a new line in ladies briefs complete with the club's stylish peacock crest on the gusset. Surely these would be perfect for the "no sex before marriage" kind of supporter as they obviously wouldn't want to see Leeds going down (arf arf!). What more could a lady want for Christmas?
The featured game was settled in the first half by a goal scored by future Leeds player Imre Varadi. Despite losing the 1st Leg, Leeds went to St James' Park in the 2nd Leg and won 4-1 after extra time for a 4-2 aggregate victory. The win gave Leeds a Third Round West Yorkshire derby at home to Third Division Huddersfield Town and, remarkably, they blew it losing 1-0. In the Final at Wembley the following March, Liverpool would go on to beat Manchester United 2-1 after extra time.
CRB Match No. 196
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