Don Revie

Though he was born in Middlesbrough, Don Revie’s football career started down in the Midlands with Leicester in 1944. Following a two-year spell with Hull, the striker moved to Manchester City, where he enjoyed his best days as a player.

Revie was an integral part of the City team that triumphed in the FA Cup in 1956 against Birmingham as the hub of a tactical scheme that featured him as the lynchpin of the side in a free-roving role as a deep-lying centre forward.

A tetchy relationship with manager Les McDowall led Revie to leave City for Sunderland in November 1956 and, by November 1958, he was wearing the white of Leeds. Revie had a good playing career, but can have had little idea that he would easily eclipse his achievements in the role of manager when he became player-boss of Leeds in 1961.

All of Revie’s six full England caps were won during his golden period with Manchester City when he was at the hub of the infamous ‘Revie Plan’. He scored on his debut, a 2-0 win against Northern Ireland on October 2, 1954 and curiously enough, his last game was against the same opposition a tad over two years later, on October 6, 1956.

Revie later went on to be named as England manager, but his reign was utterly inglorious. He failed to qualify for the 1976 European Championship finals and then jumped ship in the middle of qualification games for the 1978 World Cup for a better-paid job in the Middle East. In addition, Revie confused his players with endless dossiers on forthcoming opponents and chopped and changed his side far too often to produce anything cohesive in his time in charge of the national team.

Revie wasn’t an instant success at Leeds. In fact, they narrowly avoided relegation from the Second Division in 1962. Patiently, though, he set about constructing a team that could not only elevate Leeds from the second tier, but also make them bona fide competitors at English football’s top table.

The Second Division Championship was duly won in 1964 and from that point on Revie’s teams never looked back. Leeds finished in a highly creditable second place in their first two seasons back in the top -light and scored their first major trophies in 1968 with the unusual double of the League Cup and the Fairs Cup. It was at this point that Revie’s side, packed with intelligent and diligent players who would never shirk a physical confrontation either, really came into their own.

Leeds won the First Division, the Fairs Cup and the FA Cup in a golden four-year period. Revie’s last success with Leeds was an all-conquering campaign that yielded the First Division title once more in 1974 following a 29-game unbeaten run.

When England came calling in July 1974, Revie was the natural choice to take the reigns as national team manager. Things didn’t work out, however, and when England failed to qualify for the 1976 European Championship finals questions were asked about whether Revie really was up to the job.

The manager didn’t give anyone time to find out if he had the right stuff when he resigned unexpectedly in July 1977 to take up a lucrative position as coach to the United Arab Emirates. This walk-out provoked fury from both the FA and the press and Revie was banned by the Football Association from working in England until he was willing to face a charge of bringing the game into disrepute.

Revie later won a High Court case and the ban was quashed, but many football people continued to feel he had betrayed the game’s unwritten code of conduct. He remained, however, an unquestioned hero at Leeds until his untimely death in 1989 as a result of motor-neurone disease.