Leeds v Man U 1977 FA Cup semi-final

[Selby White]

Rather ironic the end of the glory era featured a goalby Jimmy Greenhoff.

Welcome to the forum

Why don't you introduce yourself in the members intro section.

You've obviously been following the Club a long time like a few of us on here, I'm sure we've seen many of the same games.
Jimmy Greenhoff was my first Leeds Utd hero as a child with his photo on the bedroom wall of course.
Wish we had kept him but thinking about the situation it allowed Lorimer to move to the right and the signing of Clarke as inside forward so it didn't turn out too bad.

[dlw10]

I was at this one - I was at University in Manchester that year (sorry!) but was at home for the Easter break. I'd done all the home games that campaign and had thus collected my programme tokens to get the cup match tickets - still breaks my heart to see all the programmes for that season with a bit cut out on the back cover!!!!
I was at the Wolves game the previous round as well and you know, I don't remember seeing too much trouble at either. The Wolves game was infamous in that it was at the time some idiots had started taking darts to games and throwing them in the crowd and I do remember being worried about that and seeing one lad with a dart stuck in his head. I can still vividly remember the Eddie Gray header that won that game.
For the Man U semi final, as I say, I was down in Great Malvern in Worcestershire with my folks during the Easter break and had to get the train up to Sheffield, then we were marched to the ground with a mounted police escort to the ground. It was a game that sort of encapsulated a feeling that we Leeds fans have known now for many years; we have so often turned up at a big game full of expectation and hope only to have it buried within minutes of the start. The Clarke penalty gave us a glimmer of hope but it never looked like we would equalise. On the train going home I was struck by just how many Man U fans were on it travelling south - even in those days Man U seemed to have more fans from afar than they did from Manchester. By contrast there were very few Leeds fans on it!
I just looked the game up on the excellent ozwhites website and I've added the link below - loads of photos from the game. Fascinating to see the gate receipts too - for a 55,000 capacity crowd the receipts were just £144,000 !!!! That's inflation for ya!
http://www.ozwhitelufc.net.au/23-04-197 ... United.htm

[Selby White]

I'd done all the home games that campaign and had thus collected my programme tokens to get the cup match tickets - still breaks my heart to see all the programmes for that season with a bit cut out on the back cover!!!

That is so true ruined many thousands of programme collections, fortunately I had a season ticket back then although didn't bother collecting programmes.
Not sure if it was that season but it was around that time season tickets went up from £8 to £11, thats inflation for you

I was at the Wolves game the previous round as well and you know, I don't remember seeing too much trouble at either. The Wolves game was infamous in that it was at the time some idiots had started taking darts to games and throwing them in the crowd and I do remember being worried about that and seeing one lad with a dart stuck in his head. I can still vividly remember the Eddie Gray header that won that game.

As i remember at the Wolves game in the main the Wolves fans were to the left of us but a large group came in from the other side (bottom left) and started fighting with anyone they could, was about 10 yards or so from where I was stood and went on for a while with no police intervention. Eventually they got backed up with more Leeds fans joining in a melted away.

The Manchester semi the Police blocked Leeds fans leaving through a tunnel to the bottom left of where we had stood, got a bit scary (I was in the tunnel) as a crush built up with more fans pushing from behind. The Police line fortunately broke relieving the pressure resulting in us getting out while still some of our rivals about. Was a couple of skimishes but to be honest was not much and soon under control, most Man Utd fans had gone.

DLW, Did you have to walk from the City Centre with the bus strike coming on a train from the midlands or allowed to the station near the ground ?