Leeds United.
Bremner, a
diminutive but hard midfield player, was scouted by Leeds while playing
schoolboy football in Scotland and signed for the Elland Road club in
1959, the day after his 17th birthday. He was brought up in the Raploch
area of Stirling where he attended the Catholic junior school, St.
Mary's. He had previously been rejected by Arsenal and Chelsea for being
too small, as he was only 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m) tall.
He made his
first-team debut in January 1960 and was a permanent fixture on the team
sheet for more than 16 years thereafter unless injured or suspended.
Bremner quickly established himself as an uncompromising player, tough
in the tackle and often going beyond the rules to get the better of a
skilled opponent – a Sunday Times headline dubbed him as "10st of barbed
wire".[2] But he could play too – he had a stamina to work from one end
of the pitch to the other and could pass with precision and timing. He
also weighed in with his share of goals, and had an extraordinary
ability to score crucial goals in the biggest games, including winners
in four major semi-finals.
As Leeds United
began their rise in the early 1960s, Bremner was at the heart of it. In
1964 they won the Second Division title and then the following year
came tantalisingly close to a "double" of League championship and FA
Cup. They lost the league title to Manchester United on goal average,
and lost the FA Cup Final at Wembley to Liverpool despite Bremner
scoring an equalizer in extra time.
In
1966, Leeds skipper Bobby Collins was injured in a Fairs Cup game
against Torino and manager Don Revie gave the captaincy to Bremner.
Collins never got it back. With Bremner acting as leader and mentor on
the pitch, Leeds entered their halcyon period at the end of the 1960s,
winning the League Cup and Fairs Cup in 1968 and the League championship
in 1969. That season Leeds lost only two out of 42 league games.
In
1970, Leeds chased the historic "treble" of League championship, FA Cup
and European Cup, which had not been achieved before in the English
game – indeed, this was the first season when any team had come close.
However, Leeds ended up with nothing – losing the League title to
Everton, the FA Cup final after a particularly violent replay against
Chelsea, and the European Cup semi-final to Celtic.
For
all their honours, comparatively Leeds were huge under-achievers. They
won two League titles – in 1969 and 1974 – but missed out on further
championships in dramatic last-game climaxes in at least three other
years, primarily due to fixture congestion and inflexibility by the FA.
Bremner played in four FA Cup finals, but only won one. They won two
Fairs Cups, and lost another final; Leeds also reached a European Cup
Winners Cup final in 1973 but allegedly lost due to a bribed referee. As
a last hurrah, before the team aged and broke up, it reached a European
Cup final two years later but lost controversially to Bayern Munich.
The
early 1970s saw Leeds dominate but lose as much as they won. In 1971,
Bremner lifted the Fairs Cup but Leeds were the victims of one of the FA
Cup's biggest shocks when they lost a fifth round tie at lowly
Colchester United, although Bremner did not play. They then watched
helplessly as Arsenal took the League championship from them with a 1–0
win over Tottenham Hotspur (prior to winning the FA Cup to complete the
second "double" of the 20th century). Had the game ended in a score draw
or an Arsenal defeat, the League would have gone to Leeds.
In 1972,
Leeds again chased the League and FA Cup double but again were left both
elated and disappointed. A 1–0 victory over holders Arsenal in the FA
Cup final earned Leeds their first and only success in the competition
(and completed Bremner's domestic medal set) but two days later, with
only a draw required to seal the "double", Leeds lost their last League
game to Wolves and the title went to Derby County. In 1973 Leeds were
only chasing the FA Cup and success in Europe – Liverpool were too
strong in the League – but were beaten by A.C. Milan in the Cup Winners
Cup final in Thessaloniki, Greece and then lost the FA Cup final to
second division Sunderland. Bremner picked up more runners-up medals.
Bremner
played magnificently as Leeds finally put the near-misses aside over
the previous six seasons and won the 1974 League championship at a
canter, setting a record of 29 unbeaten games to start the season which
was only beaten by Arsenal in 2004. Looking back years later, in August
1995 for the Match of the Seventies TV programme, Bremner considered the
1973–74 Leeds team as good any British team since the Second World War.
As champions, Leeds contested the 1974 Charity Shield curtain raiser
game against FA Cup winners Liverpool at Wembley – and Bremner was sent
off for a clash with Kevin Keegan, which also saw the Liverpool striker
dismissed.
The following year, Leeds were not in contention for
domestic honours but reached the European Cup final, which they lost in
more controversial circumstances to Bayern Munich. Leeds were denied
what seemed a certain penalty, had a goal disallowed (after the referee
decided that Bremner was offside) and Bremner suffered his own personal
nightmare when Sepp Maier produced an astonishing point-blank save from
just six yards.
Revie had quit
Leeds a year earlier to take over the England job from caretaker boss
Joe Mercer, who had assumed the post after the dismissal of World Cup
winning boss Sir Alf Ramsey. Brian Clough took control and the team
started to break up. Bremner finally left Leeds United on 24 September
1976 to join Hull City. He had played 772 games for Leeds, putting him
second behind Jack Charlton in the club's all-time list.
Hull City & Doncaster Rovers[edit]
Bremner's
arrival at Hull was big news locally and he scored on his debut for the
club. Bremner played at Hull for two years before he joined Doncaster
Rovers, managing an admirable four seasons there before retiring as a
player at the age of 39.
At the beginning of December 1997, he was rushed to hospital after suffering from pneumonia, but suffered a suspected heart attack at his Doncaster home in the small village of Clifton and died two days before his 55th birthday. His former Leeds United team-mates Allan Clarke, who read the lesson at the service, Bobby Collins, Norman Hunter, Eddie Gray, Trevor Cherry, Duncan MacKenzie, Paul Reaney, Mick Jones, Joe Jordan, Terry Cooper, Paul Madeley and Gordon McQueen went to his funeral in Edlington, along with Nobby Stiles, Asa Hartford, and many of the major figures from Scottish football, past and present, Dave Mackay, Alex Smith, Denis Law and Alex Ferguson among them. There was city-wide mourning in Leeds due to the very high esteem in which he is held by Leeds United fans.
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