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May 8th 1972. Wolves v Leeds Tile decider

jackfieldwolf

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Just to carry on the 70's nostalgia theme. I posted this a while ago seems a good time to dust it off.

Recently I was working in Hampshire and whilst clearing an attic space I discovered a Daily Mirror newspaper dated Monday 18th September 1972. The sport pages are dominated by three stories.

The inside page under the banner headline 'Wolves tear United apart' reports on Wolves 2-0 Saturday victory over Man Utd. For the record Dougan and Richards scored the goals.

However, the back page makes the most intriguing reading. The main headline reads
Leeds: 'Find these Men'. The article describes how 'Leeds are to probe allegations of attempts to fix last seasons final match against Wolves that cost them the Championship'. It goes onto say that they would be investigating The Sunday People allegation that they had statements from Dave Wagstaffe and Frank Munro claiming they were offered bribes to "throw" the game. Two Leeds players 'famous internationals' were said to know that some Wolves men received £1000.00 bribe offers. The article then quotes the Leeds chairman Manny Cousins saying 'That it would be up to our manager Don Revie to find out who the two players are.


The other headline is entitled "I warned my players they would be out for life - McGarry" The story describes how rumours of an attempted fix were rife in Wolverhampton on the day of the match. Frank Munro, Phil Parkes, Mike Bailey and Dave Wagstaffe denied that they had been approached to throw the game.


For those supporters not familiar with the game behind the story. Leeds United beat Arsenal in the F.A. cup final on the Saturday before the following Monday’s title decider at Wolves.
A league game after the F.A. Cup final was itself a break with tradition, I know the Liverpool v Arsenal game in 1989 was played after the final but that was due to the Hillsborough tragedy, I'm guessing that winter postponements caused this one at Molineux.

Anyway the title finale for 1972 was a four-horse race. Liverpool, who could have taken the title with a good win, drew at Arsenal. Man City, Liverpool, and Leeds were locked on 57 points, whilst Derby sat precariously on top of the league on 58 points [two points a win in those days] awaiting the Wolves v Leeds result. In fact Cloughie took his Derby team on holiday to sweat it out on Majorca.

Meanwhile the media, and most neutral football fans believed that Leeds would achieve the double with the minimum requirement of a draw at Molineux. Besides, surely Wolves would be saving themselves for their crucial 2nd leg EUFA Cup final at Whit Hart Lane nine days later?


My memories of the match are three fold. Firstly the official attendance of 53,379 was clearly inaccurate as thousands of fans had forced their way into the South bank just after kick off. Having been present at a number of 50,000 plus games in the late sixties this game was clearly different. For a start I had never seen so many people watching the game from the floodlights, they sought vantage points right up to the highest level, no mean feat as Wolves Floodlights were considered to be the highest in England.

Secondly, the wing of the South bank on the Molineux street side was a swaying seething mass of bedlam. This part of Molineux as most older fans will recall could look quite sparse even with a 38, 000 plus crowd in Molineux. Indeed I believe that scores of supporters were injured in that part of the ground when a number of crash barriers buckled under the strain.

Finally the match itself, played in a cauldron of deafening noise, went Wolves way with Munro and Dougan putting Wolves 2-0 up, then if I remember correctly Dougan had what appeared to be a good second goal ruled out.
Then the nail biting finale. The second half saw Bremner pull one back and it was backs to the South bank as Wolves survived a Leeds onslaught. With the benefit of hindsight, in that the referee was aware of the 'bribe controversy' I wonder what it would have taken for Leeds to 'win' a penalty. I can clearly remember Wolves full back Bernard Shaw in the first half swiping away the ball with his hand in the Wolves six-yard box in front of a stunned North Bank.

There was footage of another 'hand ball' [can't remember the Wolves player] that came under severe media scrutiny in the weeks that followed. I am in no way suggesting that any of the Wolves players were 'got at' but there were plenty of allegations in the world of football over the following months.


Finally, I vaguely remember a TV. Expose on World in Action or Panorama that heavily implicated Don Revie in the approaches allegedly made to Wolves players before the game.
Indeed, after this episode Revie’s reputation was irreparably damaged after the scandal surrounding this game.


Team that day: Phil Parkes, Bernard Shaw, Gerry Taylor, Danny Hegan [Mike Baily injured] Frank Munro, John McAlle, Jim Mc Calliog, Kenny Hibbitt, John Richards, Dereck Dougan, Dave Wagstaffe.
Wolves finished 9th on 47 points.

Wolves were truly a great side during this period. Next season would see a League Cup semi final, a F.A. Cup semi final, and 5th in the table. 1974 saw us win the league Cup.
Yes those were the days my friends
 
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rogerthedog51

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I remember it well as i was locked out of the north bank that night , so we went to the Molyneux hotel and listened to the radio
 

Chungster

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Little story...

On the Sunday night after beating Arsenal in the Cup Final the Leeds team came down to the Mount Hotel in Tettenhall in readiness for the title decider the following night.

My Uncle took me up to the hotel to see the team arrive. First off the coach was Jack Charlton carrying the Cup. My Uncle shouted him over and asked him to sign me an autograph and he duly obliged. He even let me hold the Cup for a couple of seconds.

I still have the autograph.

Thirty eight years later I went to see Big Jack speak at Bescott stadium. After the dinner I popped outside for a crafty smoke. I was just about to spark up when someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked me for a light. It was Jack Charlton.

With a very shaky hand I obliged. He asked me how he thought his speech had gone and I told him that I had enjoyed it. He then asked me who I supported and when I told him 'Wolves' a wry smile crept across his face.

"Had some fair old tussles with them we did".

We chatted for a minute or so and the conversation turned to that night when we had stopped them doing the double. I told him that we had met before all those years ago when he had briefly let me hold the FA Cup and then asked him quite bluntly (I'd had a few) about the rumours of bribes being offered to Wolves players.

He went quiet for a second and then told me very calmly but very emphatically that if anything untoward had been going on he would have known about it and he would have known if any of his team mates had been involved in any way.

He also told me that he was fairly sure he knew where the rumours eminated from and how and why they were 'planted' with the press. I'm not being a tease but I would feel uncomfortable about naming the individual he mentioned.

I believed him. But then again I wasn't going to argue with Jack Charlton.
 
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Westport Wolf

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You have to wonder if the stories eminated from a certain Mr. Clough. Or, if not him, someone in the east midlands, as a ploy to unsettle the Leeds team.

Any other theories...
 

jackfieldwolf

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I do not go along with the theory of an ' east midland' conspiracy theory.

The attempted game fixing accusations regarding this game were widely reported by the national press. Revie was heavliy implicated in the allegations. Probably need someone like our Dominic Sandbrook to access the archives.

There definately was a Panorama type expose on this game. As my newspaper ref: in the 'Title Decider' thread says the press were still pouring over this story months into the following season.
 

JR WAS KING

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Little story...

On the Sunday night after beating Arsenal in the Cup Final the Leeds team came down to the Mount Hotel in Tettenhall in readiness for the title decider the following night.

My Uncle took me up to the hotel to see the team arrive. First off the coach was Jack Charlton carrying the Cup. My Uncle shouted him over and asked him to sign me an autograph and he duly obliged. He even let me hold the Cup for a couple of seconds.

Chungster. I was there as well. I was 13 at the time and lived in Tettenhall and my Dad took me to the Mount to see the team arrive. At that age it was so exciting to see the Leeds superstars arrive holding the FA cup, no teams of security guards to keep the players away from the fans in those days.

The Monday night match was one of the scariest, but most unforgettable nights of my life. Unless you were stood on the South bank that night, you could never imagine what it was like.
 

arctic rime

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I was there aged 12 . I remember the Leeds fans trying to push the number 11 bus over back to penn in queens sq !
 

Golden Arrow

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There was I, 16 yrs old, standing on the North Bank, clad in Levi's, ben sherman shirt, crombie, oxe-blood Dr Marten's, black and gold scalf (hanging from the wrist), and scared of my own shadow!

I've rarely witnessed such mayhem during a game, with many forcing their way in, and scrambling up floodlight pylons to gain a better vantage point.

Still ranks to this day as one of my favourite games at the Molineux.

It was also the year I met Lindsay Jane Thompson from Wightwick, Wolverhampton, where are you now I wonder????
 

Chungster

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Chungster. I was there as well. I was 13 at the time and lived in Tettenhall and my Dad took me to the Mount to see the team arrive. At that age it was so exciting to see the Leeds superstars arrive holding the FA cup, no teams of security guards to keep the players away from the fans in those days.

The Monday night match was one of the scariest, but most unforgettable nights of my life. Unless you were stood on the South bank that night, you could never imagine what it was like.

Ha ha, that's amazing.

I felt a bit disloyal getting so excited about seeing another team's players and didn't know whether to boo or to cheer when they stepped off the coach.

As you say, the atmosphere on the Monday night was, and still is, hard to put into words. A heady ****tail of brooding menace with a twist of chaotic abandon. It felt like it was somewhere between gun fight at the Ok Corral and the start of the Russian Revolution.
 
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Shergar

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We had been on the South Bank all season but for this one I was in the enclosure - remember a barrier buckling just South Bank side of the dug outs. And then the Leeds fans kicking and breaking the asbestos cladding at the back of the SB.
 
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Anglian Wolf

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I was crushed in the North Bank that night stood in my usual spot just above the cross bar in sight line.

We had nothing to play for except pride and I recall Doog and King John appearing on Central TV at tea-time that day saying that the lads were out to spoil the Don Revie party.

This match virtually ranks as my all-time favourite and certainly the best for atmosphere at Molineux I can ever remember. It will certainly remain up there alongside the 1974 League Cup Final and actually better than the 1980 League Cup Final for me.

Fantastic team we had back then.

That's the team I always think of when we sing "Those were the days my friend"

And it's true we thought they'd never end
 
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Anglian Wolf

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Brian Clough was away on holiday in Majorca that day while the boys in gold and black won the First Division title for him
 
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Wolvesthrunthru

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I was there as an almost 10 year old. I had never seen so many people in one place before! Absolutley incredible atmosphere and night
 
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Anglian Wolf

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Superb piece here on the match and it is clear this match is the one that haunts Leeds still as they look back on their history.

It also goes into detail on the inquiry that took place some time later into claims that Revie tried to "fix" the game by getting Mike O'Grady to approach Bernard Shaw with the offer of a bribe. Allegedly Shaw immediately informed McGarry who called a team meeting to warn them against approaches.

Thisn still didn't prevent Shaw from playing basketball with the ball in our penalty area but fortunately the ref didn't see it. Unbelievable match and an unbelievable game:

http://www.mightyleeds.co.uk/matches/19720508.htm
 
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George Berry

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The attempted game fixing accusations regarding this game were widely reported by the national press. Revie was heavliy implicated in the allegations. Probably need someone like our Dominic Sandbrook to access the archives.

Funnily enough I wrote about this a couple of years ago, in a book called State of Emergency - still available in all good bookshops!

The Wolves allegations - that Don Revie had offered three Wolves players £1,000 each to ‘take it easy’ - were first made in the Sunday People in 1972.

But it wasn't until 1977, after Revie had abandoned England to manage the UAE, that the press really got stuck in. The Mirror claimed that the Wolves match was part of a bigger pattern: "Don Revie planned and schemed and offered bribes, leaving as little as possible to chance. He relied on the loyalty of those he took into his confidence not to talk, and it nearly worked."

According to the Mirror, the go-betweens for the bribery scheme were the Leeds keeper, Gary Sprake, and the former Leeds player Mike O'Grady, who had moved to Wolves in 1970.

Sprake himself confirmed the allegations. But he wasn't necessarily impartial, because the Mirror were paying him £15,000 (a fortune in those days) for his story. When his old teammates gave him the cold shoulder, he retracted it and said he had been misquoted. But years later, he not only retracted his retraction, but made a series of fresh accusations (e.g. claiming that in 1965 Revie had asked get him to tap up two fellow Welsh players before a big game against Birmingham City).

It's very hard to know what to make of this. The police and the FA investigated but found no evidence. Mike O'Grady said he had been misquoted. There was definitely a witch-hunt climate against Revie after he left England, so perhaps the stories were exaggerated.

On the other hand, an awful lot of people made similar accusations. Bob Stokoe said Revie had tried to bribe him when he was managing Bury in 1962. Malcolm Allison said Revie left brown envelopes stuffed with cash in the referees' rooms. Alan Ball said Revie had sent him bungs to move to Leeds from Blackpool.

The most damning thing for me comes from a non-football source - the diary of Bernard Donoughue, who headed the Downing Street policy unit in the late 1970s. In September 1977, Donoughue had dinner with the FA Secretary Ted Croker, "who told me some alarming corruption stories about Don Revie.(Croker, by the way, had been one of Revie's few supporters in the FA.) And a month later, at a Downing Street lunch for the Prime Minister of Spain, Donoughue sat next to Sir Matt Busby: "More terrible stories about Don Revie".

The question is: would Croker and Busby make them up? To impress the PM's backroom boy? Not likely.
 
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Wulfhere

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I remember the Leeds match. I actually paid to get in and never got onto the terrace because there was no space. I saw the ball once in the first half when Parkes kicked from his hand. I gave up at half time and listened the the match on the radio in the Gifford. My memory was of hearing the Wolves supporters chanting come on Wanderers, come on Wanderers for almost the entire second half. A friend of my Dads who worked on the turstiles said that 76,000 paid to watch on the night and that the Wolves wanted to shut the gates at 6:30 but the Police would not let them as there were to many people in the town. How times have changed.
 

Wednesbury Wolf

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I can't remember a match were I have been so crushed.I can remember being at the bottom of the steps in the back of the south bank looking up at the sky above peoples heads through a little hole.

I can remember my dad saying "we might as well go home we'll never get in"

Even if we wanted to you couldn't turn round you were literally simply carried along with the flow.And this was about an hour or so before kick-off.
We did eventually get onto the terracing but had to watch from a place we didn't normally stand.If anybody would have had some sort of medical emergency then they would have had it.If you dropped something on the floor you had no chance of bending down.

I remember Billy Wright on the t.v. saying he thought the Wolves would win and how Garry Newbon ridiculed him,but Billy was "Wright"
 
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MM_IN_GALWAY

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Remember that night vividly, went from work in Queen Sq to ground at about half five, place was heaving, thought no way i would get in North Bank so went to South. Aged 16 and a football fan but not really supporting anyone. It all changed that night. Lasting memory at full time of seeing huddles of Leeds fans sitting on south bank crying, for some reason i smiled and knew from that moment i was Wolves forever.
 
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FLEET WOLF

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Funnily enough I wrote about this a couple of years ago, in a book called State of Emergency - still available in all good bookshops!

The Wolves allegations - that Don Revie had offered three Wolves players £1,000 each to ‘take it easy’ - were first made in the Sunday People in 1972.

But it wasn't until 1977, after Revie had abandoned England to manage the UAE, that the press really got stuck in. The Mirror claimed that the Wolves match was part of a bigger pattern: "Don Revie planned and schemed and offered bribes, leaving as little as possible to chance. He relied on the loyalty of those he took into his confidence not to talk, and it nearly worked."

According to the Mirror, the go-betweens for the bribery scheme were the Leeds keeper, Gary Sprake, and the former Leeds player Mike O'Grady, who had moved to Wolves in 1970.

Sprake himself confirmed the allegations. But he wasn't necessarily impartial, because the Mirror were paying him £15,000 (a fortune in those days) for his story. When his old teammates gave him the cold shoulder, he retracted it and said he had been misquoted. But years later, he not only retracted his retraction, but made a series of fresh accusations (e.g. claiming that in 1965 Revie had asked get him to tap up two fellow Welsh players before a big game against Birmingham City).

It's very hard to know what to make of this. The police and the FA investigated but found no evidence. Mike O'Grady said he had been misquoted. There was definitely a witch-hunt climate against Revie after he left England, so perhaps the stories were exaggerated.

On the other hand, an awful lot of people made similar accusations. Bob Stokoe said Revie had tried to bribe him when he was managing Bury in 1962. Malcolm Allison said Revie left brown envelopes stuffed with cash in the referees' rooms. Alan Ball said Revie had sent him bungs to move to Leeds from Blackpool.

The most damning thing for me comes from a non-football source - the diary of Bernard Donoughue, who headed the Downing Street policy unit in the late 1970s. In September 1977, Donoughue had dinner with the FA Secretary Ted Croker, "who told me some alarming corruption stories about Don Revie.(Croker, by the way, had been one of Revie's few supporters in the FA.) And a month later, at a Downing Street lunch for the Prime Minister of Spain, Donoughue sat next to Sir Matt Busby: "More terrible stories about Don Revie".

The question is: would Croker and Busby make them up? To impress the PM's backroom boy? Not likely.

Interesting to hear the name Gary Sprake-he once threw the ball into his own net- I hasten to add that it was not intentional......... or was it?
 

Big Saft Kid

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Watched that game from the North Bank, where the second goal was scored -- though I never saw it hit the back of the net. As Dougan shot from the through ball by Richards, the crowd behind simply collapsed forward on top of me as they all strained to see and knocked me to the ground -- I ended up on my knees rugby tacking the guy in front! I took my then girlfriend to the game -- it was her first ever! What a baptism! Like everyone else, I have never seen so many people in Molineux and the estimate of over 70,000 could well be correct. The only other game I can remember that comes near the crushing in the Leeds game was the 'championship decider' in April 1960, when Wolves lost 3-1 to Spurs. The official attendance that day was over 56,000 but the crush was no where near as bad as in the game against Leeds. It was terrifying, and a miracle no one was seriously hurt or killed.
 

Waggy's Boots

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I was 14 at the time and the overriding memories I have of that game are:

Having to walk in to town along the cannock road because it was totally gridlocked with Leeds coaches.
Bernard Shaw handballing in front of me in the North Bank and the ref not giving it.
The crush inside the stadium that day was incredible!

We were a very good side back in the day...
 
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Pauly

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I didn't go to this game but did go to the Liverpool game at the end of the 1975-6 game when again, Molineux was packed and gates were pushed down so the crowd was far more than the official 48,900. I would have estimated about 60,000 to be a closer figure. I even remember fans sitting on the Waterloo Rd stand roof. For those who went to both games, which match had the bigger (unofficial)crowd?
 

JR WAS KING

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I didn't go to this game but did go to the Liverpool game at the end of the 1975-6 game when again, Molineux was packed and gates were pushed down so the crowd was far more than the official 48,900. I would have estimated about 60,000 to be a closer figure. I even remember fans sitting on the Waterloo Rd stand roof. For those who went to both games, which match had the bigger (unofficial)crowd?

I went to both, and the Leeds crowd was without doubt bigger. It was scary being in the south bank, and as other posters have said, it's amazing that no-one was killed
 

Berlin Wolf

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Watched that game from the North Bank, where the second goal was scored -- though I never saw it hit the back of the net. As Dougan shot from the through ball by Richards, the crowd behind simply collapsed forward on top of me as they all strained to see and knocked me to the ground -- I ended up on my knees rugby tacking the guy in front! I took my then girlfriend to the game -- it was her first ever! What a baptism! Like everyone else, I have never seen so many people in Molineux and the estimate of over 70,000 could well be correct. The only other game I can remember that comes near the crushing in the Leeds game was the 'championship decider' in April 1960, when Wolves lost 3-1 to Spurs. The official attendance that day was over 56,000 but the crush was no where near as bad as in the game against Leeds. It was terrifying, and a miracle no one was seriously hurt or killed.

That brings back memories, and a fantastic match, BSK.

I was stood with my dad and sister about a third of the way up the North Bank and got crushed too.

It was frightening, almost a matter of life and death. I'm glad I was only 15, and didn't realise the full implications of what could happen.

My sister fainted, and she ended up sat on a stool by the Molineux Street corner flag sipping sweetened tea from the St.John's ambulance.

I remember us walking to the ground along the bottom end of Molineux Street well over an hour before the game started and hearing the crowd singing from inside the ground. And people already hurrying like the kick-off was two minutes away.

My sister and me only got in at the childrens 2/6d entrance owing to a slice of luck. We were stood by the yellow railings for a moment (where the queuing fans were filtered towards the turnstiles) and the queue swayed forward slightly towards the turnstiles. As the fans swayed back again a small gap opened up, and instintively we jumped through the rails into it. Moments later we were inside to meet my dad waiting for us.

I will never forget the sight of a swaying South Bank in both the Leeds and Liverpool games. I wonder what Health & safety would make of it all today?
 
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BigBadWolfie

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Funnily enough I wrote about this a couple of years ago, in a book called State of Emergency - still available in all good bookshops!

Fascinating stuff Dom.

I was 6 at the time, having finally been to my first game at Molineux that season, a 0-0 draw at home to Liverpool on the 22nd January. I say finally, as my Dad tried to take me to a home match (Everton) over a year earlier on Boxing Day 1970. We were queuing to get in the Waterloo Road stand when it sold out and the turnstiles were shut and everyone rushed to get in the North or South Bank. Having been crushed a few times at Molineux in the 50's and 60's my Dad refused to take one so young on the swaying terraces for my own safety :(

I was desparate to go to the Leeds game but knew after the Boxing day experience my Dad would not entertain it and sure enough we ended up listening on the radio in the kitchen.

I was unaware at the time of the bribery allegations surrounding the game but years later bought a book “Matches of The Day 1958-83†by Derek Dougan and Pat Murphy. The Leeds game (including the bribery allegations) is unsurprisingly covered in the book and The Doog gives his account. I have extracted the highlights below:


“This was the most dramatic match I ever played in. The last half-hour, as Leeds pressed frantically for the equaliser, the excitement was fantastic, the crowd almost beside itself … To this day, I am still asked why Wolves did not relax and give them the game. I always point out that professional footballers play to win … No player wants to be on the losing side … pride keeps him going – pride in his own pergormance … Our fans would never have forgiven us if we had laid down in front of Leeds that night; they would have known we were shirking it, and so would our manager Bill McGarry.â€

“Years after this dramatic game, a sequel was played out in the High Court. Billy Bremner, Leeds captain that day, sued one of the Wolves players, Danny Hegan, and the Sunday People, for alleged libel. Hegan had stated in a newspaper article that some of the Leeds players offered bribes to us as we lined up before the game started. I gave evidence in Court on Bremner’s behalf.that I knew of no such rumours or that any player had been approached, and Bremner won his libel action. If there had been any attempts to get the game fixed, I would surely have known about it. At the time, John Richards and I were a pretty useful striking combination, running up a lot of goals together. Surely you nobble the guys who might score goals for a start? Nobody tapped us up and the game was played fair and square … too much pride was at stake.â€


On the crowd that night:


“The atmosphere that Monday night was incredible. More than 53,000 crammed into Molineux, the highest for six seasons, and thousands were locked out. A couple of hundred Leeds fans who could not get through the turnstiles tried a daring alternative – breaking into the polytechnic overlooking the ground in the hope of securing a rooftop view of part of the pitch. It was that sort of night, that sort of frantic atmosphere. Inside the ground, supporters clambered up the floodlight stanchions, to get a better view. Hundreds spilled onto the pitch at one stage, as a crush barrier broke. I saw people wandering around with babies in their arms; apparently bay-sitters were in short supply that night in the Wolverhampton area, so diehards simply brought them along withthem to the game.â€
 

Viva Villazan

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Funnily enough I wrote about this a couple of years ago, in a book called State of Emergency - still available in all good bookshops!

Hello DS. Having just very much enjoyed your Seventies series I can see why you chose your MolMix i.d. - the resemblance in hairstyle is uncanny.
 

Munro Munro

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I was at the game in the north bank and remember watching Billy Bremner, all he did was chase after the ref all game and appeal for anything, if he had played his usual game then they nay have beaten us. Looking back it is really scary now to think of the crush unbelievable
 
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BigBadWolfie

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Looking back it is really scary now to think of the crush unbelievable

So, sadly, my Dad was right not to take me.

He worked for Walsall Co-op and used to go up to head office in Manchester from time to time and happened to be there when Utd played the first home game after the Munich disaster.

He can't remember who the game was against. May have even been a friendly. The only thing he remembers vividly is the crush. His colleague and him decided to head for the Stretford End and being such a poignant occassion the Mancunians had turned up in their droves.

Before long they were involved in an almighty crush. My Dad's colleague was a small guy and at one point was knocked over and fell under the feet of the crowd. Luckily for him he was wearing a long coat with large collar and was buttoned up to his neck as it was a cold night.

A Utd supporter helped my Dad drag his colleague up from the ground by the collar of his coat!! As he was dragged up and buffeted by the crowd he lost every single button on the coat. That was of little concern in the scheme of things and to this day he still thanks my Dad for saving his life.

This experience and few other crushes at Molineux is the reason why I never went on the terraces until I was in my teens and 6ft 4ins tall!!
 

jackfieldwolf

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I didn't go to this game but did go to the Liverpool game at the end of the 1975-6 game when again, Molineux was packed and gates were pushed down so the crowd was far more than the official 48,900. I would have estimated about 60,000 to be a closer figure. I even remember fans sitting on the Waterloo Rd stand roof. For those who went to both games, which match had the bigger (unofficial)crowd?

No contest. The Leeds game probably had in excess of 15000 more spectators than the Liverpool game. It's true to say that the Liverpool game was probably in the region of 55,000.

Based on 50,000 plus games I have attended, I would say that the Leeds game could possibly have been very close to our record attendance of 67,000.

In both games gates were forced open on the Southy Bank . But the real barometer of monster crowds at Molineux was the South Bank wings, particularly the Molineux Street wing, and the sardine swaying mass of the South Bank during the Leeds match, far exceeded the numbers on the South Bank during the Liverpool game.
 
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escutcheon

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There is very little television footage of this match and I don't remember any Match of the Day style highlights, just a single distant camera on the top the Waterloo Road stand used for a small feature on Midlands Today. Just think if that match happened today, the fuss that would have been made!

The crowd was massive and the South Bank in particular must have had well over its capacity, maybe 35,000 or more in one end, not counting the people hanging from precarious levels on the floodlights themselves.

This was the start of our great rivalry/hatred of Leeds. the following year they beat us at Maine Road in the FA Cup semi-final, and in the third round in 1973-4. I remember coming out of Maine Road thinking we had been robbed, trying to hitch hike back in the pouring rain. Much later of course we had a brilliant result at Elland Road with Goodman providing the winner.
 

Wednesbury Wolf

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I was at the game in the north bank and remember watching Billy Bremner, all he did was chase after the ref all game and appeal for anything, if he had played his usual game then they nay have beaten us. Looking back it is really scary now to think of the crush unbelievable

When you think about Leeds then they had a similar attitude to Man U. now.

The managers were both totally one sided and arrogant and the players spend all the game questioning every referee decision.

Allan Clarke was one of the very first players to start this habit of appealing for everything regardless of wether it was justifiable.
 

Bull Army

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Here are some Daily Express articles from the next day's papers for you all to read. Page 1 leads on 80 people getting crushed during that game (does anyone recognise that young man and his dad?), and the back page reports on the game and shows a photo of Munro's goal.



 
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singwolf_1

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I remember it well. In Singapore, it was reported that it was Bernard Shaw who had handled TWICE in the box!
 

jackfieldwolf

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Funnily enough I wrote about this a couple of years ago, in a book called State of Emergency - still available in all good bookshops!

The Wolves allegations - that Don Revie had offered three Wolves players £1,000 each to ‘take it easy’ - were first made in the Sunday People in 1972.

But it wasn't until 1977, after Revie had abandoned England to manage the UAE, that the press really got stuck in. The Mirror claimed that the Wolves match was part of a bigger pattern: "Don Revie planned and schemed and offered bribes, leaving as little as possible to chance. He relied on the loyalty of those he took into his confidence not to talk, and it nearly worked."

According to the Mirror, the go-betweens for the bribery scheme were the Leeds keeper, Gary Sprake, and the former Leeds player Mike O'Grady, who had moved to Wolves in 1970.

Sprake himself confirmed the allegations. But he wasn't necessarily impartial, because the Mirror were paying him £15,000 (a fortune in those days) for his story. When his old teammates gave him the cold shoulder, he retracted it and said he had been misquoted. But years later, he not only retracted his retraction, but made a series of fresh accusations (e.g. claiming that in 1965 Revie had asked get him to tap up two fellow Welsh players before a big game against Birmingham City).

It's very hard to know what to make of this. The police and the FA investigated but found no evidence. Mike O'Grady said he had been misquoted. There was definitely a witch-hunt climate against Revie after he left England, so perhaps the stories were exaggerated.

On the other hand, an awful lot of people made similar accusations. Bob Stokoe said Revie had tried to bribe him when he was managing Bury in 1962. Malcolm Allison said Revie left brown envelopes stuffed with cash in the referees' rooms. Alan Ball said Revie had sent him bungs to move to Leeds from Blackpool.

The most damning thing for me comes from a non-football source - the diary of Bernard Donoughue, who headed the Downing Street policy unit in the late 1970s. In September 1977, Donoughue had dinner with the FA Secretary Ted Croker, "who told me some alarming corruption stories about Don Revie.(Croker, by the way, had been one of Revie's few supporters in the FA.) And a month later, at a Downing Street lunch for the Prime Minister of Spain, Donoughue sat next to Sir Matt Busby: "More terrible stories about Don Revie".

The question is: would Croker and Busby make them up? To impress the PM's backroom boy? Not likely.

Great research Dom. Any chance of the BBC commisioning you to do a Documentary on this game:D
 

Himleywolf

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I was in the North Bank that night and was half hoping Leeds won as we had to walk past the South Bank to catch the bus in town. In the end we took the widest detour of Molinuex imagineable and was half way home when we plucked up courage to stop walking and wait for a bus.
 

Berlin Wolf

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Great research Dom. Any chance of the BBC commisioning you to do a Documentary on this game:D

The BBC Documentary could be called - Take it easy, Waggy!

In reference to Don Revie shouting to Waggy from the dug out to take it easy...

It is one of the rumours of how Leeds tried to manipulate that epic match.

It would have been a good Mol Mix question for Waggy to answer - and put to bed.
 
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jackfieldwolf

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I was in the North Bank that night and was half hoping Leeds won as we had to walk past the South Bank to catch the bus in town. In the end we took the widest detour of Molinuex imagineable and was half way home when we plucked up courage to stop walking and wait for a bus.

We were sat on the top deck of the number 17 bus back to Bridgnorth. We'd just got on near the station, and were jeering at passing Leeds fans from the topdeck, when the bus got caught in traffic just up the road from the Grand Theatre. There was scaffolding around the theatre at the time and a Leeds fan had some how managed to cop hold of a length of scaffolding tube and was chasing after the bus pole vaulter style. Boy were we relieved when the bus accelerated away with the scaffolding tube clattering harmlessly short in the road behind us :embarassed:
 
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Roby Wolf.

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8th May 72.

Travled down to this game from my home in Liverpool ,was inside Molineux at 5 oclock South Bank ,was one of the first inside the Ground that evening.
 
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Roby Wolf.

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Great evening ,travled down from Liverpool for the fixture, so many great memories following Wolves this era.
 
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