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Part 1 An Appreciation - Part
3 Centre stage with City (1951-56) - Part
4 Shuffling off stage (1956-61) - Part
5 On the march with Leeds United (1961-67) - Part
6 The agony and the ecstasy (1967-74) - Part
7 Inn-gerland! (1974-77) - Part 8 Disgrace
and despair (1977-89)
The North East of England has long been a hotbed of footballing
talent, regularly throwing up young men who were destined to make
their way in the world in shirts, shorts and boots. There were
most famously Jackie and Bobby Charlton, World Cup winners in
1966, Wor Jackie Milburn, the dashing centre forward who became
Newcastle United's swashbuckling spearhead, the four Milburn brothers,
three of whom became defenders with Leeds United, brash Brian
Clough, who bagged goals for Middlesbrough like they were going
out of fashion, tough tackling Leeds defender Norman Hunter and
in latter days goalscoring machine Alan Shearer.
Jack Charlton said, "There's
a saying in our part of the world that if you shout down a pit,
up will pop a footballer." That in a sense says it all. In the
land of the Wear, the Tees and the Tyne, choice of career was
simple, the pit or the pitch. The only available leisure activity
for most young lads was kicking round a football, or anything
that resembled a ball.
Sunderland and Newcastle were giants of the English game in the
first quarter of the Twentieth Century and their prominence inspired
many an impressionable young man. Between 1892 and 1927, the two
clubs won the League title nine times and provided Cup finalists
on seven occasions.
Just weeks after Newcastle won the last of their four League
Championships, Donald George Revie was born on 10 July 1927 in
a tiny two bedroomed terrace house in Bell Street, near Middlesbrough's
Ayresome Park stadium, the youngest of three children, with older
twin sisters.
Revie's father took him to see Middlesbrough for the first time
when he was six, and by the time he was nine he was showing some
promise as a footballer. Those were hard days in the North East,
with high levels of unemployment and his father, a joiner by trade,
was on the dole for two years. Though Don was given some football
boots, his family could not run to a ball as well, and the youngster
had to make do with a bundle of rags as a makeshift alternative.
However, he did befriend George Tinsley, "proud owner of Bell
Street's only leather football", so he was not too badly disadvantaged.
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His mother died of cancer in 1939 and the loss hit Don Revie
hard, leaving him feeling vulnerable and isolated, and the insecurity
remained with him to the end  of
his days. Having little else to do and desperate to distract himself
from brooding thoughts, the boy spent all his spare time playing
football and practicing his skills, developing talents that would
serve him well in years to come.
He left school at 14 and became an apprentice bricklayer, although
he continued to play football with Newport Boys' Club. After six
months, he was on his way to bigger things when Bill Sanderson,
who managed a reputable local team, the Middlesbrough Swifts,
paid five shillings to secure his services.
Sanderson was a gifted and visionary coach and impressed Revie
with his dedication and thorough preparation, encouraging players
to attend team talks on Sundays and rehearse set piece moves.
Sanderson preached the value of switching play by long passes
across the field or cutting defenders out with swift through balls,
and the lessons would be internalised for recall when Revie became
a manager himself. He noted Sanderson's manic obsession with acquiring
in-depth knowledge of the Swifts' opponents in order to prepare
his lads to take them apart - ever afterwards Revie would emphasise
the benefits of knowing thine enemy and sound pre-match planning.
Sanderson extolled the virtues of hard work and playing as a
team, and the Swifts enjoyed local dominance from 1942 to 1944,
winning many competitions. News quickly got around and two professional
clubs began making overtures to Revie, with Leicester City vying
with his local club for his signature. Leicester scout George
Carr was always on the look out for players spotted by the Swifts
and eventually beat Middlesbrough in the race for Revie's signature,
persuading him to up stakes and leave his home ground.
Eric Thornton from his book Leeds United And Don Revie:
"Johnny Duncan was the pleasant, experienced fellow who guided
Don over the early years. Uncle Jock, as he was always known to
everybody in the family circle, first heard of the boy from someone
living near to the Middlesbrough club. He kept his ear very close
to the ground, saw him in action, and recognised that this youngster
with the lean build of a greyhound, and almost the speed to match
it, was improving fast. So, remembering the doggerel of Alice's
Walrus, he knew when the time had come, and introduced him to
Leicester's payroll.
"He was just a stripling of seventeen, and playing for the Filbert
Street club at that time were such stalwarts as Derek Hines, Ken
Chisholm, the wartime RAF pilot and Scottish striker who also
assisted Leeds, Partick, Cardiff and Sunderland, and Jack Lee,
who made the headlines one day in a rush transfer to Derby, and
another day by his strong leadership of the England attack in
Belfast, when he hit one of the four goals which sank the Irish."
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He made his debut on the right wing for City at home to Wolves
on 26 August 1944 and  quickly
made himself a valued member of the team. Leicester and England
midfield player Sep Smith, one of five brothers who played professional
football at various levels, took him under his wing at Filbert
Street.
Smith was a talented player and just the sort of quick-witted
inside-forward whom Revie adored. He was quick to see openings
and was always ready to play the defence splitting ball that so
excited crowds.
He recognised Revie's promise and put great effort into coaching
him, recalling "As it was during the war, we didn't have many
youngsters then. But I could see he had potential when he came
down for a trial and I used to coach him lots with the ball. I'd
say come on with me, and we'd go into a corner and I'd teach him
things.
"He was an eager young player but I used to make him cry when
I told him he did things wrong. He told me he would go home after
the match and start to cry. I was pushing him because I believed
in him. When he used to cry, I told him he should do things right.
But he could cross a ball and kick a ball the right way. I would
teach him the way to go … to pass the ball in front of the player
so he could run on to it. And I would teach him how to trap it."
Andrew Mourant in his biography of Revie, Portrait of a Footballing
Enigma, recounts some of the advice Smith gave: "He drummed
into the young, receptive Revie four principles: when not in position,
get into position; never beat a man by dribbling if you can beat
him more easily with a pass; it is not the  man
on the ball but the one running into position to take the pass
who constitutes the danger; and the aim is to have a man spare
in a passing move. Soccer would then become easy."
Revie enjoyed good progress with Leicester, making 33 wartime
performances, and he did well in 1946-47, the first full season
after the resumption of peace. However, he suffered an ankle injury
that could have ended his career before it had got off the ground.
Leicester City were relegated in the last peacetime season, and
Revie was given his chance as they chased promotion. Johnny Duncan
had just taken over from Tom Bromilow as manager at Filbert Street
and liked what he saw of Revie's style.
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The new man was an admirer of smart inside-forwards and, when
he played for Raith Rovers in Scotland, had enjoyed the experience
of lining up alongside one of the best in Alex James, who went
on to great things in the 1930's when he moved to Arsenal. Duncan
saw Smith and Revie, then a right-winger, as being men around
whom he could rebuild Leicester City.
However, the immediate chances of doing so were put on hold when
Revie was stretchered off during a game with Tottenham Hotspur.
He had challenged Welsh international wing-half Ronnie Burgess
and collapsed with a shattered right ankle. The injury was so
severe that specialists in the Leicester hospital where he was
taken believed he would never play again, suggesting that his
chances of a full recovery were one in a thousand.
Revie had thought it was merely a bad sprain, but started to
fear the worst when no-one would tell him the exact nature of
the injury. Eventually it was Duncan who broke the bad news, but
he worked with Smith to convince the young player he could fight
his way back to full fitness. Duncan's niece, Elsie, was also
on hand to lend moral support, and grew so attached to Revie that
the two were to marry in 1949.
Revie rewarded the optimism of Smith and Duncan by miraculously
returning to action just 19 weeks after the Tottenham game, gradually
building up confidence in his restored ankle. Duncan switched
him to the role of schemer, reasoning that he would be less prone
to a repeat of the injury, and he flourished, helping Leicester
to a final 9th place, disappointing but not disastrous.
The relationship between Revie and the manager was close and
supportive, and gave the player food for thought as he recalled
later: "Uncle Jock used to talk to me when I was just a youngster
as if I was one of his most important players, and that taught
me something to remember for the rest of my life. I know how much
it helped me always having  him
behind me, so now I adopt the same system with my youngsters because
I realise that a club is only as strong as its youngest player.
"Whenever I thought about the future and the possibilities of
managership, my mind invariably swung back to Uncle Jock and the
way he treated all young players, and I reckon today that if any
youngsters don't feel they matter to a club it simply means that
the manager has failed in one of the most important parts of his
job."
Reassured as to Revie's future in the game, Duncan built around
the youngster as his fulcrum for the 1947-48 season, but had to
be satisfied with another ninth position.
The manager hoped for better things the following year, but was
exasperated as his charges slumped into a season long battle against
relegation to Division Three, eventually finishing 19th, a single
point clear of the drop. They needed to get something from their
last match at Cardiff to stay up, doing so with a 1-1 draw.
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However, Leicester City demonstrated their potential by embarking
on a decent run in the FA Cup. It took them all the way to a Wembley
final against a wonderful Wolverhampton Wanderers team, on the
verge of becoming a force in the 1950's under manager Stan Cullis.
Sep Smith was now confined to the role of researching Leicester's
opponents in the run up to games and returning with briefings
on the best way to defeat them. Rooted in Smith's intelligence
reports and Bill Sanderson's detailed game plans were the seeds
for the infamous Revie dossiers of later years, as the schemer
noted with satisfaction  how
often Smith's sharp analysis and eye for detail gave City a vital
edge.
Smith's advice before the fourth round clash with Preston North
End had been to keep the ball away from the wingers. Leicester
did so and emerged with a glorious 2-0 victory.
The semi-final opponents were Portsmouth, who were on the verge
of winning the League, and a far superior outfit to Leicester.
Smith pointed out the Pompey keeper's trick of flicking the ball
over a forward's head when under pressure before running into
space to catch it. In the second half, with City's fragile 2-1
lead increasingly threatened, Revie moved in as the ball was launched
into the Portsmouth area. Leicester's Jack Lee went to challenge
keeper Butler, and sure enough the goalie palmed the ball away.
Mindful of Smith's advice, however, Revie was waiting, and got
in first to slip the ball home for a decisive third goal, securing
a memorable victory and a trip to Wembley's Twin Towers. Portsmouth
went on to clinch the championship with three games to spare.
Catastrophically for the young forward, however, Revie missed
out on the final after suffering a bizarre injury. He burst a
blood vessel in his nose during an Easter Monday game with West
Ham. At first it seemed only a minor problem, and Revie managed
to play in the next game against Blackburn Rovers. But as Leicester
travelled to play Plymouth, Revie's nose began to bleed again,
this time so badly that he had to be taken to Leicester Royal
Infirmary. He was later told that had he been an hour later in
reaching hospital he would have died.
There was no way he could play in the Cup final, and he was too
weak to even attend the game. He was forced to listen sadly on
the radio as his colleagues lost 3-1 to Wolves, captained by England
skipper Billy Wright.
Wolves had appeared to be coasting to victory after Jesse Pye's
two first half goals, but a couple of minutes after the interval
City struck back. Goalkeeper Bert Williams parried a scorcher
from Ken Chisholm,  only
for Mal Griffiths to hook the ball into the net.
Now Leicester were giving as good as they got, with all of Wright's
experience required to keep them at bay. But after 68 minutes,
Sammy Smyth picked the ball up in midfield for Wolves and carried
it forward for 30 yards through a retreating City defence before
putting the ball home for a decisive third goal.
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Revie's injury meant that he had to cry off a summer tour with
the England team, after being called up to the party as reward
for his outstanding form all season.
Revie was always the most miserable of fatalists, and one could
see why from the catalogue of ills which befell him. Despair at
the hands dealt out to him, seemingly at the whim of some particularly
callous Cosmic Comedian, would be characteristic of his darker
moods over the years. Revie was forever convinced that divine
entities conspired against him, delivering one sadistic joke after
another at his expense. No amounts of rabbit's feet or lucky blue
suits could ward off the fickle whimsy of Fate, but it didn't
stop Revie from putting his faith in them.
However, he had every reason to be cheerful when he returned
to Filbert Street after the summer break in 1949, to the news
that Johnny Duncan had made him captain. It may have had something
to do with the fact that Don and Elsie had announced they would
be getting married in October, but Revie merited the honour, despite
being just 22.
He had shown himself to be a gifted and accomplished technician,
fulfilling the potential that Sep Smith had spotted. He was one
of the best young inside-forwards in the Football League, seemingly
destined for international honours and a glittering future. He
was adept at controlling the ball and passing accurately to his
team's advantage, and displayed a distinct appreciation of the
value of tactics.
The Cup run had shown that Leicester City had the potential for
higher things, but Revie  was
uneasy. To his mind, his upcoming marriage to the manager's niece
brought with it all manner of complications. The offer of the
captaincy set off dark doubts in his mind, concerns that people
would think he was benefiting from nepotism. The eternally insecure
Revie passionately wanted to demonstrate that he could earn success
on his own terms, without the need for such sponsorship, and so
he decided to move on. He had been at Filbert Street for five
years and felt that he could learn little more at the club.
Johnny Duncan and Sep Smith were distraught at the news, accepting
that Revie was thinking of his future, but feeling a little betrayed
as new suitors came courting from early September onwards.
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When it became apparent that mighty Arsenal were interested in
him, it was thought that Revie would jump at the chance of a rapid
ascent into the big time. But his characteristic caution and self-doubt
held sway, enveloping him with pessimism and the fear that the
Gunners might be too big for his talent. He turned them down.
Next Manchester City invited him for discussions, and he visited
the North West with Elsie shortly after their marriage. Again,
he had second thoughts and rejected City's offer.
One might have been forgiven for questioning whether Revie actually
wanted to move at all, but a game with Hull City was the springboard
for a shock move in the middle of November. The Yorkshire club's
player-manager was former England schemer Raich
Carter, who was nearing the end of an illustrious career.
Carter was suitably impressed by Revie's performance, together
with his humility in asking for autographs afterwards, and decided
that this was the man who could be groomed to take his place.
Hull City were a club of no great history, but offered Leicester
£19,000 for his services. The chance to play with Carter, a player
whom Revie had admired as a schoolboy, was what clinched the deal,
allowing Don to continue his football education.
Revie later said of Carter: "I had seen him play many, many times,
and always recognised his genius, and felt that being attached
to the same club would almost automatically enable me to learn
a lot more about the game. And that's how it turned out."
After a respectable 25 goals in 96 games, Don Revie was off on
a new adventure.
Hull City's fortunes had been helped after the war by the arrival
of the charismatic former Wolves manager, Major
Frank Buckley, recruited by a new and progressive board of
directors led by  chairman
Harold Needler.
Buckley put together a halfway decent side, and in 1947-48 they
finished fifth in the Third Division (North). The chief achievement
for Buckley, however, lay in persuading Raich Carter to throw
his lot in with the Yorkshire club, signing up as assistant manager
as well as a player. He was by now a veteran, but still had the
class to outshine most opponents following his debut on 3 April
1948.
Shortly after Carter's arrival, Buckley accepted an offer to
become the new manager at Leeds United, and Carter was appointed
his successor as Hull boss.
Carter's influence was immense as he led the Tigers to their
best ever season. They finished as champions and set a number
of records. They won their first nine matches and the attendance
of 49,655 for their top of the table clash at home to Rotherham
on Christmas Day was a League record that still stands. Coupled
with their League dominance, Hull City also enjoyed a memorable
Cup run, culminating in 55,019 spectators packing into Boothferry
Park to see First Division runners-up Manchester United defeat
the Tigers 1-0 in a closely fought battle.
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In the knowledge that he was nearing the end of an illustrious
playing career, Carter began casting his eye around for a successor.
22-year-old Revie looked a ready-made replacement and the match
between Leicester and Hull on August 27 gave Carter the chance
to check Revie out at first hand.
After the failed discussions with Arsenal and Manchester City,
it was Hull City who secured Don Revie's services, signing him
on November 11. Revie was straight into the side the next day
for the home game with bottom club Coventry City, which saw Hull
emerge with a 2-1 victory.
Revie had high hopes of quick progress alongside Carter and hoped
to learn great things. However, the Silver Fox had a reputation
for arrogance and looked down on those whom he felt were inferior
to him, which was just about everyone.
Though he recognised Revie's potential, he felt that there were
flaws in his game, and that his lack of aggression let him down.
Both men were happiest in a deep role, directing operations.  However,
possession is nine-tenths of the law and Carter chose to play
Revie further upfield, where he was less effective. The manager
was more enamoured of the quick through ball than the patient
possession game of the newcomer and told him so, patronisingly
describing his game as "delicate".
Revie, in contrast, was even more impressed by playing alongside
Carter than he had been watching him from a distance, saying "There
was the occasion when we were playing at Doncaster, and for a
moment I was wondering what to do with the ball because there
was no apparent opening. Suddenly, Raich roared out for it, and
when I squared it to him he was there, completely unmarked, then
running forward to score, and pushing his hand back through his
hair as he returned as if to say that was the way I should do
it in future."
Eventually, Carter moved Revie to right-half where he was able
to make a better contribution, although his stay at Hull was not
a success. He did win the admiration of the crowds and gain new
fans in Yorkshire, but could not quite eclipse the Silver Fox
in their eyes.
In February 1951, Carter signed another big name, former Stoke
City and England centre-half Neil Franklin.
Defender Cornelius ‘Neil’ Franklin and right-winger George Mountford
of Stoke City started an exodus of British players to Colombia
in 1950. Franklin had won 27 consecutive caps for England before
joining Independiente Santa Fe of Bogota for a far higher salary
than players could earn in England in those days of the maximum
wage. But Colombia was not a member of Fifa, and the world governing
body banned Franklin, causing him to miss the World Cup in Brazil.
He was soon followed across the Atlantic by Manchester United
left-winger Charlie Mitten, whose contract had expired when he
went on the club’s 1950 summer tour to the US. He expected to
sign a new deal on his return to England, but received a telephone
call from Franklin on his last day in the US, urging him to move
to join him at Santa Fe. The Colombian club was owned by Luis
Robledo, a cattle baron, and Mitten, on £10 a week at United,
was offered a £5,000 signing-on fee and a £5,000 annual salary.
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Franklin was unhappy in Bogota and returned home only two months
into the Colombian season. He joined Hull City, but never played
for England again. Mountford and Mitten stayed for a year, but
then Colombia rejoined Fifa and both had to come home. Mountford
rejoined Stoke, but had to serve a suspension before being allowed
to play. Mitten, who scored 24 goals in Colombia, returned to
a six-month ban and was transfer-listed by Manchester United.
He eventually joined Fulham.
Franklin was suspended from League football when he returned,
but  joined
Hull when his ban ended and the move hinted at better things to
come, but he sustained a cartilage injury and the team as a whole
struggled, facing a desperate fight against relegation.
Carter got into a heated dispute with his directors and quit
in September 1951, leaving the club in desperate straits. Revie
was in despair as his dreams of glory faded. His form was suffering
badly, and he asked for a transfer.
Again Manchester City expressed their interest, and this time
the lure of the First Division won Revie over. He jumped at the
opportunity, agreeing to a deal worth £28,000 in October 1951,
with City full back Ernie Phillips making the return journey as
an £8,000 makeweight.
Carter was eventually persuaded to return to Hull as a player
a few months later and spearheaded their successful fight against
relegation, but by then Don Revie had long since departed for
pastures new at Maine Road and a future in the top flight.
Part 1 An Appreciation - Part
3 Centre stage with City (1951-56) - Part
4 Shuffling off stage (1956-61) - Part
5 On the march with Leeds United (1961-67) - Part
6 The agony and the ecstasy (1967-74) - Part
7 Inn-gerland! (1974-77) - Part 8 Disgrace
and despair (1977-89)
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