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Season
1953/54
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King
Charles
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When casting around for a successor, chairman Sam Bolton and the Leeds
board sought another known and proven quantity. They eventually settled
on Raich Carter, who had a glittering
playing career in the Thirties and Forties as England's most gifted inside-forward,
starring for Sunderland and Derby County. His silky soccer skills had delighted millions for two decades and he
showed his flair in an off the field role when succeeding Buckley at Third
Division Hull City in 1948. He doubled up as player-manager and inspired
a Division Three championship win the following year before departing
Boothferry Park in 1952 after a number of disagreements with the board. After a brief and successful spell in Ireland with Cork Athletic, he
answered the call from the Elland Road Board without hesitation and arrived
with the stated intention of regaining the First Division place Leeds
had lost in 1947. Buckley had done some first class groundwork, establishing
effective youth development and scouting programmes which had unearthed
one of the stars of the 1950's in Welsh giant John
Charles. After blooding him as a centre half, Buckley switched Charles
to centre forward and was duly rewarded when the Welshman rattled home
a shedful of goals. In his first season at the club, Raich Carter generally kept faith with
the Buckley eleven that had performed so well in the second half of 1952/53,
with one notable exception. Winger George Meek was away for a year on
National Service and in his place the new manager enlisted an old ally,
40-year-old Eddie Burbanks. The veteran had played alongside Carter in
Sunderland's FA Cup triumph in 1937 and for him in Hull's promotion-winning
team in 1949. The move to Leeds wasn't a success and Burbanks retired
a year later, after captaining the team in the last game of the season.
Burbanks played in the opening 12 games but then 23-year-old Arthur Tyrer,
who had signed three years before from non-league Mossley, took over from
him on the left wing. The rest of the team that kicked off Carter's spell in charge was tried
and tested. 25-year-old keeper John Scott had made the spot his own after
arriving from Workington in 1950; reliable full-backs Jimmy Dunn and Grenville
Hair were quick, tactically aware and both unlucky not to win full international
honours during lengthy Elland Road careers; a sound half-back line up
of Eric Kerfoot, Jim McCabe and Buckley's skipper, Tommy Burden, provided
the backbone of the team. Between them, Scott, Dunn, Hair, Kerfoot and
Burden had only missed five games throughout the whole of the previous
campaign. Welsh winger Harold Williams and inside forward Ray Iggleden were skilled
providers for the twin menace up front of Charles and 29-year-old Albert
Nightingale, a fiery forward who had done the rounds with a number of
Yorkshire clubs and was a constant thorn in the side of opposing defenders.
It was a strong and potent side and one that had been unlucky on several
occasions to miss out on promotion. The team kicked off the new season in determined style with two memorable
wins at Elland Road - 6-0 against Notts County (John Charles scoring four
times) and 4-2 over Rotherham with another Charles hat trick. Leeds were
then unlucky to lose by the odd goal in seven in the next match, away
to Swansea, but faced a rude awakening on 29 August when they crashed
5-0 at Leicester. Though they won their next game, the return at Elland Road against Swansea
3-2, they then went through a nightmare spell, winning just one of the
next nine games. By the time they drew 2-2 at Blackburn on the last day
of October, they were well off the promotion pace, some eight points behind
leaders Leicester City and way back in 12th position. They were proving a deadly proposition in front of goal, however, with
Charles hitting 19 goals in 15 matches and Nightingale adding another
6. Winger George Willis played three matches as replacement for Burbanks,
but quickly gave way to Tyrer on the left, while Bobby Forrest covered
for Charles and scored a hat trick in the 3-3 home draw with Bristol Rovers
at the beginning of October. Other team changes saw Jack Marsden take
over at Number 5 from Jim McCabe, while 23-year-old Roy Wood made his
debut in goal and had a run of 10 matches when Scott was out injured.
Wood went on to have a long and distinguished career at Elland Road. Manager Carter's touch was proving less assured than in the Third Division,
although a brief improvement in form during November saw his new club
climb the table. A Nightingale hat trick saw off second-placed Doncaster
Rovers by 3-1 at Elland Road on 7 November, another Charles hat trick
was the highlight of an amazing 4-4 draw at bottom club Bury and goals
from Forrest and Nightingale earned a 2-1 home win over struggling Oldham.
However, a 2-1 reverse at third-laced Everton on 28 November sparked off
another spell of mediocre form, with just one win in six games in the
run up to the New Year. That isolated success featured yet another Charles hat trick (his fourth
of the season), as Leeds won 4-2 away to a Rotherham side in the running
for promotion, but two defeats by Nottingham Forest on Christmas Day (5-2
away) and Boxing Day (2-0 at Elland Road) plunged Leeds back down to 11th
place, now 10 points behind Leicester, who headed the table. It was with
much trepidation, then, that United prepared for the leaders' visit to
Elland Road on 2 January. As it turned out, Leeds had a field day, hammering the long time table
toppers by 7-1 with Ray Iggleden hitting a hat trick against his former
club and Williams, Charles, Nightingale and Tyrer getting a goal apiece.
How could a team that could play so brilliantly struggle so badly and
become bogged down in a mid table morass? But inconsistency was the word,
and, following the customary third round FA Cup exit (1-0 away to First
Division Tottenham after a 3-3 draw in the first match at Elland Road),
Leeds suffered three straight defeats - 4-0 at Stoke City, 2-1 at home
to Fulham and 5-2 at West Ham. They had now sunk to 15th, just five points
clear of the relegation positions. Carter was suffering the same sort of headaches that all his Elland Road
predecessors had experienced. He was exasperated by the fluctuating form,
particularly when Charles' fifth and final hat trick of the season inspired
a 5-2 triumph over Lincoln on 13 February to once more bemuse the critics.
Hopes of a promotion spot had long since faded, but there was still much
to do to guard against an unprecedented fall into the Third Division. The self-assured Carter had developed an unswerving self belief during
his playing days, when he had won everything the English game had to offer
by the time he was 24. His unabashed self promotion bred unrest among
the players and the new broom was ruffling a few feathers. He was convinced
of his abilities and scathing and dismissive in his put downs of the players,
whom he deemed lesser talents. Team spirit suffered as he lavished all
his attention on the star player, John Charles. The modest young Welshman
was embarrassed by such patronage and his humility was in stark contrast
to the high self esteem of The Silver Fox, who refused to accept that
any of the side's failings were down to him, but that all their successes
stemmed directly from his leadership. It was not good for team spirit. However, despite all the mutterings, the side had not suddenly become
a bad one overnight and the Lincoln win marked the start of a strong closing
burst. They went six games without defeat and, in fact, only lost two
matches out of the last 13, easily securing a mid-table finish. The focus
had switched, however, from the form of the team towards the individual
triumphs of Charles. His three goals against Lincoln in February moved
him onto 32 in just 28 league games. The Welshman had been consistently deadly in front of goal throughout
the season. The most games he went without a goal at any one time was
two, and he was always likely to pop up at the vital moment. After his
astonishing opening burst of 4 on the opening day against Notts County
and a hat trick in the next game against Rotherham, he simply kept on
plugging away and the goals continued to flow. The statistics from then
on made amazing reading:
The club's record scorer in any one season was still the phenomenal Tom
Jennings, who had bulldozed his way to 35 back in 1926/27.
The marvellous form in front of goal that Charles had shown all year had
put him within touching distance of Jennings' long lasting record. There
were 12 games still to play and the odds were in the Welshman's favour.
He drew a blank in the next two games, both 1-1 draws, but then notched
another two goals in the 4-0 victory at Elland Road against struggling
Brentford on 6 March. The following week saw a 2-0 victory away to Derby County, but Charles
missed the game and had to watch his replacement Bobby Forrest notch both
goals. However, Charles was back a week later for the next match, a home
game against Blackburn Rovers. He got the winner from the penalty spot
in a 3-2 victory to draw level on 35 goals with Jennings' record, and
there were still seven games to go. The suspense did not last long, and Charles hit his 36th, record-breaking
goal in the very next match, when he scored United's second in a 4-2 defeat
at Oldham. It was a remarkable achievement, for it was just his 33rd game. What
was even more startling was that Charles had started the season with only
38 goals in 136 games since his debut in April 1949. The improvement had
been startling and since Charles had moved permanently to the Number 9
shirt on 11 October 1952, he had hit a startling 62 goals in 61 games.
He wasn't finished yet, however, and hit another six goals in his last
four matches of the season to push the new record up to an incredible
42 goals from just 39 matches. He had rapidly become one of the hottest properties in the game and firmly
imprinted his name on the nation's consciousness. After becoming the youngest
Welsh full international debutant back in 1950, he was now an established
international with 9 caps to his name. His Welsh record in 1953/54 was
three goals in 4 games, so with his Cup goal, his remarkable return was
46 goals from 45 matches. It was difficult to remember that this colossus
of the British game was as yet still just 22 years of age. For all their centre-forward's startling efforts, Leeds United had a
lacklustre season. Albert Nightingale had contributed a further 17 goals,
but the rest of the squad could only scrape together Had they been able to find anything like decent form on their travels,
Leeds would have been well up with the promotion candidates, but for the
time being Raich Carter and his men basked in the reflected glory of Charles'
incredible season and prepared for better things in the year to come. Other Football Highlights from 1953/54 |