Don Revie

Arsène Wenger, Gareth Bale and the cheating legacy of Don Revie’s Leeds

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(Image: Timothy Boyd)


When Salut! Sunderland hammers on about cheating in football, and declares that any diving and feigning of injury is beyond the pale and not just when committed by opponents, the world is silent. When Arsène Wenger says something similar, everyone sits up and pays attention.

That is naturally as it should be. Not only is Wenger a top voice in football, deserving of a serious hearing when he makes a serious point; his call, reported with big headlines today, for an end to the conning of referees also sounds a little like a Damascene conversion.

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Long ago, when all the world willed us to beat Leeds

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bobbykerr
There were no neutrals. Everyone outside Leeds wanted Sunderland to win the 1973 FA Cup Final. Continuing our coverage of Lance Hardy’s new book** on the sensational upset our Lads caused at Wembley, Pete Sixsmith wallows in the memory of a quite different world …

Photos from 1973 by kind permission of the Sunderland Echo

Patrick Vieira on £150,000 a week; Kenwyne Jones valued at £40m; Manchester United with debts of £750m and tickets for Saturday at Chelsea at a tad under £50.

Money, money, money. I don’t think the game has ever been so wrapped up in finance and it somewhat dissipates the pleasure of watching a simple football match.

There were days when football, and everything around it, was much more innocent. I was reminded of this as I read Lance Hardy’s excellent book, Stokoe, Sunderland and ’73.

The title tells you everything you need to know; it’s a book about the greatest FA Cup victory in living memory, the manager who engineerd it, the players who delivered it and the fans who witnessed it and who have never quite got over it.
stokoe

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The greatest FA cup final shock of all time?

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Stokoe and Sunderland

Just out: Lance Hardy’s carefully researched story of the 1973 cup final when Sunderland threw off underdog status to defeat Don Revie’s mighty Leeds and win the FA Cup. It needs a great leap of faith to think you’ve much chance of getting the book from Amazon before Christmas. But you can get it, by clicking this link, at the knockdown price of just over £11 (instead of £18.99 and it’s even cheaper if you opt for second hand). Colin Randall wallows in nostalgia …


Where were you when Sunderland beat Leeds 1-0 in the FA Cup Final of May 5 1973?

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