Hate at first sight
For United, 1964-65 was a great season for two reasons: the first league title since Munich – and the start of a ferocious rivalry with Leeds
It started with a hiss. Manchester United were lining up in the Old Trafford tunnel ahead of their first game against newly promoted Leeds when George Best felt a searing pain in his right calf. He turned round to find the Leeds midfielder Bobby Collins snarling at him. “And that’s just for starters, Bestie.”
He had no idea. Collins was talking about the next 90 minutes, not the next 57 years and counting. Rivalries begin in different ways, from slow burners to instant explosions. With United and Leeds, it was hate at first sight. The 1964-65 season, when United won their first league title after Munich, was the start of a poisonous war of the roses. Leeds beat United in the FA Cup semi-final; United responded by pipping Leeds to the title.
Some people, including United’s Paddy Crerand and Leeds’ Johnny Giles, regard that United side as superior to the European Cup winners of 1968. Squad rotation makes it almost impossible to name a title-winning XI these days, but that was not a problem in 1964-65. United’s first-choice side each played over 50 games that season, with nobody else appearing more than six times. The formation was listed as 2-3-5, though nowadays it would probably be described as 4-1-3-2: Pat Dunne;Tony Dunne, Shay Brennan; Paddy Crerand, Bill Foulkes, Nobby Stiles; John Connelly, Bobby Charlton, David Herd, Denis Law, George Best.
United’s emergence from the post-Munich depression was a three-part, five-year process: the first trophy, then the first title, and finally the holy grail of the European Cup. The swaggering FA Cup final victory over Leicester in 1963, a season in which United finished 19th in the league, was a spectacular catalyst. "The gate suddenly swung open for us,” said Law, “and we were through to the shining uplands.” United finished second the following season, and were champions a year later.
Pat Dunne, signed from Shamrock Rovers, replaced David Gaskell in goal, but the most significant signing was the right-winger Connelly from Burnley in April 1964. It was not just that he was the last piece of the jigsaw; he also allowed Sir Matt Busby to put the other pieces in the correct place. Best moved to take Charlton’s place on the left wing, and Charlton assumed a playmaking role, from where he could spray long passes and launch 25-yard heatseekers towards goal. David Miller, Busby’s biographer, said moving Charlton infield was “perhaps the most important of all tactical switches in his 25 years as manager”. Busby gave Charlton the highest possible praise: he said that, in his new position, he was “very reminiscent of [Alfredo] Di Stefano”.
Charlton became lord of the manor in the centre of the pitch and, with Best charming the pants off everyone in his first full season, 1964-65 was when United’s trinity became holy. Law was already at the top of his game and became the first of the three to win the Ballon d’or in December 1964. He scored 49 goals that calendar year, including seven in four days against Aston Villa and Djurgaardens, and it would have been more but for his usual Christmas suspension. Law was a strutting superhero, a hurricane of charisma.
Yet for all United’s coruscating brilliance going forward, what really won the title was the defence. Stiles, who usurped Maurice Setters at the start of the season, was magnificent as the defensive shield and United conceded only 37 goals in 42 games, the fewest by any team in the First Division for 15 years. Everybody else let in more than 50.
“In a life of football stretching back to 1926, I cannot remember seeing a match of such importance as an FA Cup semi-final so sordid”
In the league, it was a season of four quarters. There was a slow start, with one win in the first six games, after which United were 15th. That was followed by an outrageous run of 13 wins in 14. A 1-0 defeat at home to Leeds prompted an unwelcome hibernation, with only two wins in ten matches. Finally United put together a scorching, title-winning run of 10 wins in 11 league games.
In the end it came down to United and Leeds, though Chelsea were top for long periods before collapsing in the run-in. When eight of their players, including Terry Venables and George Graham, sneaked down a fire escape to go out on the booze before their penultimate game at Burnley, the young manager Tommy Docherty sent them all home. Chelsea lost 6-2 and their fading challenge was over.
United hammered Chelsea home and away, with both games lit up by Best’s burgeoning genius. The first game, a 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge on a Wednesday evening in September, was a turning point in his life, never mind his career. “The more I wonder when it all began,” he said, “the more I keep coming back to that game.” Best stormed the King’s Road and made it his second home. “I used to love it at Chelsea,” he said. “Their bloody defenders used to have to pay twice to get back into the ground when I’d finished with them.”
Best gave the right-back Ken Shellito a rare chasing. When Shellito left the field, Crerand said he was “suffering from twisted blood”, coining a phrase that would be handed down to Ryan Giggs. (Neatly, Alex Ferguson first used it when Giggs scored a memorable goal at – yes – Stamford Bridge in 1995.)
New phrases and old words were needed to do justice to Best. In A Football Man, Arthur Hopcraft said the Chelsea game was the night Best restored the verb “to dribble” to the sportswriter’s dictionary. He received a standing ovation from the Chelsea fans at the end and, according to one report, was even applauded off by both sets of players. “I shall always remember that first time at Chelsea,” said Busby. “When we went to Stamford Bridge after that I thought I ought to have phoned the police and told them a murder was about to be committed.” In the return fixture, a 4-0 hammering in March, Best scored with a beautiful chip from a tight angle, a goal that was given a second life with the launch, less than a month after Best’s death, of YouTube.
That he might have less joy against Leeds became clear before a ball had been kicked, when Collins addressed him in the Old Trafford tunnel. Although Leeds were newly promoted, the Battle of Goodison – a strong contender for the filthiest game in English football history – had already shown that they cared for reputations and codes of honour about as much as upstart gangsters. Leeds became the only side Best wore shinpads against. It was not fear - Best was one of the bravest players of all - so much as common sense.
The rivalry would surely have exploded anyway, given the nature of players like Stiles, Crerand, Law, Collins, Giles, Billy Bremner and Jack Charlton, but Collins’ tunnel intervention fast-tracked everything. Stiles swore vengeance on him, and everyone else, and administered some during that league match at Old Trafford. Like most of his team-mates, Collins was as formidable with the ball as he was without it, and he won the Footballer of the Year award that season. In the league game, he landed a more damaging blow than the one on Best’s calf when he scored the only goal.
“I always felt that there was a great deal of jealousy from Leeds players towards Manchester United,” said Crerand in Never Turn the Other Cheek. “They had a great side that often beat us so there was no need to be jealous, but I believe they felt that they were playing for the inferior club. Leeds were a dirty, cheating side when they didn’t need to be because they had the talent to win trophies without stooping to rolling about all over the pitch.”
By the time of the FA Cup semi-final, which United reached after a Law-inspired comeback from 2-0 down to win 5-3 in a classic at Wolves, it was clear Leeds were here to stay. The match, on a Hillsborough bog, was a hybrid of football, boxing and mud-wrestling. David Miller described it as “an almost continuous brawl”. Moral outrage existed back then too. "In a life of football stretching back to 1926,” wrote Roy Peskett in the Daily Mail, “I cannot remember seeing a match of such importance as an FA Cup semi-final so sordid.”
The highlight (sic) was some impromptu windmilling from Law and Jack Charlton, with Law’s shirt torn so badly that it looked like a sexy over-the-shoulder number rather than a football top. Most of the other players soon joined in the bare-knuckle fun and games. None were sent off, with only Stiles and Law booked in the entire game.
Stiles and, later, Sir Alex Ferguson independently used the same word to describe the incident: “fantastic”.
“Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas were in the crowd, and joined United in the dressing-room afterwards. ‘Five bottles of champagne were delivered and dealt with summarily,’ said the man from the Guardian”
The players were on better behaviour on the second leg at the City Ground. United played some stunning football at the start of each half - “as good, probably, as they have ever played,” said Jack Charlton – but Leeds resisted as only they could, came into the game more and more and nicked it through Bremner’s extraordinary swerving backheader in the 89th minute. During the pitch invasion at the end of the game, the referee Dick Windle was punched to the floor by a United fan.
Jack Charlton found out after the game that, on the eve of his 30th birthday, he had been called up by England for the first time. His first thought was to walk into a funereal United dressing-room to tell his brother. “That’s terrific,” said Bobby, before another United player delivered the punchline. “Now fuck off out of here.”
Many thought United’s season was over, and not just outside the dressing room. Three days after that psychologically crushing defeat they visited a decent Blackburn side. “I always wanted to play, but I had no heart for it that day,” said Stiles in A Strange Kind of Glory. “Denis was the same, and Paddy; George was injured.” And yet United won 5-0, with Charlton scoring a hat-trick. “He played them on his own,” said Stiles. “People talk about his ability, but this was down to guts.”
Even with that victory, and another at home to Leicester, United went to Elland Road on Easter Saturday trailing Leeds by three points – two for a win in those days - with five games to play. Leeds were unbeaten in 25 games. Busby, despite being stung by the 5-0 humiliation in Lisbon a year earlier, told his team to “make it all or nothing”. Elland Road felt as exposed as Wuthering Heights, with a vicious wind blowing dust everywhere; apt conditions for such an elemental struggle. Those conditions precluded a memorable game, but United produced a quietly emphatic – and belated – demonstration of their superiority over Leeds when it mattered most, with Connelly scoring the only goal. “Those people who had watched the three previous games between Leeds and Manchester always had the notion that skill and maybe virtue would triumph in the end,” said Eric Todd in the Guardian. “They were right.”
At that stage United were still third. Two days later they were top, after Leeds and Chelsea both lost and United won 4-2 at Birmingham. Two home wins in three days against Liverpool - during which Professors Crerand and Charlton took Bill Shankly’s reigning champions to the school of midfield science - and Arsenal secured the title with a game to spare. Law, who gashed his knee badly while scoring his second in the 3-0 win over Liverpool, was declared unfit by Busby on the afternoon of the Arsenal game. Busby then changed his mind; Law, with a heavily bandaged knee, made the first for Best and scored two in a 3-1 win. He had not quite been the same after his Christmas suspension, but returned to his irresistible best to secure the title.
Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas were in the crowd, and joined United in the dressing-room afterwards. “Five bottles of champagne were delivered and dealt with summarily,” said the man from the Guardian. United were champions to everyone except the mathematicians. They had a game left, at Villa two days later, but would have needed to lose 19-0 for Leeds to become champions. They lost 2-1, which made the table look slightly tighter than it was: United pipped Leeds on goal average, primarily because of that brilliant defence. It’s probably fair to say some of the team wouldn’t have passed a breathalyser test during the Villa game.
The triumph was both an end in itself, the first title since Munich, and a means to a greater end: a return to the European Cup. It’s easy to forget just how cherished an opportunity that was. Busby had only three cracks post-Munich, Bill Shankly three in total, and Revie just one. (When he was offered the England job in 1974, he was very close to declining the offer so that he could have another go at the European Cup.)
United’s season did not end until mid-June because of their run to the semi-finals of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. They beat an excellent Dortmund side 10-1 on aggregate, and Everton 7-1, before losing in a semi-final play-off against Ferencvaros. It was the only time United played in that tournament under Busby. Their European horizons had broadened to take in the European Cup. But they had also discovered a hated new rival on the domestic scene.
An earlier version of this article appeared in Red Issue.