Billy Bremner
William John Bremner was a Scottish professional footballer and manager. Regarded as one of the game's great midfielders, he combined precision passing skills with tenacious tackling and physical stamina. He played for Leeds United from 1959 to 1976, serving as captain from 1965, in the most successful period in the club's history.
At Leeds, Bremner won the First Division, Second Division, Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, FA Cup, League Cup and FA Charity Shield. The club also finished second in numerous competitions, being runners-up five times in the English league and seven times in cup finals, including the 1975 European Cup. He was also named as the FWA Footballer of the Year in 1970 and was listed on the PFA Team of the Year in 1973–74. He has since been voted Leeds United's greatest player of all time and has a statue outside the south-east corner of their Elland Road stadium. He has also been included in the Football League 100 Legends and is a member of both the English Football Hall of Fame and Scottish Football Hall of Fame.
Bremner played for Hull City from 1976 to 1978, before being appointed player-manager at Doncaster Rovers in November 1978. He spent seven years as Doncaster manager, guiding the club to promotion out of the Fourth Division in 1980–81 and 1983–84, before he took on the manager's job at Leeds United in October 1985. He failed to gain promotion to the top flight and left the club in September 1988. He returned to Doncaster in July 1989, ending his second spell in charge in November 1991.
Bremner is on the Scotland national football team roll of honour for having won more than 50 caps for Scotland. He captained his country at the 1974 FIFA World Cup, where Scotland failed to advance from the group stage despite being unbeaten in the competition.
Early life
Family and education
Billy Bremner was born in Stirling on 9 December 1942. His parents, John William and Bridget, lived in the Raploch district, reputedly a "tough area" in the shadow of Stirling Castle. His father was a storeman working for the Ministry of Defence at its 'Back-O-Hill' army barracks, located near Raploch.Bremner, whose childhood nickname was 'Brock', attended St Mary's Primary School, which was "literally round the corner" from the family's home, till he was eleven. He played for the school's football team from the age of nine. In 1954, aged eleven, he left St Mary's and went to St Modan's High School, also near his home, and continued to develop as a footballer. Even as a boy, Bremner exhibited the sort of skill and determination that would become the hallmark of his professional career. He joined a local club called Gowanhill United when he was thirteen and soon earned a place in its under-21 team. Gowanhill's home ground was a piece of spare land called Shell Park which was between Raploch and the barracks.
Scotland Schoolboys
In November 1957, Bremner was one of two St Modan's boys given a trial for the Stirling Schoolboys County team. He was mentioned in a notice that appeared in the Edinburgh Evening News issue of 15 November 1957. He was selected to play for the county and his performances in those matches led to selection for Scotland Schoolboys. He made his international debut, aged fifteen, against Northern Ireland Schoolboys at Windsor Park on 28 March 1958. The match, played under floodlights, ended in a 2–2 draw.Bremner played in three more matches for Scotland Schoolboys in the spring of 1958. His second appearance was against Wales Schoolboys at Somerton Park on 4 April, and this also ended 2–2. Next, on 26 April, Bremner made his first of many visits to Wembley Stadium, playing against England Schoolboys, whose team included Terry Venables, Phil Chisnall, and Ronnie Boyce. According to the Evening News, there was a crowd of over 90,000. England Schoolboys won 3–1 but Bremner, playing at inside left was praised for his quick through-ball passing and for his "remarkable stamina". He was interviewed by the News Chronicle after the match and surprised the reporter by saying that he wanted to join an English club, because "English football is faster". Bremner added that, if he didn't become a professional footballer, his choice of career would be glazier. Bremner's last match for Scotland Schoolboys was on 18 May, a return against England Schoolboys at Ibrox Stadium. It ended in a 2–2 draw and Bremner again received praise for his efforts. The News Chronicle said the midfield tussle between Venables and the "wee but tough Willie Bremner was one of the highlights".
Trial matches
After the schoolboy internationals, Bremner received invitations from Arsenal and Chelsea to play in trial matches. They both offered terms and Bremner went back to Scotland while he considered his options. He was then approached by both Celtic and Rangers. He favoured Celtic but agreed to talk to Rangers first. After learning that Bremner was a Catholic, however, Rangers ended their interest. Bremner's father then stepped in and told him he should not join either of the two clubs because of their sectarian antipathy. Bremner said later that his father's final words on the matter were: "You're going to England, and that's that".In early 1959, soon after his 16th birthday, Bremner was invited to join Leeds United by team manager Bill Lambton. Bremner accepted and joined the Leeds ground staff along with his friend Tommy Henderson, who had also played for Scotland Schoolboys. Lambton had recently signed Don Revie from Sunderland.
Club career
Leeds United
Leeds had been promoted from the Second Division in 1955–56, the season in which Jack Charlton became a first team regular, but they had struggled since John Charles left in 1957, and were relegated after the 1959–60 season.Jack Taylor replaced Bill Lambton as team manager on 1 May 1959. One of Taylor's first junior signings was fifteen-year-old Norman Hunter, who arrived at Elland Road in the summer and joined Bremner on the club's ground staff. Bremner signed a professional contract with Leeds on 12 December 1959, soon after his seventeenth birthday. Six weeks later, on 23 January 1960, Taylor gave Bremner his first team debut at outside-right in a 3–1 win against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Bremner played alongside Revie, who was the team's inside-right. Yorkshire Evening Post reporter Phil Brown noted that Bremner showed "enthusiasm, guts, intelligence, most accurate use of the ball and unselfishness" despite poor weather conditions. Regular outside-right Chris Crowe was sold to Blackburn Rovers in March 1960, allowing Bremner to take his place on a permanent basis.
Returning to the Second Division for the 1960–61 season, Leeds were beaten by future rivals Liverpool at Anfield in the opening match, after which Bremner was dropped from the team. He won his place back later in the season after meeting with Jack Taylor to explain his frustration at being left out. In March 1961, with the team in the lower half of the Second Division table, Taylor resigned and Revie took over as player-manager until March 1962 when he retired as a player and became the full-time manager. This was significant for young players like Hunter and Bremner because Revie initiated a youth development policy which was the basis of the club's future success. Among others who graduated were Paul Reaney, Peter Lorimer, Terry Cooper, Eddie Gray, and Paul Madeley. Revie rejected an offer of £25,000 from Hibernian for Bremner, despite the player wanting to return to Scotland to be with his fiancée.
Leeds struggled in the 1961–62 campaign, finishing just three points above the relegation zone, despite 12 goals in 45 appearances from Bremner, who finished as the club's joint top-scorer with centre-half Jack Charlton. In March 1962, Revie retired as a player and became the full-time manager. In the same month, Revie signed Bobby Collins from Everton. Collins helped to create the "win-at-all-costs" attitude that defined Leeds and Bremner throughout the rest of Revie's 13 years as manager.
Revie introduced some of the club's promising youngsters in the 1962–63 season; Hunter and Reaney made their debuts against Swansea Town at Vetch Field on 8 September 1962, Leeds winning 2–0. Revie's policy paid dividends as the team finished fifth, only four points behind promoted Chelsea. Bremner, however, was limited to 24 appearances. He was out of form and was dropped from the first team during the end of season run-in, which included a disproportionately high number of matches that had been postponed during the harsh winter conditions of early 1963.
Revie moved Bremner to central midfield. He bought Johnny Giles from Manchester United. The combination of Bremner and Giles became arguably the most effective midfield partnership of the next twelve years. With Bremner, Collins, and Giles in midfield, Leeds went on to win promotion as Second Division champions in the 1963–64 season. The club won no friends in doing so, however, and the following summer were labelled by the Football Association's own FA News as "the dirtiest in the Football League. In November of the 1964–65 season Bremner featured heavily in a win at Everton that was marred by violent clashes on the pitch, the game was stopped for a short spell ten minutes before half-time as the referee felt that a spell of cooling down was needed to prevent further violence; despite the referee only giving 12 Leeds fouls to Everton's 19 the match helped to cement United's reputation as a dirty and overly physical team. A run of victories put the club top by the new year. However, they lost the title on goal average to Manchester United after drawing their last game of the season against already-relegated Birmingham City. Leeds faced Liverpool in the 1965 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, and the game went to extra time after a 0–0 draw. Bremner scored a half-volley in the 100th minute to cancel out Roger Hunt's opener, but Ian St John won the game for Liverpool in the 113th minute.
In October 1965, Leeds skipper Collins was badly injured in an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup game against Torino. Revie gave the captaincy to Bremner for the remainder of the season after initially offering it to Charlton, who turned it down because he had a superstitious ritual of being last out of the tunnel on match days. Revie and Bremner had a strong bond of trust, and the manager had no doubts about Bremner's ability to lead the team. Leeds finished second in the 1965–66 league campaign, six points behind Liverpool. Leeds reached the 1967 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final against Dinamo Zagreb but lost 2–0 on aggregate; Zagreb won 2–0 at the Stadion Maksimir and held Leeds to a 0–0 draw at Elland Road. Leeds enjoyed a double success next season, however, winning both the 1968 Football League Cup Final, against Arsenal at Wembley; and the 1968 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final, in which they beat Ferencvárosi 1–0 at Elland Road and held them to a 0–0 draw at the Népstadion to win the club's first European trophy.
Revie targeted the title for the 1968–69 campaign and played Bremner in every league game as Leeds finished six points clear at the top to become champions of England for the first time. The title was secured with a 0–0 draw against Leeds' main rivals Liverpool, at Anfield on 28 April, after which Bremner led the players to applaud the Liverpool fans who responded by chanting "Champions, Champions, Champions". The 1969–70 season opened with victory in the 1969 FA Charity Shield, as Bremner captained Leeds to a 2–1 victory over Manchester City. With new arrival Allan Clarke played upfront alongside Mick Jones and Peter Lorimer Revie had to instruct Bremner and Giles to resist the temptation to get forward and attack. It took the team some time to gel, as only two wins came from the opening eight league games, and Leeds eventually finished a distant second to champions Everton. They chased Everton all season only to give up on the title after a home defeat by Southampton late in the campaign. In the European Cup Leeds recorded a club record 10–0 win over Norwegian side Lyn, with Bremner netting two of the goals. However they exited the competition at the semi-final stage after two defeats to Celtic; Bremner levelled the aggregate score by putting United 1–0 ahead in front of a competition record 136,505 spectators at Hampden Park, but Celtic came back to win the game and the tie with two second half goals. Further disappointment came in the 1970 FA Cup Final, where Leeds were beaten 2–1 by Chelsea in extra-time of the replay at Old Trafford. Bremner was named as FWA Footballer of the Year for the season.
The league title in the 1970–71 season was decided in mid-April in front of the Match of the Day cameras at Elland Road, when Leeds lost their lead at the top with defeat by West Bromwich Albion. The Leeds players blamed the referee for costing them the title as offside was not given for Colin Suggett for Jeff Astle's winner, and despite Bremner saying "But we fight on. Make no mistake about that, it is not over yet" Leeds could not overtake Arsenal, who went on to win the Double. Success instead came in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, as Leeds knocked out Sarpsborg, Dynamo Dresden, Sparta Prague, Vitória and Liverpool to reach the final with Juventus. Bremner recovered from an ankle injury just in time to face Liverpool in the semi-finals, and scored the only goal of the two-legged tie with a header at Anfield. Leeds won the final on the away goals rule after recording a 2–2 draw at the Stadio Olimpico di Torino and then a 1–1 draw at Elland Road.
Leeds finished second in the league for the third successive season in the 1971–72 campaign, despite playing some of the best football in the club's history. They knocked out Bristol Rovers, Liverpool, Cardiff City, Tottenham Hotspur and Birmingham City to reach the 1972 FA Cup Final with Arsenal; they then won the trophy for the first time in the club's history with Allan Clarke scoring the final's only goal. Two days after the final Leeds could have secured the Double by winning a point against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux, but a 2–1 defeat handed the title to Derby County. On 3 February 1982, Bremner won £100,000 libel damages, along with legal costs, after he sued the Sunday People newspaper for publishing an article on 11 September 1977 that alleged he tried to fix football matches, including the May 1972 game at Wolves. Bremner donated the damages to a Leeds Hospice.
The title was nowhere near as close in the 1972–73 season, which saw Leeds finish third, seven points behind Liverpool. However more runners-up medals came from the FA Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup. After Bremner scored the only goal of the semi-final clash with Wolves, Leeds went on to lose the FA Cup final 1–0 to Second Division Sunderland. They were then beaten 1–0 by Italian side A.C. Milan at the Kaftanzoglio Stadium in the European Cup Winners' Cup Final, though Bremner missed the final due to suspension. Revie instructed Bremner to be more attacking in the 1973–74 campaign, and the result was 11 goals in 52 appearances, his biggest goal tally in 12 years. The manager focused entirely on the league and told his team the aim was to go the season unbeaten, and although they lost three games they secured a second league title by a five-point margin on second-place Liverpool. Bremner was named on the PFA Team of the Year and finished second in the FWA Footballer of the Year voting to Ian Callaghan. At the end of the season he was given a testimonial match against Sunderland which raised him £32,500; he had chosen the opponents in an attempt to avenge defeat in the previous year's FA Cup final.
Manager Don Revie took the England management job in July 1974. Bremner applied for the vacant Leeds job after Johnny Giles had been named by Revie as his successor, but instead the board surprised everyone by appointing Brian Clough, who went on to a disastrous 44-day spell in charge of Leeds at the start of the 1974–75 season. Revie's departure was tough for Bremner, who had a strong bond with his manager. Leeds lost the 1974 FA Charity Shield in a penalty shoot-out to Liverpool, but more significantly Bremner and Kevin Keegan were sent off for fighting and received eleven game suspensions. By the time Bremner was allowed to play again Jimmy Armfield was the manager, though he refuted the accusation that he had attempted to undermine Clough as "ridiculous". Teammate Peter Lorimer insisted that the only criticism he had of Bremner was in applying for the management job against Giles, which had caused to board to look elsewhere for fear of dividing the dressing room by choosing between Bremner and Giles. Results improved with Bremner back in the side, and though they ended the season in ninth place, they were only eight points behind champions Derby. The club's biggest aim would be success in the European Cup, and they made it to the final after knocking out FC Zürich, Újpest FC, Anderlecht, and Barcelona. Their final opponents at Parc des Princes were defending champions Bayern Munich, who beat Leeds 2–0; United had a Lorimer goal controversially ruled out for an offside decision against Bremner and the tie ended in rioting by United fans.
With most of the Revie built team retiring or moving on to other clubs, Armfield had to rebuild the squad, though Bremner would still play 38 games in the 1975–76 campaign. However, he missed a lengthy spell in the new year due to injury and results dipped during this time and ultimately ended the club's title hopes; they went on to end the campaign in fifth spot.