1971-1972

The season opened under a cloud, with Leeds withdrawing from the Yorkshire Cup Competition, in protest against the 1st Round ties being played in late July; it ended in a blaze of glory, with the League Championship Cup, the League Leaders? Trophy, and very nearly the Challenge Cup, too, on the Headingley sideboard.

Eight players were signed during the season: Alan Hardisty, the Castleford stand-off, who was joined some months later by former scrum-half partner, Keith Hepworth; Terry Clawson, the Hull K.R. prop; David Ward, the young Shaw Cross hooker, who was to make an immediate 1st team impact; Chris Sanderson and David Barham, half-backs; Brian Hughes, prop; and George Claughton, a winger, who joined Castleford after only one appearance. Other transfers included Chris Fawdington, to Keighley, and two players who had given outstanding service: Barry Seabourne going to Bradford Northern; and Ronnie Cowan, to Hull.

Injuries took a heavy toll in the first half of the season: Hynes, who was also under a 6-match suspension after the Wembley Cup Final, played in only 3 of the first twenty matches, Alan Smith in 5, Fisher in 10; Atkinson in 11; and, worst of all, in the 2nd Test at Castleford, Haigh sustained a broken arm which was to keep him out of action for five months and plague him for considerably longer. In the circumstances, 4th place in the League table at the turn of the year, with only three defeats in nineteen games, reflected great credit on the leadership of Hardisty, the resolution of the whole squad, and the rapidly developing ability of Dyl and Holmes, in particular, to shoulder an increasing burden of responsibility. There were several high-scoring performances, notably against Oldham, Widnes and Salford, all at Headingley, but nowhere was team spirit more in evidence than at Wheldon Road, where a team containing only five regulars played as though their lives depended on it, to bring back a point.

We gave a good account of ourselves in the opening rounds of the Floodlit Competi?tion, too, romping to victory over Hull K.R., with Holmes, Hardisty and Cookson in fine fettle, and then disposing of Halifax. In the Semi-Final, however, St. Helens inflicted our first home defeat of the season with a superb blend of skill and power, even allowing for the retirement of Hepworth, Hardisty and Cowan with injuries

As for the John Player Competition, Leeds put paid to Leigh, in a bitter rehash of the Wembley Final, and then emerged triumphant from an absorbing tussle at Castleford, thanks to the opportunism of Burke, only to be robbed of a 3rd Round victory over Wigan at Headingley by the very last kick of the match, Tyler squaring the scores with a towering 45-yard penalty. Even so, we went to Central Park in good heart for the replay and won a tremendous battle against all the odds, with Eccles doing a two-man tackling stint after Pickup had been dismissed early in the second half. On this form, it seemed that Leeds were surely destined for success in the second half of the season.

Alas, following a New Year?s Day victory over Wigan, we sank to ignominious defeat against Halifax in the John Player Semi-Final, with an incompetence almost as embarrassing as that revealed on TV, when a missing numbered ball resulted in the original draw for the 1st Round of the R.L. Cup being declared null and void. In the event, it made little difference: drawn at home on each occasion, first against Leigh and then against Widnes, Leeds were still sadly out of touch and apparently playing from memory, and a bad one at that, yet managed to survive by 17 points to 8. Perhaps there was something in the Wakefield air! At all events, it was there that Leeds found the elixir of sparkling vitality, to gain our first league success at Belle Vue for 11 years. Now we looked like a Wembley team! Going to the Boulevard for the 2nd Round, we demolished Hull with four glorious tries, so that with cup fever rife, and Headingley staging its first ever Rugby League match on a Sunday, it was like old times for the 3rd Round visit of Wakefield Trinity, with a vast crowd of 21,000 dithering on a tight-rope of expectancy, until the final whistle con?firmed that Leeds were through to the Semi-Final by 11 points to 5. Now for Halifax, at Odsal! With Wembley the prize, revenge for that earlier shock defeat in the John Player Competition could hardly have been sweeter, especially for the two Leeds trouble-shooters, with Fisher tackling danger-man Fogerty out of the game, and Clawson opening the door to victory with five magnificent goals.

A win at Leigh, four days later, brought the League Leaders? Trophy back to Headingley for the fifth time in six seasons, and Leeds went into the play-off with high hopes of achieving the double. Leigh bit the Headingley dust in the 1st Round by 40 points to 2, and Widnes capitulated in the 2nd after Hardisty had created tries for Alan Smith and Dyl in a ten-minute spell of devastating speed and ingenuity; but a hard-fought Semi-Final triumph over Salford, with Clawson missing seven out of eight attempts at goal, and Holmes limping off with an ankle injury, cast two ominous shadows of anxiety which were to have a vital bearing on the Wembley Final.

Indeed, in the very first minute, with Holmes deliberately relieved of his normal clearing-kick role after the third tackle, acting half-back Fisher was confused, with two forwards calling for the ball … a stray pass .…. a desperate kick by Hepworth, charged down by Rees … and St. Helens were five points up. Nevertheless, Leeds proved their mettle, holding St. Helens to six points by half-time, and storming into the attack on the resumption for Cookson to burst over under the posts from Batten?s delayed pass: 9-12, and two certain points to follow from the conversion! Alas, only Don Fox would know how poor Clawson felt as that crucial kick went wide! Try as Leeds would to make amends, the chance had gone, and the Cup too, yet pride had been redeemed by a gallant team: Holmes; A. Smith, Hynes (Langley), Dyl, Atkinson; Hardisty, Hepworth; Clawson, Fisher, Ramsey, Haigh, Cookson, Batten.

Fickle fate! A week later, at Swinton, Clawson was the hero of the hour with three fine goals: as Leeds turned the tables on St. Helens to bring the Championship Cup back to Headingley.