Why is Don Revie's legacy ignored?

“In the late 60’s and early 70’s, Leeds United swamped the rest of the First Division with their own version of football’s ABC; arrogance, belligerence and class”. – John Motson

Before Don Revie came to Leeds, he won the 1956 F.A Cup as a player with Manchester City. How City set-up for this match was famously dubbed ‘The Revie Plan’.

When his managerial career began at Leeds we were struggling in the second division. Revie was a superstitious man, he thought the club was cursed so brought in a gypsy to Elland Road. It’s famously known that he changed the colour of our kit to white (imitating Real Madrid) and told the players something along the lines of, ‘we’re going to be one of the greatest sides in Europe’. I can imagine how the players felt being in the second division and hearing this, but we eventually did become what he said.

Revie’s managerial tenure at Leeds lasted for 13 years and in that time he won 7 domestic honours and 3 manager of the year awards. We were runners-up in the first division 5 times, F.A Cup 3 times and reached the semi-final of the European Cup; but as Revie once said, “You get nowt for being second”.

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Revie, Clough, Ferguson, Shankly, Busby, Stein, Paisley and Ramsey, those are the names that come to my mind when I think about great managers.

Whenever there’s a football program mentioning all the great British managers there’s always one name they fail to mention, Don Revie. This is something I cant understand as his record compares; and is greater than, some of the names mentioned.

Whenever Don passed away the FA couldn’t even send a representative to his funeral nor was there ever a minutes silence held. Could this have anything to do with his problem with the England job or his clashings with FA and FL figures?

We know Alan Hardaker who served as secretary of the Football League never got along with Revie. Hardaker once said:

"I think Don Revie comes nearest to having all the qualities and faults of the modern manager. He is a contradiction in so many ways. He is a great family man, an engaging personality, acutely aware of his responsibilities and enormously hardworking. But I also know him, in a football sense, to be totally ruthless, selfish, devious and prepared to cut corners to get his own way, It is the rare combination of all these qualities which has made him one of the game's outstanding managers.

As secretary of the Football League I often found Don Revie, as the manager of Leeds United, to be a pain in the neck. I had a job to do, he had one to do, and our duties and obligations as we saw them frequently collided head on... He only wanted his team to play when, in his own mind, they were sure of winning... Unless he could control everything, he seemed to feel the dice were being deliberately loaded."

Leeds legend, Peter Lorimer once spoke about their dispute:

"He (Revie) didn't want to make friends... One of the biggest things he did wrong for himself as a manager was to become a great enemy of Hardaker, who made things tremendously difficult for us. Alan Hardaker had a personal thing about Don Revie, but Don was that kind of man. He could make enemies. He was such a professional and if there was any rule he could use, and he was entitled to use it, he would go for it."

You just need to look back at the outrageous decisions that went against us in the 60’s and 70’s and you could see that there was something not right.

It seems as if Revie doesn’t exist outside Leeds but as long as his legacy is always remembered here, that’s all that matters.

Long live the Don, the greatest English manager in history.