Everything about Billy Bremner totally explained
| cityofbirth =
Stirling
| countryofbirth =
Scotland
| dateofdeath =
| cityofdeath =
Doncaster
| countryofdeath =
England
| position =
Midfielder
| years = 1959–1976
1976–1979
1979–1981
| clubs =
Leeds UnitedHull CityDoncaster Rovers
| caps(goals) = 587 (90)
William "Billy" John Bremner (born
Stirling,
Scotland,
December 9 1942; died
Doncaster,
England,
December 7 1997) was a
professional footballer, most noted for his
captaincy of the
Leeds United team of the 1960s and 1970s. He has since been voted Leeds United's
greatest player of all time and has been included in the
Football League 100 Legends. Bremner is also a member of both the
Scotland Football Hall of Fame and the
English Football Hall of Fame.
Going south of the border
Bremner, a diminutive but hard midfield player, was scouted by Leeds while playing schoolboy football in Scotland and signed for the Elland Road club in 1959, the day after his 17th birthday. He was brought up in the Raploch area of Stirling where he attended the Catholic junior school, St. Mary's. He had previously been rejected by
Arsenal and
Chelsea for being too small.
He made his first-team debut in 1960 and was a permanent fixture on manager
Don Revie's team sheet for more than 15 years thereafter unless injured or suspended. Bremner quickly established himself as an uncompromising player, tough in the tackle and often going beyond the rules to get the better of a skilled opponent - a Sunday Times headline dubbed him as "10st of barbed wire". But he could play too - he'd a
stamina to work from one end of the pitch to the other and could pass with precision and timing. He also weighed in with his share of goals, and had an extraordinary ability to score crucial goals in the biggest games, including winners in four major semi-finals.
The first rewards
As Leeds United began their revival in the early 1960s, Bremner was at the heart of it. In 1964 they won the
Second Division title and then the following year came tantalisingly close to a "double" of
League championship and
FA Cup. They lost the league title to
Manchester United on goal average, and needed to win at
Wembley to earn a trophy for the season. The match against
Liverpool was exciting and action-packed but also goalless, with extra-time being necessary. Liverpool eventually won 2-1 but Bremner got his moment, scoring the equaliser with a crisp half volley which left opposing
goalkeeper Tommy Lawrence stranded.
'Captain of the Crew'
In 1966, Leeds skipper
Bobby Collins was injured in a
Fairs Cup game against
Torino and Revie gave the captaincy to Bremner. Collins never got it back. With their Bremner acting as leader and mentor on the pitch, Leeds entered their halcyon period at the end of the 1960s, winning the
League Cup and Fairs Cup in 1968 and the League championship in 1969. That season Leeds lost only two of 42 league games.
The treble that never happened
In 1970, Leeds chased the historic "treble" of League championship, FA Cup and
European Cup, which hadn't been achieved before in the English game - indeed, this was the first season when any team had come close. However, Leeds ended up with nothing - losing the League title to
Everton, the FA Cup final after a particularly
violent replay against Chelsea, and the European Cup semi-final to
Celtic.
Bremner and Mackay
During this period, Leeds had a reputation amongst the London press for being as dirty as they were skilful, with Bremner at the forefront alongside equally uncompromising players such as
Norman Hunter.
As if to emphasise the style of play for which Bremner was known, one of football's most famous photographs shows a young Bremner pleading his innocence after
Tottenham Hotspur's bulky Scottish midfield player
Dave Mackay grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him up following a late tackle by Bremner. Mackay was just back from a second broken leg. The snap was taken in 1966.
Underachievement
For all their honours, comparatively Leeds were huge underachievers. They won two League titles - in 1969 and 1974 - but missed out on further championships in dramatic last-game climaxes in at least three other years. Bremner played in four FA Cup finals, but only won one. They reached a
European Cup Winners Cup final in 1973 but were undone by a referee who had allegedly been bribed by
A.C. Milan. As a last hurrah, before the team aged and broke up, it reached a European Cup final two years later but lost controversially to
Bayern Munich.
The 1970s were a decade which saw Leeds dominate but lose as much as they won. In 1971, Bremner lifted the Fairs Cup but Leeds were the victims of one of the FA Cup's biggest shocks when they lost a fifth round tie at lowly
Colchester United. They then watched helplessly as
Arsenal swiped the League championship from them with a 1-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur (prior to winning the FA Cup to complete the second "double" of the 20th century). Had the game ended in a score draw or an Arsenal defeat, the League would have gone to Leeds.
In 1972, Leeds again chased the League and FA Cup but again were left both elated and disappointed. A 1-0 victory over holders Arsenal in the FA Cup final earned Leeds their first and only success in the competition (and completed Bremner's domestic medal set) but two days later, with only a draw required to seal the "double", Leeds lost their last League game to
Wolves and the title went to
Derby County. In 1973 Leeds were only chasing the FA Cup and success in Europe - Liverpool were too strong in the League - but were beaten by A.C. Milan in the Cup Winners Cup final in
Salonika,
Greece and then lost the FA Cup final to second division
Sunderland. Bremner picked up more runners-up medals.
Bremner played magnificently as Leeds finally put the near-misses aside over the previous six seasons and won the 1974 League championship at a canter, setting a record of 29 unbeaten games to start the season which was only beaten by Arsenal in 2004. Looking back years later, in August 1995 for the Match of the Seventies TV programme, Bremner considered the superb 1973-74 Leeds team as strong as any British team since WWII. As champions, Leeds contested the 1974
Charity Shield curtain raiser game against FA Cup winners Liverpool at Wembley - and Bremner was sent off for a clash with
Kevin Keegan, which also saw the Liverpool striker dismissed. Both players removed their shirts on departure to express their shame.
The following year, Leeds were not in contention for domestic honours but reached the European Cup final, which they lost in more controversial circumstances to Bayern Munich. Leeds were denied what seemed a certain penalty, had a goal disallowed (after the referee decided that Bremner was
offside) and Bremner suffered his own personal nightmare when
Sepp Maier produced an astonishing point-blank save from just six yards.
From Elland Road to Boothferry Park
Revie had quit Leeds a year earlier to take over the
England job from
Alf Ramsey and the team started to break up. Bremner finally left Leeds United in the late summer of 1976 to join
Hull City. He had played 772 games for Leeds, putting him second behind
Jack Charlton in the club's all-time list.
Bremner's arrival at Hull was big news locally and he scored on his debut for the club. Though winding down his career, Bremner emerged as a big success at Hull over two years before he joined
Doncaster Rovers, managing an admirable four seasons there before retiring at the age of 39. In February 1982 Bremner won £100,000 libel damages, along with legal costs, after he sued a Sunday Newspaper for publishing an article that alleged he tried to fix football matches, including the May 1972 game at
Wolves, which was two days after Leeds United had won the FA Cup. Leeds lost the game 2-1 and
Derby County became champions for the first time in their history.
Scotland
As an international, Bremner was at the forefront of Scottish football's rise in the 1970s after years in the wilderness. He made his
Scotland debut in 1965 against
Spain, played in the famous 3-2 victory against world champions England at Wembley in 1967 and captained his country at the
World Cup in
West Germany in 1974. His last cap came against
Denmark in September 1975 - an incident in
Copenhagen after the game led to a lifetime ban from international football along with four other players,
Willie Young,
Joe Harper,
Joe McCluskey and
Arthur Graham. The five allegedly were ejected from a night-club for rowdy behaviour. This was after breaking a 1am curfew to indulge in a bout of heavy drinking. Then, an SFA official was none too pleased when he entered the room of Bremner and McClusky to find them turning a bed upside down in a drunken prank. Ronald McKenzie, the Scottish team trainer, resigned his post as he admitted to being involved as well. The ban was lifted in 1976 but Bremner never played international football again. He won 54 caps in total, scoring three goals, and is in the Scotland
hall of fame.
Manager of Leeds
Bremner's life after playing was mainly notable for his topsy-turvy spell as manager of Leeds, following in the footsteps of old team-mates
Allan Clarke and
Eddie Gray to try to restore happier days to the club after their relegation in 1982. They never regained promotion under Bremner but came close, losing a play-off final to
Charlton Athletic in
1987 and reaching the FA Cup semi-finals in the same season, losing to eventual winners
Coventry City.
Bremner was sacked in September 1988 to make way for
Howard Wilkinson who would within four years not just achieve promotion but would bring the League championship back to Elland Road in April 1992. Bremner then went back to Doncaster as manager, but left in November 1991.
Later years
Bremner settled into the columnist and after-dinner circuit adorned by many high-profile ex-footballers during the final years of his life. Despite his uncompromising nature (both vocally and in the tackle) on the pitch, he emerged as a dignified and grateful figure, claiming that despite losing out on more honours, his memories would be the envy of many players and he appreciated that.
Death
At the beginning of December 1997, he suffered a
heart attack at his Doncaster home in the small village of
Clifton, South Yorkshire and was rushed to
hospital, but died two days before his 55th birthday. Just about every major figure from Scottish football, past and present, attended his
funeral and there was citywide
mourning in Leeds due to the extremely high esteem in which he's held by
Leeds United fans.
A
statue of Bremner in celebratory pose was erected outside Elland Road as a tribute to the club's greatest captain and, according to an official
poll of supporters via the club
website, the club's greatest ever player. On
9 December 2006, which would have been Billy's 64th birthday, at the
Leeds United vs
Derby County match his eternal popularity amongst Leeds' fans was heard as the Leeds fans sang "
There's only one Billy Bremner" as a tribute to Billy was displayed on the big screen at
Elland Road.
In
1998, the
Football League, as part of its centenary season celebrations, included Bremner on its list of
100 League Legends.
Bremner was inducted into the
English Football Hall of Fame in 2004 in recognition of his impact on the game.
Legacy
Song
A Leeds United club
song,
Glory Glory Leeds United, contains the following verse which summed up Bremner's role at the club:
Little Billy Bremner is the captain of the crew
For the sake of Leeds United he'd break himself in two
His hair is red and fuzzy and his body's black and blue
But Leeds go marching on.
The Ballad of Billy Bremner
There's a tale I'm goin' to tell you
All about a brave young man
Who was born and born in Scotland
That's where history began
He once cheered the Glasgow Celtic
Just the soon as he could talk
And he'd kick a paper football
Just the soon as he could walk
And his name is Billy Bremner
We will never forget his deeds
He was made to play for Scotland
Now he captains United of Leeds
So he came to Leeds United
And they made Don Revie the boss
All the Elland Road fans were excited
and wor gain was Celtic's loss
Many giants have tried to slay him
When he fights for every ball
But he knows the famous saying
When they're big the harder they fall
And his name is Billy Bremner
We will never forget his deeds
He was made to play for Scotland
Now he captains United of Leeds
When they talk of Mathews and Pele
Of Lawton and Finney and James
Like a whiskey in your belly
He will glow amongst those names
He will lead our lads to glory
He will lead our lads to fame
When they sing Uniteds story
You will always hear the name
And his name is Billy Bremner
We will never forget his deeds
He was made to play for Scotland
Now he captains United of Leeds
And his name is Billy Bremner
We will never forget his deeds
He was made to play for Scotland
Now he captains United of Leeds
Portrayals
Managerial stats
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