‘He didn’t shout when I had to miss Leeds’ 1975 European Cup final through suspension and I’ll never forget how he treated my mum and dad’
Jimmy Armfield’s time in management is often overlooked and that’s understandable in a way because it came between very successful and long careers as a player and a commentator. But it shouldn’t be forgotten he had success as the manager of Bolton Wanderers and Leeds United.
He won promotion to the Second Division with Bolton before taking Leeds to the European Cup final in 1975. He is still fondly remembered at Leeds but he would have been hero-worshipped to this day if we had beaten Bayern Munich in Paris. We should have beaten them, we were the better team, but quite frankly Leeds were robbed that night. We should have had a penalty when Franz Beckenbauer fouled Allan Clarke inside the area and later on Peter Lorimer had a goal wrongly disallowed for offside, both at 0-0.
I was suspended for the final because I’d been sent off for a rush of blood in the semi-final against Barcelona. The following Saturday, against Burnley, I got sent off again. You can imagine how a lot of managers would have reacted, especially as one of my suspensions was for a European Cup final, but it didn’t seem to bother Jimmy at all. Or if it did he never showed it. He just took me aside after the Burnley game and said: “You’ll learn from this.” That stayed with me. He was really good to me, lovely in fact, and I always remember how nice he was to my mum and dad whenever they came to Elland Road. Things like that matter, even to a young swashbuckling defender!
It was a difficult time to take over at Leeds with Don Revie and Brian Clough having gone in quick succession but Jimmy steadied the place and had a decent record overall. I’ve heard it said Leeds would have got to the European Cup final anyway that season with the quality of the players they had from Revie’s time, but I don’t agree. Jimmy had a big influence on bringing the team together and getting us to the final.
Gordon McQueen missed the 1975 European Cup final because of suspension. ‘You’ll learn from this,’ Jimmy Armfield told the centre-half. Photograph: Bob Thomas/Getty Images
He immediately brought back a lot of experience at the expense of Cloughie’s signings, John McGovern and John O’Hare, and played the old guard – Billy Bremner, Johnny Giles and Norman Hunter. He picked the players who should always have been playing, basically. It wasn’t that he transformed the team tactically. He just played the best players and got the best out of everyone because of his man-management style. Everyone liked Jimmy. Even now, whenever former players get together, we talk about how much we enjoyed his company and liked him as a person.
He was the same as a manager as he was a man. He was quiet, certainly not a shouter and bawler like some of the other managers I played under. He was thoughtful, knowledgable and good. Jimmy was a lovely man and he’ll be sadly missed.
Gordon McQueen played under Jimmy Armfield at Leeds from 1974-78