Leeds United 7, Chelsea 0

October 7, 1967

Leeds United: Sprake, Reaney, Madeley, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Greenhoff, Lorimer, Jones (Hibbitt 81min), Gray, Johanneson.

Chelsea: Bonetti, Thomson, Hinton, Harris, Butler, Hollins, Boyle, Cooke, Osgood, Baldwin, McCreadie. Sub Waldron.

The Football Association's disciplinary panel were busy in early October 1967, first taking the unprecedented action to ban Chelsea manager, Tommy Docherty, for 28 days and then dishing out a similar punishment to Leeds United skipper, Billy Bremner.

Also getting in on the act were the Football League disciplinary boys, who took United to task for wearing the same coloured socks as Everton in a game at Goodison Park - and fined the Elland Road club the princely sum of ten guineas (£10.50p)!

These punishments came to light just before Chelsea's visit to Elland Road for a First Division clash, which Don Revie's men won with great ease and style. Docherty's suspension was for what were described as incidents during the Stamford Bridge club's summer tour to Bermuda.

The 28-day banning order was sensational because it prevented Docherty from taking any part in the running of Chelsea. He could not go to Stamford Bridge nor could he watch a game or visit any other grounds affiliated to the FA. The result was that the manager resigned on the eve the visit to Elland Road.

Deputy manager Ron Suart set out at dawn to drive from London to take charge of Chelsea's team matters on the day of the game at Elland Road but he could hardly have had any notion of just what a hammering his players were in for.

Don Revie's United side had returned from Luxemburg in mid-week having put nine goals past Spora - four of which were scored by Peter Lorimer - in an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup tie and they carried on against Chelsea where they had left off against Spora. United were three goals up inside the first 14 minutes of the game.

Albert Johanneson opened the scoring after just five minutes, and Jimmy Greenhoff made it 2-0 six minutes later with Jack Charlton heading in the third in the 14th minute after Chelsea keeper, Peter Bonetti, had missed an inswinging corner from Eddie Gray.

United went in at half time four goals to the good, Lorimer beating Bonetti with a fierce angled shot in the 38th minute. Gray made it 5-0 on the hour and an own goal from Alan Hinton in the 80th minute provided United's sixth goal. It was left to Bremner to round off the scoring with the goal of the game eight minutes from the end.

Watched by a crowd of 40,460 - beating the previous biggest of the season of 37,084 a fortnight earlier when Mick Jones made his debut for United after signing from Sheffield United - the dynamic little midfield man, with his back to goal, launched himself and scored with a great overhead kick.

Phil Brown, who was soccer correspondent on the Yorkshire Evening Post at the time wrote: "At least Bremner departed into the seclusion of suspension after playing one of the greatest games of his young life.

"He had shown what a vintage champagne footballer he can be. His passes flowed like pieces of silk unrolling, releasing the taker into an opening perfectly and his reverse pass flashed several times to cut out a third of the defence. Nor did he commit one foul or utter one offending word.

"Whatever muddled post-Docherty frame of mind Chelsea were in - and some players were obviously not themselves - United struck them out of the game with those three early goals."

DON WARTERS
(Leeds United Press Officer and former Yorkshire Evening Post soccer correspondent)