Ninian Park was a 50,000 sell-out well in advance of Leeds’ visit to face Cardiff City in the FA Cup fifth round. The two sides shared a peculiar history in the tournament. Between 1956 and 1958, they were drawn together in the third round in three consecutive seasons. All three games were played at Elland Road, and all three were won by Cardiff, 2-1. The last time Leeds had played a competitive fixture at Ninian Park was in 1964, when Billy Bremner scored the only goal in a game overshadowed by a triple leg fracture that ruined the playing career of Leeds defender Freddie Goodwin.

Despite being in the division above Cardiff, Leeds had played at Ninian Park a couple of months earlier, facing a team of ‘All Stars’ in a testimonial for John Charles. The match ended 8-5 in favour of the All Stars, with Gary Sprake scoring one of Leeds’ goals from the penalty spot. Cardiff were struggling towards the bottom of the Second Division, but Don Revie insisted they were better than their league position suggested. They were coming off the back of a draw with leaders Norwich, and the previous season had hosted Real Madrid at Ninian Park in the Cup Winners’ Cup quarter-final, having qualified for the tournament after winning the Welsh Cup. They were knocked out after a 2-0 defeat in the Bernabeu, but beat the mighty Madrid 1-0 in Wales.

Leeds had just beaten Manchester United 5-1 in what Revie said was his team’s greatest performance. Cardiff were confident Leeds would find it much more difficult at Ninian Park, if only because their pitch ‘resembled a river’ the day before the game, according to the Yorkshire Evening Post, and required ‘hundreds of tons of sand’ to be laid on it. The Welsh Rugby Union rejected a request from Cardiff to borrow a polythene pitch cover, saying they needed it in case of emergencies. Their upcoming fixture against France in rugby union’s Five Nations was still a month away, but the WRU’s refusal left Cardiff’s pitch exposed to a night of torrential rain.

Under the Daily Mirror’s headline ‘Cardiff Beach Holds No Terrors!’, Revie was nonplussed by the conditions. “I don’t think I need brief the boys about how to play on this pitch,” he said. “They have enough experience and sense to take care. We are not even talking much about conditions. We’re certainly not scared of them.”

In the week leading up to the game, the back pages were awash with transfer gossip linking Leeds United with the signing of a new centre-back as Jack Charlton approached his 37th birthday. Aberdeen’s Martin Buchan was rumoured to be one target, although he was also wanted by Manchester United, who were being urged to ‘buy, buy, buy’ as their season unravelled amid their 5-1 annihilation at the hands of Leeds.

At the same time Don Revie, who had built Leeds using a core of players he had nurtured from their teens, was being criticised for spending excessively. Strikers Mick Jones and Allan Clarke had been signed for six-figure fees, but the Sunday Mirror added ‘the £175,000 Leeds would have spent on Asa Hartford’ to Revie’s ‘spending spree’, even though Hartford never joined Leeds after his medical revealed a heart condition.

The Sunday People were reporting Leeds wanted to sign Coventry City defender Jeff Blockley as the man to replace Charlton. According to their story, Revie and his assistant, Maurice Lindley, had made a final check on Blockley during his appearance in England Under-23s’ midweek game against Scotland. Their story was undermined on the same page by a separate article including quotes from Lindley, who was watching Cardiff’s second replay with Sunderland on the same night he was supposedly scouting Blockley playing for England U23s.

Coventry chairman Derrick Robins, speaking to journalists over the phone from his holiday in Barbados, complained of an “approach through newspapers”. “We will never sell our best players,” he said, “and we are going to be the Leeds United of the future.” Revie defended himself against the accusations, pointing out his last three major signings — John Giles, Mick Jones, and Allan Clarke — were all kept secret until completion. “We don’t want a slanging match,” said Revie, “though I would like a talk with Mr Robins when he gets back from the West Indies.”

Underneath the Sunday People’s story linking Leeds with Blockley was a cartoon of Paul Reaney explaining how he makes defending against Liverpool’s Steve Heighway look so easy. The strip was ‘devised and drawn by Trevillion’. Reaney also revealed the secret behind his reputation as the only defender capable of marking George Best out of a game. Best was so gifted Reaney could never be certain of safety, but the key was to ‘stick so tight to George that you breathe the same air.’

Neither the talk of the hazardous pitch nor his potential replacements seemed to bother Jack Charlton. Shortly before leaving the team hotel for Ninian Park, the Yorkshire Post’s Barry Foster was chatting to Big Jack, observing him ‘solving one of those little puzzles that need the steadiest of hands. The ball bearings were directed swiftly in position without a trace of nerves and there was no tension in the centre-half’s manner — and this was just before appearing before a 50,000 crowd in a vital Cup tie.’

Yet again, for all the opposition’s hopes of disrupting Leeds, they still couldn’t work out how to get the ball off Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles. Leeds’ midfield partners were happy to play possession football at their own pace. Even on a surface made more of sand than grass, Cardiff couldn’t keep up.

Wearing white shirts and shorts with yellow socks, Leeds were at full strength, with Paul Madeley named at right-back and Paul Reaney on the bench after recently recovering from an ankle injury. Twenty-year-old Cardiff goalkeeper Bill Irwin had to make saves from Eddie Gray, Mick Jones, and Peter Lorimer in the opening fifteen minutes. Irwin gave a ‘resilient and daring display’, making his best save of the afternoon stopping a header from Jones, who also had two attempts cleared off the line. Cardiff also had to make a goalline clearance from Lorimer, and could only muster two ‘reasonable’ chances all game. That didn’t stop Jack Charlton, back in defence, shaking an angry fist at Terry Cooper and Gary Sprake after a brief moment of confusion.

When Leeds eventually opened the scoring, it was from their sixth corner in the opening 35 minutes. Jones’ header rebounded off a defender and down into the sand, where Giles reacted quickest to half-volley the ball into the net. A similar routine in the second half led to Giles scoring again. Lorimer’s cross from the right was headed down towards the penalty spot by Allan Clarke at the back post. Giles calmly took a touch as three defenders moved to close him down. Leeds’ number 10 still refused to rush, patiently waiting before shooting into the top corner, celebrating by holding his hands up almost apologetically.

After Leeds’ 2-0 win, Giles was described as ‘the diminutive Irishman of the magical midfield skills’, and ‘the iron hand in the Leeds glove’. If Giles was the brain of this Leeds team, Bremner was its heart. The captain ‘stoked up the Leeds fire on the rare occasions when it looked like going out.’ They dictated the game together with such dominance that the second half was played in front of 50,000 Cardiff fans in silence, resigned to their fate.

The Sunday Mirror devoted a small report to Leeds’ brilliance, their attention diverted by Derby’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal. Derby manager Brian Clough had upset the BBC earlier in the week by rejecting their request to broadcast the tie. Clough complained of over-exposure, claiming Derby had already been shown sixteen times that season. They had actually been shown seven. He also contacted one of the national newspapers, asking why they were sending their London reporter to cover the tie rather than their Midlands correspondent. “We do not attempt to pick your team,” Clough was told, “so please do not try to pick ours.”

Derby equalised in the last minute in a game described as ‘a disgrace to football’ under the headline ‘Oh! Shame on Arsenal’. ‘When the FA Cup causes players to behave as some from both sides did at Derby yesterday,’ wrote Frank McGhee, ‘it makes you wonder cynically whether even this trophy is worth it.’

Alan Ball later penned a column bemoaning the ‘anti-Arsenal propaganda’. ‘I’m beginning to understand what my old England teammate, Jack Charlton of Leeds, was getting at when he once said to me: “I know why nobody loves us. It’s because we play to win.”’

Despite the draw with Derby, bookies gave Arsenal odds of 9-2 to win the Cup. That made them second favourites behind Leeds, priced 9-4. Leeds were drawn at home to Bill Nicholson’s Tottenham in the quarter-final, but the Sunday People weren’t worried about their chances. The headline for their report on the win over Cardiff read, ‘Leeds? They look certs’.

Don Revie wasn’t getting ahead of himself. He praised Cardiff, again insisting they were a better side than their league position suggested. Revie knew he had a special player to thank for the win. Johnny Giles, Revie said, is “one of the greatest inside forwards that has ever lived.” ⬢

Originally published in our See You Win summer special. Big Jack and Don wanted the Cup. Paul Trevillion wanted to thrill. Elland Road, 1972: 50 days that changed Leeds United forever. Get one of the last remaining copies here, with TSB+ members receiving a £2 discount.