Fra historieboka:
... It goes without saying that, as League Champions, Leeds would be a prime target for enthusiastic performances by teams and players looking to improve their reputations. Even so, 1992-93 started off well, with a 4-3 victory over Liverpool in the Charity Shield, and by the time we trooped across to Germany for the first round of the European Cup in Stuttgart, things weren't looking too bad. David Rocastle had been brought in to cover/replace Gordon Strachan, but Eric Cantona was a little perturbed to find he was not an automatic choice ahead of Rod Wallace and Lee Chapman. Cantona was apparently ill in Stuttgart - that probably explains his lacklustre performance and the way he gave the ball away for the Germans' third goal, but it doesn't explain the rest of the team. When Stuttgart returned to Elland Road, the country had written Leeds off - but in one of the best performances by any English team in Europe, Leeds put Stuttgart under relentless pressure to win 4-1. The away goal should have been enough - but in their desperate attempts to keep Leeds out, the German coach had inadvertently broken a UEFA rule by fielding too many 'foreign' players. On Tuesday October 6, UEFA ordered that there should be a replay in Barcelona - on Friday 9! With less than 3 days to organise anything, it was a miracle there was anyone there at all, but 3000 Leeds fans in a crowd of 7400 made as much noise as we could in a stadium built for 110,000. Leeds went a goal up, but the Germans pulled it back, and with time running out, Wilkinson substituted the anonymous Cantona with the hard-working Carl Shutt. Within a minute of coming on, Shutt justified his manager's faith with what was to prove the winner.
The European run went no further: Leeds made a great start at Ibrox with a McAllister goal, and Strachan had a perfectly good goal ruled out for offside. The Ibrox lights then managed to get into John Lukic's eyes, the keeper missed a seemingly easy ball and Rangers were back in it and went on to win 2-1. Back at Elland Road, the referee again changed the course of the game as he failed to see John Brown's punched clearance in the Rangers area. The ball went straight upfield to Mark Hateley who scored the best goal of his career and Leeds were buried. Cantona was becoming increasingly detached from the rest of the team - but the rest of the team were equally at fault: having won the Second Division and then the First with a mixture of skill, commitment and team spirit, it seemed as if the players now thought they deserved to win games. At Watford in the Coca-Cola Cup, Cantona had 3 excellent chances and spurned each one: he just couldn't be bothered. When he was left out of the starting line-up for the next home game against Arsenal, he had a tantrum and stormed off. Wilkinson's choices for that game proved the manager right as Arsenal were hammered 3-0, but this was one of the last high-spots of the season. The following week, Cantona was transferred to Manchester United: in a well-documented phone call, Wilko had contacted Alex Ferguson to ask about the availability of some of his players, and Ferguson had countered by asking if Lee Chapman was free. The answer to that question was negative, "...but there is someone you might be interested in....". It rankled that we couldn't find a home for such a talented player. It rankled that we sold him to Man U. But most of all, it stuck in the throat that we had let a player of that skill go for just £1.2 million: a player who would be instrumental in the subsequent success of our arch-enemies.
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Crainey 4 Scotland
