Leeds United legend Eddie Gray on Don Revie, his footballing family, Dirty Leeds and why United are back
"United are back," has become Elland Road's 2026 terrace anthem, and few are better placed to judge than Eddie Gray. It is 60 years since his Leeds United debut and although he briefly strayed, to manage Whitby Town, Rochdale and Hull City, the club never left him.
Gray and Leeds have been through it all together. There were 579 games across 18 years, First Division titles in 1969 and 1974, a League Cup (1986), Charity Shield (1969), FA Cup (1972), two Fairs Cups (1968 and 1971) and the 1975 European Cup final.
He began his managerial career as player-manager in 1982, returned to coach perhaps Leeds’ greatest youth team in the early 1990s and was caretaker manager as the rot which took the Whites from the Champions League to League One began to set in. Now he attends every game home and away as a club ambassador.
The family ties that started with younger brother Frank's 1973 debut – like Eddie, he scored on his – continue through a bloodline including the left-back's grandchildren Archie, Harry and Xander, players past, present and hopefully future.
When Eddie joined in 1963 a 44-year-old club was still defining itself – two years into the reign of manager Don Revie, wearing all white and focussing on young players.
A pride in the city's football club was starting to really take hold too, and Gray believes it is well and truly back. Leeds are unbeaten in this season's Premier League and made waves in the transfer market with a British record fee for goalkeeper James Trafford.
"People are talking about the football club now and it's big if you're trying to sign players," says Gray, who will be talking about his life and career at Guiseley Theatre on October 8. "Players from abroad will know about Leeds United where a few years ago they might not.
"There's a pride and passion that might have disappeared for a couple of years. It's as a good as it's ever been.
"It's very important there's a connection between the city, the fans and the football club. Daniel's brought that back a bit.
"You see that yellow shirt everywhere, it's a fashion icon."
Although Farke often reference nuggets Gray has taught him about the club, he is too modest to take any credit.
"Daniel's done a great job and I think the majority of the fans are realising that now," he chuckles.
"I don't think you have to talk to people about what the club means. Leeds is very proud of its rugby teams, of the Yorkshire cricket team, but for the size of the city, it only has one professional football club.
"That's the problem at the moment – the ground's not big enough. I know they're enlarging but when I played we'd get 50,000 and they need that, the revenue coming in, to compete with the bigger clubs."
The boyhood Celtic fan did not always fully understand what Leeds were or then what they aspired to be.
"Before I came to Leeds, I'd never heard of them," he admits. "I knew about Don Revie's football history and being footballer of the year (in 1955).
"He told me he was going to try and build a team that could compete with any side. The club had never won anything. They were in the old Second Division.
"Don knew he had to impress upon people that you're wanted. He'd done it a year before with Peter Lorimer and Jim McCalliog. Everyone wanted them and Don got them because of how he treated people.
"That was one of Don's great strengths – persuading people to come to Leeds.
"I had no intention of signing, I was just coming down for a weekend from Glasgow.
"But when I got to Leeds station, Don was waiting for me. When I'd been to other clubs, it would be some representative.
"Don took me to the place I was staying, picked me up the next day and took me training with the first team. I was only 14, nearly 15. That sold the club to me."
Bringing through young players was all part of the second Revie Plan.
"He told the chairman, Mr (Harry) Reynolds, he knew the club couldn't afford to spend big money, but he would try and sign all the best schoolboy players," says Gray.
"I played when I was 17. Peter played his first game when he was 15. It let people know he was building something.
"The way Don brought us up, it's a funny thing to say, but it wasn't a surprise to me that I scored and played well on my debut (against Sheffield Wednesday on New Year's Day 1966). Don picked me because he thought I was ready."
Gray views some of those signed then as amongst the greatest he has seen; others Revie inherited were set on the right path.
"One of the greatest players I ever played with is Norman Hunter but Norman was nearly out the door," he recalls. "He was an inside-forward. Don made him a wing-half.
"Big Jack (Charlton) was a bit of a rebel and Don got a grip of Big Jack and told him he'd play for England if he knuckled down. Don told him he could become the best centre-half in the world, which he was for about five years.
"Jack was good in the air, very quick, a great defender. (England 1966 team-mate) Bobby Moore was a great reader of the game, a great footballer, but any balls over the top, Bobby knew Jack would retrieve.
"Sometimes I wonder what like Big Jack would have been if Don hadn't been manager. I could say that about most players."
Most importantly, at Elland Road, Revie was The Don.
"He was a very confident in how he was going to run the whole football club," recalls Gray. "What Don said was law.
"I remember Don leaving a couple of directors in London because they weren't on the bus at half five.
"If Don walked into a room people would take notice."
His playing career had already earnt him that – English football's first "false nine".
"Man City introduced the Revie Plan but Don copied that from (Nandor) Hideguti," recalls Gray. "Hideguti played when Hungary beat England, the first team to beat them at Wembley, 6-3 (in 1953).
"When I first came to Leeds United my brother was seven or eight. I said to Don, 'I've got a younger brother in Scotland who'll be a player.'
"He said, 'We know all about him.' He'd have made enquiries about the family and known Frank was playing under-10 or under-11 football when he was seven or eight."
The two most exciting Leeds academy players of this decade have been Frank's grandsons Archie and Harry – the former now at Tottenham Hotspur, the latter on loan at Sheffield Wednesday.
"Nearly all the boys in the family can play football," says their great uncle.
"I played, my brother played, my son Stuart played for Celtic. Archie plays, Harry plays, Jacob – Stuart's boy – is at the academy. Hopefully a few will be in a first-team strip at Elland Road.
"My dad, Edward, got wounded in the war, he couldn't play football any more, but they always said to me I'd never be as good as my dad. A couple of my mother's brothers played for Scotland as amateurs."
Archie was sold to Tottenham Hotspur, who he has captained, two years ago.
"I was disappointed, but I understood the club's position," says Eddie. "He was the only player they could sell for 100 per cent profit. It just goes to show you what people at Spurs think about him – his knowledge of the game, how he conducts himself and that he has the respect of a lot of the older players – for him to captain the team at 20.
"Harry's young, he'll be wanting to push forward but hopefully he'll come through and be a player for our club. Hopefully!
"I would never give them any advice and my brother doesn't. That's up to the people for the club they work for. I wouldn't be want to say something that was completely different to how they've been coached. The only thing I would say is keep yourself fit enough. If you can't run, you can't play."
To hear Gray wax lyrical about so many team-mates, you wonder if he resented the image problem Revie's team had.
"We had the tag Dirty Leeds but all the teams were as bad," he insists. "If they wanted to mix it, our team could. If they didn't want to mix it, we could play football.
"Within the game it gets the credit it deserves but outside of it I think there was a bit of jealousy because the club came from nowhere and turned into a powerhouse.
“Chopper Harris or Tommy Smith of Liverpool – every team had those players. Some of those clubs had great history in the game and our club didn't.
"The team I played for is regarded as one of the greatest teams to play the game, even by people down south now. But at the time they didn't like it.
"I don't think we needed to use it because the players had so much ability. There's not many teams can go Sprake, Reaney, Cooper, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles and Gray – all full international players.
"That was what Don built."
Now it is others' jobs to restore it. Gray is content it is being done the Leeds way.