Billy Bremner: Memories of Leeds United and Doncaster Rovers icon, 25 years since his death

A QUARTER of a century ago today, the little big man of Leeds United passed away.

Billy Bremner; a leader, winner and fighter, was the colossus of that great United side under Don Revie. Revered by Leeds followers, he will also be forever held in high regard by Doncaster Rovers supporters.

Rovers were his second footballing love in Yorkshire, the county where he made his home.

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Bremner lived near Doncaster for a number of years, with the great and the good of football flocking to St Mary's Church in the pit village of Edlington to pay their last respects at his funeral in December 1997.

Billy Bremner holds aloft the FA Cup with his Leeds United team-mates after victory over Arsenal in May 1972.Billy Bremner holds aloft the FA Cup with his Leeds United team-mates after victory over Arsenal in May 1972.
Billy Bremner holds aloft the FA Cup with his Leeds United team-mates after victory over Arsenal in May 1972.

So many people wanted to be there that the service had to be relayed over loud speakers to the throng outside, such was the standing of one of British football's great midfielders, who passed away just two days short of his 55th birthday.

A formidable opponent, Bremner had the full respect of his rivals. A player who was as tough as they come, but blessed with class.

The succinct words of one of the finest sporting wordsmiths in John Arlott eloquently conveyed that message. He said: "If every manager in Britain were given his choice of any one player to add to his team some, no doubt, would toy with the idea of George Best; but the realists, to a man, would have Bremner."

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Bremner scored the goal which took Leeds to their maiden FA Cup final at the expense of Manchester United, fittingly, in 1965.

Under his captaincy, Leeds won the League Cup and Fairs Cup in 1968 and league title in 1968-69.

The next year, Bremner won the 1970 Footballer of the Year award, but you sense he’d have gladly traded it in for silverware with Leeds just missing out a historic treble.

More trophies did arrive - including another Fairs Cup triumph, a famous FA Cup win in the centenary final of 1972 against Arsenal and a second Division One title in a peerless 1973-74 season.

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After clocking up 772 appearances for Leeds, who he later managed in the mid to late Eighties, Bremner - after a two year stint at Hull - became manager of Doncaster, with his first spell notable for the rise of the Snodin brothers, Ian and Glynn.

Those two Rotherham lads thought the world of him as did all Doncastrians and Loiners.