Manchester United v Leeds United - Two tribes finally go to war again

That particular analogy sums up the rivalry between Leeds United and Manchester United more succinctly than anything else.

It also helps to explain why 55,274 spectators would be present at a stadium in one of the most isolated cities in the world in the West Australian state capital of Perth to attend a pre-season fixture in July, 2019.

Note the usage of the term above. The word ‘friendly’ should never be inserted into any chat regarding this particular stoush, which resumes tomorrow.

Put these two clubs together on the edge of the desert with no points or Cup progression at stake and it still matters and two tribes will be there. Bloodlust sells, forget the venue.

This is a unique rivalry which is usually played out on fields of combat much closer to home.

It has seen swords drawn in the Old Trafford fog and on a Hillsborough bog. At Villa Park and – gloriously for Leeds – at the City Ground, Nottingham and Bolton’s old Burnden Park home.

Also, of course, at Elland Road where the chants of ‘easy, easy’ during one episode in February, 1972 after Mick Jones scored his hat-trick goal in a 5-1 routing were wounding ones for those of a certain vintage from the red side of Manchester, who have also had their own sweeter moments to savour.

It is a rivalry which first flowered in the era of two of the managerial greats in Don Revie and Matt Busby, with Howard Wilkinson and Alex Ferguson taking on the baton later on.

For a brief spell in the first half of the Nineties, Leeds United against Manchester United was the fixture again, just as it was in the mid to late Sixties and early Seventies.

A time of Bremner, Gray, Lorimer, Jones, Law, Best, Charlton and countless others.

Manchester had the pin-up boy in Best, while Leeds had ‘ten stone of barbed wire’ in Bremner, ‘the best player in all four countries’ in that era according to esteemed writer John Arlott.

Arlott would famously claim: “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.”

It was Bremner’s back-header in Nottingham which took Leeds to Wembley for the first time at the expense of their great rivals in March, 1965 when they won an FA Cup semi-final replay.

Wee Billy would also net with a hammer of a shot in a second semi-final replay almost exactly five years later in Bolton, with Jack Charlton sympathising after with his sibling Bobby and Johnny Giles doing the same with his brother-in-law, Nobby Stiles – just as both also did by the Trent.

A wise man who is as perceptive in his discussions about human behaviour and emotions as he is regarding football tactics, Marcelo Bielsa will also know what this fixture means.

It will serve as a reminder of intoxicating derby days which filled the senses in his native Rosario –of ‘Clásico Rosarino’ between his beloved Newell’s Old Boys and Rosario Central.

He also sampled the Basque derby, among others, during his time at Athletic Bilbao when they faced Real Sociedad.

The footballing idealist and romantic in him will surely lament the fact that no supporters will be present at Old Trafford to add spice to the mix tomorrow.

No seething Stretford End or loud, proud and belligerent gathering of Yorkshire folk in the corner of the South and East Stands, As they were back in February when 1,400 Leeds fans attended an FA Youth Cup tie there.

A fourth-round fixture, not a final and a tie which saw six yellow cards issued and one red.

Tomorrow sees the club’s senior teams face each other in the league for the first time since February, 2004.

It is pushing it to say that absence has made the heart grow fonder – given the mutual loathing between both sets of supporters – but it is a welcome addition back to the increasingly sanitised and soulless Premier League landscape nevertheless.

Let’s hope it lives up to the hype and proves as engrossing as last weekend’s Manchester derby was spectacularly underwhelming and sterile, as many meetings in recent years between Liverpool and Manchester United – another traditionally great northern fixture – have also been.

That would serve the memory of many past players who graced this fixture back in the day particularly well.

Including several who sadly passed away this year; Norman Hunter, Jack Charlton, Trevor Cherry, Nobby Stiles, Tony Dunne and Harry Gregg.

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