Leeds 2 Manchester Utd 2

Leeds Uni­ted 2 Man­chester Uni­ted 2, El­land Road, Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Fir­st Di­vi­sion, Oct­ober 17, 1970. Man­chester Uni­ted came from two goals down to snatch a 2-2 draw ag­ainst Fir­st Di­vi­sion lead­ers Leeds Uni­ted thanks to a goal each by John Fitz­patrick and ever­green vet­er­an Bob­by Charlton. 

The Charl­ton broth­ers, Bob­by and Jack, bo­th net­ted for their re­spect­ive te­ams as old rivals Leeds Uni­ted and Man­chester Uni­ted played out a 2-2 draw at El­land Road. The Pea­cocks, who were with­out centre for­ward Mick Jones due to a stom­ach prob­lem, stormed in­to an early lead when loc­al born de­fender Paul Made­ley nod­ded a cor­ner-kick back for Jack Charl­ton to score wi­th a smash­ing head­er af­ter a mere nine min­utes of ac­tion. The West York­shire club doubled the ad­vant­age thro­ugh Rod Belfitt who fou­nd the net fol­low­ing a mis­take by ver­sat­ile mid­fielder John Fitz­patrick two min­utes in­to the sec­ond pe­riod, on­ly for the lat­ter to re­duce the ar­rears for Man­chester Uni­ted when he head­ed pa­st ho­me goal­keeper Ga­ry Sprake from a flag-kick by Bob­by Charl­ton on the hour ma­rk, and wi­th the con­test ap­proach­ing its fi­nal phase the pro­vider fin­ished off an at­tack by power­ing the ball ho­me to level the score for the vis­it­ing si­de. A loy­al stal­wart if there ever was one, Bob­by Charl­ton would con­tin­ue to put in ex­cel­lent per­form­ances for Man­chester Uni­ted in the sea­sons to come, but time ev­entually star­ted to take its toll on his legs and he left Old Traf­ford at the end of the 1972–73 cam­paign, hav­ing con­trib­uted an im­press­ive 249 seni­or goals in 758 fir­st te­am ap­pear­ances for the club. Af­ter fi­nally hanging up his foot­ball boots, he was ap­poin­ted man­ager at Sec­ond Di­vi­sion out­fit Pre­ston North End at the be­gin­ning of the 1973-74 sea­son, but he re­signed on­ly two years la­ter af­ter a dis­pute wi­th the Deep­dale Board of Dir­ect­ors over the trans­fer of sought-af­ter cent­ral de­fender John Bird to New­castle United.

In oth­er Fir­st Di­vi­sion mat­ches, Man­chester City were held to a 1-1 draw ag­ainst South­ampton at Maine Road, Wolver­hampton Wan­derers be­at New­castle Uni­ted 3-2 at Mo­lineux, West Ham Uni­ted and Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur drew 2-2 at Up­ton Park, Liver­pool over­came Burn­ley 2-0 at An­field, Der­by Coun­ty suc­cumbed to a 2-1 loss to Chel­sea at Base­ball Gro­und, Ips­wich To­wn be­at Sto­ke City 2-0 at Port­man Road, Not­ting­ham For­est fell 2-0 ag­ainst Cov­entry City at High­field Road, Crys­tal Pal­ace ham­mered West Brom­wich Al­bion by a 3-0 score at Sel­hurst Park, new­ly pro­moted clubs Black­pool and Hud­dersfield To­wn batt­led out a 2-2 draw at Bloom­field Road, whi­le Ar­senal out­classed reign­ing cham­pi­ons Ever­ton 4-0 be­fore crowd of 50,000 people at High­bury where Ray Ken­nedy re­gistered a brace for The Gun­ners. The 2-2 draw be­tween Leeds Uni­ted and Man­chester Uni­ted at El­land Road meant that Don Revie´s men were now top­ping the ta­ble wi­th 19 points from 12 ga­mes, whi­le Wilf McGuinness´s si­de fou­nd them­selves in 17th po­s­i­tion wi­th 10 points from the same amount of mat­ches played. Leeds Uni­ted Te­am: Ga­ry Sprake, Paul Made­ley, Paul Reaney, Terry Cooper, Jack Charl­ton, Nor­man Hun­ter, Billy Brem­ner, Mick Bates, Rod Belfitt, Pe­ter Lor­imer, Al­lan Clarke. Sub­sti­tute: Terry Hi­b­bitt. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Jim­my Rim­mer, To­ny Dun­ne, Paul Ed­wards, Fran­cis Burns, Ian Ure, Nob­by Sti­les, John As­ton Ju­ni­or, John Fitz­patrick, Bob­by Charl­ton, Bri­an Kidd, Ge­orge Best. Sub­sti­tute: Carlo Sartori.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted ma­naged a 1-1 draw ag­ainst Leeds Uni­ted in a Fir­st Di­vi­sion fix­ture at El­land Road on the 12th of Jan­uary 1966. Da­vid Herd equal­ised for Matt Busby´s Uni­ted on the hour ma­rk af­ter ex-Air­drieo­ni­ans for­ward Jim Stor­rie had giv­en Leeds the lead in the 25th min­ute of the encounter.

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