Johnny Giles was Don Revie's on-field tactician who ticked every box in Leeds United's greatest side
Jon Howe continues our countdown of the greatest Leeds players ever ahead of next year's centenary celebrations
Jon Howe
13:00, 6 NOV 2018
Updated 13:06, 6 NOV 2018
Giles is one of the finest players to ever pull on a Leeds shirt
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"The inevitable Giles for Leeds".
It's not just an iconic piece of period commentary, but a perfect summation of what Johnny Giles brought to Leeds United and how his influence was appreciated. He was always there; not simply consistent in terms of appearances – 523 in 12 seasons and his only prolonged injury absence was in the 1973/74 title-winning season – but a reliable performer in every sense. Always available for a pass, always prompting, always ready to get stuck in.
For very good reason, people view Billy Bremner as synonymous with the spirit and endeavour in Don Revie's great Leeds side, but anyone who watched that team and certainly anyone actually in it, will testify that Giles was just as important. Together they were a domineering double act rarely matched in world football. The game is littered with exalted individuals, but rarely have two players combined with such effortless symbiosis, to grace a football pitch as a collective force that offered so much. Think Xavi and Iniesta from a different era and not many scholars of the game's rich heritage would disagree.
A somewhat idle label to identify the duo with, was that Giles was the brains to Bremner's brawn. In truth, they were so sublimely interchangeable that their power was in how similar they were and how they understood each other. The main difference perhaps, was in how Bremner wore his heart on his sleeve and led from the front, while Giles took a more circumspect approach and became the team's on field tactician
Giles turned out more than 500 times for Leeds
Either way, it worked perfectly. Giles was renowned as a master of the passing art; dextrously two-footed and parading a sixth sense on a football field that combined obstinate composure with a fiercely competitive spirit. If Leeds fans debate the signings that shaped the history of the football club, Bobby Collins from Everton and Gordon Strachan from Manchester United are the two that are always reeled off, but Giles' capture from Old Trafford in 1963 was also an audacious coup that was central to the success of the next decade.
Giles was well established in Matt Busby's side, but points to a defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in which he was overrun in midfield, as the moment Busby lost faith in him. Giles never regained that trust and was frozen out of the team. He put in a transfer request and bowed to Revie's tenacious advances, signing for £33,000.
Eyebrows were raised at Giles dropping a division to a parochial club who had achieved precisely nothing in a football backwater dominated by rugby league. But Giles had been enchanted by what Revie was planning, and how credible it sounded. In a chilling declaration that exemplified the cold and driven disposition Revie was after, Giles vowed to "haunt Busby for his decision" and Leeds' dominance over their red rose rivals for much of the next decade and more, bore this out.
Don Revie leads Giles out of Old Trafford after signing him from Manchester United for £33,000 on 29th August 1963
Busby would later confess that not recognising Giles' genius was one of his biggest regrets in football. But by then the diminutive Irish maestro had indelibly marked the game with his brilliance. With 114 goals in 523 appearances, Giles was a critical lynchpin in how Revie wanted his team to operate, and along with Bremner in the engine room, Leeds dominated games with ease. This was despite Giles' small physique, which allowed him to use his supreme strength and low centre of gravity to bully the opposition into submission through a mixture of skill and physicality.
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Make no mistake, Giles was a player who could most definitely 'mix it', but like that Leeds team in general, Giles is stigmatised as a sly and brutal purveyor of every trick in the book, in an era where everybody was 'at it' in some form or another. Perhaps Leeds were simply better at it, and that's what the media and fallen opponents didn't like. It was "a game within a game" according to Giles himself, and while Leeds could mix majesty with the Machiavellian, they were tarred with an underworld villainy that belied their technical prowess, and this is particularly apparent in how Giles is remembered now; too much as an exponent of the dark arts, and not enough as an orchestrator in the game that he describes as "one of wit, cleverness and brain".
Giles was a complete player
The midfield pairing of Bremner and Giles ironically came about much by accident. Giles was signed as an outside right and played his first two seasons in the position an emerging Peter Lorimer would later mainly occupy. Bobby Collins was the pocket rocket who partnered Bremner in the middle of the park until he suffered a broken thigh bone in Leeds' first ever European tie against Torino.
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It allowed Revie to move Giles in field and Leeds never looked back. Little needs to be added on the catalogue of near-misses and the uncontrollable forces that seemed to deny Revie's Leeds their true position amongst European football's elite, but this is not to deny Giles his place as a legendary figure at Elland Road and one of the most influential players to have graced the turf of LS11.
Giles joins in the celebrations after Leeds' Inter-Cities Fairs Cup win over Juventus in 1971
Revie often confided in Giles off the pitch and sought his advice tactically, and of course it was Giles who the Don recommended to fill his considerable shoes when he left to take the England job in 1974. For whatever reason, the board didn't follow Don's advice and we will never know what kind of dynasty might have been created.
Giles left Leeds after the shuddering tragedy of the 1975 European Cup Final; as stark an indication that an era had come to a close as it was possible to imagine. It was no surprise that the inevitable Giles made a success of football management, but Leeds had lost out to the enigma of Brian Clough and the catalogue of errors that led to Revie's legacy collapsing
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Ironically it was Clough who would later defy the bitterness and acrimony over how things had turned out by perhaps best describing Giles' illustrious splendour: "Giles could grab hold of a match, tuck it in his back pocket, and carry it around with him. He didn't need to find space, it was as if space found him."
Giles was no show pony, he knew how to survive in the jungle, but as a specimen midfielder who ticked every box, he is up there with Leeds United's very best.
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