Eddie Gray and Trevor Cherry pay tribute to Leeds United legend Norman Hunter

It was not that manager Alf Ramsey did not see Hunter’s talent, just he had a certain Bobby Moore blocking his path.

In many people’s eyes, England’s 1966 World Cup-winning captain was the greatest player to wear the Three Lions, but Eddie Gray thinks his former Leeds United team-mate, who died yesterday aged 76 after contracting coronavirus, was an even better performer at 
domestic level.

Gray and his former team-mate Trevor Cherry say Hunter’s ferocious ‘Bites Yer Legs’ reputation was well earned but some people got so wrapped up in it, they ignored the qualities that brought a Second Division title, two First Division championships, two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups, FA Cup, League Cup and Charity Shield winners’ medals.

“Norman would have got 100 caps if it hadn’t been for Bobby Moore,” said former winger Gray.

“There was never a better international player than Bobby but Norman was probably a better club player.”

Alongside Jack Charlton, Hunter provided the defensive platform on which Don Revie built one of the all-time great English club sides.

When he joined the Leeds groundstaff as a 15-year-old, Elland Road was home to a struggling Second Division team.

His debut came in September 1962, in the unglamorous surroundings of a Division Two match at Swansea Town but his last really big game for the club which took his heart came at the Parc des Princes in the 1975 European Cup final.

Hunter played an essential part in the transformation, making 726 Leeds appearances in all.

“Norman was as important as anybody in Leeds United’s history and I mean anybody,” Gray said yesterday.

Like Charlton, Hunter was one of the Boys of 66, in the squad for the biggest tournament in the history of English football. But Moore’s presence meant he never made it onto the field.

In 1970 his only appearance from the bench was against West Germany as another wave of great centre-halves came through.

“He was very unlucky to get only 28 caps as he was around at the time that Bobby Moore was and the likes of Roy McFarland and Colin Todd,” Cherry said.

“Norman was competing with greats and he was great as well – a great player and great lad.”

The man from County 
Durham could also look after himself in an era when only the toughest survived, but Cherry – signed in 1972 as Hunter’s long-term replacement, but often alongside him at left-back in his early years at Elland Road – calls him “an honest kicker”.

Cherry said: “We probably complemented each other as I liked a tackle and Norman did.

“Our job was to win the ball and give it to the lads who could play.

“We were very similar in a lot of ways and we got on well.

“Norman was a great competitor and he loved Leeds United – simple as that – having started there as a kid.

“He was also a tremendous player.

“I know we are talking about different times, but Norman was an ‘honest kicker’, a bit like myself in a way.

“You could tackle from behind in our time.

“Like a lot of us, Norman loved to win and he got into the habit. He was a bad loser, to be fair.

“In my early days we were losing at Crystal Palace. One of their lads, John Craven, had scored two goals and Norman buried him and got sent off.

“Norman said: ‘There’s no way you are going to score a hat-trick!’

“The lad got carried off and Norman got sent off... He was not going to let him score a hat-trick against him as he was playing up against Norman!”

Hunter played the game in an era when, in his own words: “You virtually had to commit murder to get sent off.”

But as Gray points out, there was ability mixed in with the aggression.

“Norman played the game in the manner everybody played it in those days, he was tough and uncompromising,” Gray said.

“Even if Norman kicked somebody, he would pick them up.

“His reputation was probably deserved but he was also a great player.

“To win the first PFA players’ player of the year award (in 1974) tells you what his peers thought of him. Everyone who played with or against him knew the value of Norman Hunter.”

Once the final whistle blew, there was a different Hunter.

He was a popular figure in the Elland Road press box, which he attended right to the end of his life.

Once he finished his playing career at Bristol City and Barnsley, and after a coaching career which included a spell as caretaker manager of Leeds in 1988, Hunter returned to his spiritual home as a radio commentator, then fan and ambassador.

“He was a great lad, and a truly great footballer but he also had time for everybody and he was a great mate,” Gray said. “He will be sadly missed.

“I feel sad for the boys who played with him, especially the boys who knew him from when he joined Leeds at the age of 15.

“My thoughts are with Sue (his widow), Michael, Claire (his children) and the grandkids.

“It’s a sad day for everybody connected with the football club and I mean everybody.”