Late Leeds United legend Norman Hunter on almost being released by Whites, his hard man image and career highlights

The Whites legend, writing in his testimonial brochure, revealed that his size had almost led to his release from Elland Road before the arrival of Don Revie changed the course of his career and his life.

Here is the Whites defender, multiple trophy winner and World Cup winning squad member in his own words.

"To the football world outside Leeds I’m hardly a lovable soccer character.

Ask most football fans about Norman Hunter and their hackles will probably rise. They will tell you I’m just a hard, one-footed workhorse.

It’s unlikely they’ll ever put me in the pin-up category.

It’s to be expected of course. Defenders are never crowd-pullers.

A soccer public hungry for goals and excitement look on us as pantomime bad barons...we frustrate, we destroy attacks, we tackle hard.

But the one-footed hard man has not done too badly over the past decade has he?

In my years with Leeds United I’ve won just about every possible honour at home and abroad.

FA Cups, Football League Cups, European trophies and First and Second Division Championships have all come my way.

I’ve played in a team that must be one of the greatest of all times...a team so good that we just can’t help winning things.

People like to reflect romantically on the past in this game.

They talk about the golden years of goals and glory, about the legendary teams of the past.

They’re going to be talking about the Leeds United of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s in the future.

We have experienced the traumas of big time professional football for ten years now...the ups and downs, the successes and disappointments.

We have carried England’s flag to all four corners of Europe, we have become the team everyone in this country wants to see whenever we are in town.

Few footballers have ever had such adulation as the players of Leeds United over the past decade.

Who would have thought that Norman Hunter, the skinny youngster from a tiny village in Durham would have been a part of it all.

Certainly no one who ever watched me as a boy.

My career was hardly full of promise in those early days at Leeds. I was always small and thin and, in fact, Jack Taylor was going to release me because of my size and because he thought I wasn’t strong enough.

But then came a turning point on my life.

Don Revie was appointed manager and within days he made two professional signings. He called in Albert Johannesson...then an hour later had me in his office. I had no hestitation in becoming a professional footballer that afternoon.

It was just the incentive, the confidence boosting spur I needed. Everything seemed to take off from that day.

I started to grow taller and get stronger and, under the Boss’ influence, my game started to improve dramatically after he converted me to left half.

It didn’t all just happen overnight though I had to work really hard to improve sufficiently to justify Mr Revie’s confidence in me.

The main problems I had in those days were my heading ability - because, after all, I wasn’t all that big - and my speed.

To be truthful, I wasn’t very fast at all. But I made sure I would improve on all that by putting in some long hours when everyone else had gone home.

I felt I was getting better all the time so, one Friday in 1962 when I looked at the team sheet and saw my name down for the Second Division game at Swansea, I felt ready for the challenge.

It was a big day for four of we youngsters who were all around the same age - 19. Gary Sprake had already played once in the first team, but Paul Reaney, Rod Johnson and myself had not. That day at Vetch Field we all came into the side - and we won 2-0.

That was the start of it all for me, I stayed in the first team and from being relegation candidates just a season before, we pulled together as a team and only just missed promotion.

Leeds United had started the road to the top. The following year we did win promotion, and you all know what’s happened to the club since then.

I’ve often been asked what are the best and worst moments of my career.

I’ll never forget the acclaim of Liverpool’s Kop that night we won the Championship for the first time. Even I had tears in my eyes. And the pageant of the Centenary Cup Final will also always live in my memory. My worst moment? Need I say more than Sunderland, 1973? Without doubt though, my greatest personal triumph was being voted Player of the Year last season by my fellow professionals in the PFA. When the other players think that much of you and your style, it’s marvellous.

In this, my testimonial season, the fans have been magnificent. I’ve been amazed time and time again by their generosity and kindness. It seems everyone’s bent over backwards to help me. I hope then that we’ll give you a night to remember in my testimonial match.

It will be my way of saying thank you to those who have made it a glorious decade with the greatest club in the world."