One chip in a swamp: Billy Bremner beats Anderlecht, 1975

There have been muddy pitches and in the 1970s there were many muddy pitches, but few were as muddy as the muddy pitch Leeds took to in Anderlecht on 19th March 1975. In the second half Joe Jordan was fouled, planting head first into a puddle, and when he stood up he was wagging his hands to shake off what mud he could. A photo taken at the end of the game shows Allan Clarke, supposedly the more elegant of United's strikers, covered head to toe with mud while manager Jimmy Armfield grabs his arm as if showing Clarke off like a prize. Armfield, his cagoule zipped to the top, his hair sculpted into a quiff by the rain, was looking full of joy.

United's European Cup quarter-final tie with Anderlecht had an atmosphere of chaos around it, beginning with the fog of the first leg at Elland Road. There was so much mist in Beeston that when Leeds scored in front of the South Stand after ten minutes, the Kop to the north sang 'Who scored the goal?' until the announcer told them: it had been Joe Jordan, put one-on-one by a visionary through ball off the unfogged left boot of Norman Hunter. The rest of the time the crowd entertained themselves chanting 'Where's the ball?', until the first half was interrupted for eighteen minutes while the referee decided visibility was too poor to play. A little lift to the mist allowed more football and another goal for Leeds, Gordon McQueen heading in from a free-kick just before half-time, and in the second half there was a pivotal moment, Ludo Coeck missing a certain chance to score and claim an away goal when Rob Rensenbrink pulled back to him from the byline. Instead the Kop got sight of a third goal, in the last minute, Peter Lorimer shooting in after Terry Yorath and Eddie Gray had scrambled around their chances.

The logistics of calling off a European game meant a tendency for ploughing through whatever the conditions, and after fog in Leeds came a storm over Belgium and another reluctant referee. It had rained all day before the second leg. It had snowed. There were pools of muddy water all over the pitch. The storm was not stopping. But there was a European Cup match to be played and the proper pageantry to be observed. The players were already on the pitch doing their warm-up — one Anderlecht player put that into perspective in the half-time break, jogging on the spot and hugging his arms around himself to fend off the cold like a kid doing PE in their vest — when the referee came out to join them. He dragged all 22 back to the tunnel, so they could gouge a muddy trough together by marching onto the field in formation. Leeds, of course, then lined up and did their trademark wave to the four tall stands of Anderlecht's tightly built Émile Versé Stadium. In yellow shirts and blue shorts Leeds were contrasting Anderlecht's all white kit, at least in theory. ITV commentator Brian Moore observed, scathingly, that the local floodlights were not strong enough for colour television cameras. Soon, Anderlecht's white shorts were muddied as dark as United's, and as the muck spread from shorts to shirts the two teams morphed into one spattered collective.

Armfield had surprised people with his team selection but it soon made sense: no Eddie Gray, no John Giles, because there was no point asking them to try playing football on that field. Paul Madeley replaced Gray and Terry Yorath took over from Giles. After the first leg Armfield had been criticised in the press for replacing Bremner, who he thought was tiring, with Yorath for the last fifteen minutes. Despite it helping Leeds to a third goal, it was the first time Bremner had ever been substituted without being injured and he'd angrily snatched up his tracksuit from the bench and gone to the dressing rooms. "I just felt like getting changed quickly. There was nothing else to it," he promised later, defusing things in the papers. Lorimer told the Mirror that the players just had to deal with Armfield's way of doing things now Don Revie was no longer in charge. "Under Don Revie the danger signal for a home match was when he put an arm round you and pulled you quietly away for a chat during a training session," he said. "Billy Bremner is no different from the rest of us. We all have to accept that this is the way things have to be done at Leeds. Everyone has to take his turn at being left out or pulled off."