Today’s On This Day feature looks at the Leeds United programme from the 1972/73 season. The full review is shown below and you can see all the Division One issues from the season here.
The Leeds United programme for the 1972/73 season was a 16-page issue. The programme was heavily dominated by advertising, meaning that there was only six pages of content included.
The front cover of the programme featured a team group picture of visitors Sheffield United together with the expected line-ups from the day. Most of the reading provided in the programme focused on the visiting club. The lead article analysed Sheffield United’s form in the first few months of the season, noting their difficulties finding the net but nevertheless expecting a hard-fought derby match. A further article provided a short history of the club, detailing honours won, as well as various records and ‘firsts’ achieved by the Blades. Pen-pics of the visiting players were also included.
A news page referred to the goalscoring record of Leeds forward Peter Lorimer, who had recently notched his 100th league strike for the club, whilst ‘The Man in the Middle’ profiled the referee for the day’s fixture – Mr Gordon Hill. Leeds United’s results and fixtures for the season were included on the centre pages, with tables for the first team, reserves, and youth teams provided separately.
The Leeds issue for 1972/73 was a good example of a programme that was reliant on the insertion of the ‘League Football’ supplement to provide meaningful content. With the exception of the visitors coverage, this was an issue lacking much in the way of reading material, with more than half the page count being taken up by adverts.