Gordon McQueen Ruled The Air

Gor­don McQueen

Born and bred in Ayrshire, Gor­don McQueen began his glit­ter­ing foot­balling career with St Mir­ren and made his club debut for The Saints in a friendly match against Crys­tal Palace at Sel­hurst Park in August 1970. A power­ful cent­ral defender, McQueen was even­tu­ally spot­ted by legendary Leeds United chief Don Revie who sub­sequently brought the youth to West York­shire for an estim­ated trans­fer fee of £30,000 in the sum­mer of 1972.

Gor­don McQueen soon estab­lished him­self in the first team at Elland Road and the solidly con­struc­ted stop­per was a cru­cial part of the suc­cess­ful Leeds United side that clinched the First Divi­sion Cham­pi­on­ship in 1974. McQueen went on to make a total of 171 appear­ances for The Pea­cocks before he was sold to bit­ter adversar­ies Manchester United for a record trans­fer fee of £495,000 in Feb­ru­ary 1978. At Manchester United, the prodi­gious player linked with former Elland Road team mate Joe Jordan who had arrived in Manchester from Leeds just a few weeks before. An imme­di­ate favour­ite with the home sup­port­ers, he played well over 200 apper­ances for Manchester United and helped them win the  FA Cup Final in 1983 after a replay against Brighton and Hove Albion. Dur­ing his spell with Manchester United, the tower­ing defender became uni­ver­sally acclaimed for his bril­liance in the air as well as his buc­can­eer­ing for­ward man­ou­vres and he stayed with the club until per­sist­ent injur­ies forced him to retire from the game of foot­ball at the end of the 1984–85 sea­son. After mak­ing his senior debut for Scot­land in a 2–1 defeat away to Bel­gium in June 1974, Gor­don McQueen amassed 30 caps for his coun­try between 1974 and 1981.

Gor­don McQueen also had a short spell as man­ager at Air­drieo­ni­ans but when he left The Way­siders in 1988, it was effect­ively the end of his mana­gerial ambitions.

Manchester United Books