McQueen: Gordon

1972-1978 (Player Details)

Centre Half

Born: Kilbirnie, Ayrshire: 26-06-1952

Debut: v Derby County (a): 03-03-1973

6’3 1/2” 13st (1977)

#37 in 100 Greatest LUFC Players Ever

At School McQueen was a goalkeeper, following in the footsteps of his father, Tom, who kept goal for Hibernian, Berwick Rangers, East Fife and Accrington Stanley. He switched to the wing before settling down at centre-half where his aerial power made him a formidable opponent. He had unsuccessful trials with Liverpool and Rangers before joining St Mirren from Largs Thistle in February 1970 at the age of eighteen. He attracted the attention of several clubs, but Leeds, looking for a successor to Jack Charlton, signed him for £30,000 in September 1972. He scored five goals in fifty-eight League games and a total of six goals in seventy-seven in all games while at Love Street. Charlton played for some of the 1972-73 season, but had decided to quit as it drew to a close. McQueen played six times in his first season at Leeds but missed out on the FA Cup Final against Sunderland, with manager Don Revie preferring the experience of utility player Paul Madeley. It was never in doubt that McQueen would not eventually became the Leeds lynch-pin, but he was also not selected for the European Cup Winners Cup Final against AC Milan a few days later, which Leeds lost by the same scoreline, but came on as a fifty-fourth minute substitute for Frank Gray. With Jack Charlton gone and Paul Madeley used as the team's player-of-all-positions, McQueen was in the team for most of the 1974-75 season and was chosen at Centre-Half in the PFA Team of the Year for the First Division for that season. Leeds won the League Championship, going twenty-nine games without defeat at the start of the season, and McQueen played a crucial part as Norman Hunter’s defensive partner. He developed into an outstanding central defender and on 1st June 1974 he won his first Scottish cap at the Stade Klokke, Bruges, in a 2-1 defeat by Belgium. A second cap followed on 20th November 1974 as Scotland was defeated 1-2 by Spain at Hampden Park in Group Four of the European Championship Qualifiers. He retained his position for the return match at the Luis Casanova Stadium in Valencia when Spain were held to a 1-1 draw and he became the regular Scotland Centre-half as he started to rapidly accumulate further Scottish Caps. His fourth cap came in a 1-0 win over Portugal at Hampden Park on 13th May 1975 and four days later he got his fifth at Ninian Park, Cardiff, in a 2-2 draw with Wales in the first of the Home International of that season and three days later he was back at Hampden Park as Scotland beat Northern Ireland 3-0 and on 24th May he got his seventh cap in the third of the Home Championships as England humbled the Scots 5-1 at Wembley Stadium. He was captain in his eighth appearance on 1st June 1975 as Scotland held Romania to a 1-1 draw at the National Stadium Bucharest, with McQueen scoring his first goal for Scotland with an eighty-ninth minute equalizer in another Group Four qualifier. His ninth cap was also in the Group Four Qualifier as Scotland defeated Denmark 1-0 at Idraetsparken, Copenhagen on 3rd September 1975. McQueen and Hunter excelled at the back in the following season of 1975-76, notably in Leeds' campaign in the European Cup, during which McQueen scored three goals. However, he was suspended for the final after being sent off in the semi-final against Barcelona, and in the final Leeds lost 2-0 to Bayern Munich. McQueen watched the action from the stands after seeing red in the second leg of the semi-final after being sent off at the Nou Camp after punching Barcelona’s Manuel Clares. Recalling that night, he said: “It was very difficult at the time; when someone spits in your face. Everyone says count to ten. But I did count to ten – and then knocked him out! “I just swung for him and it’s something I’ve regretted ever since – missing the final in Paris. ”With Revie gone and the mentors around him starting to leave or retire, McQueen found himself growing up in the game quickly,labelled as one of the bright prospects for Leeds' post-Revie future. It never happened. Leeds declined into mediocrity as a team while McQueen's standing as a player increased. However, for Scotland, he was forced to miss seven internationals when he suffered a pulled muscle and an Achilles tendon injury. He made his comeback for his national team in the Group Seven qualifiers in the World Cup, the first being in a 0-2 defeat by Czechoslavakia on 13th October 1976 at the Sparta Stadium, Prague, followed by his eleventh cap in a 1-0 win over Wales at Hampden Park on 17th November 1976. He played all three of the home internationals that season to take his caps to fourteen as there was a 0-0 draw with Wales at the Racecourse Ground Wrexham on 28th May 1977 and four days later there was a 3-0 win over Northern Ireland at Hampden Park, when McQueen registered his second International goal with the second of those goals in the sixty-first minute. His third goal came in the very next match when he opened the scoring two minutes before the interval against England at Wembley with a passionate, loud and mildly inebriated Scotland following loyally cheering their team on. McQueen rose above the England defence to head home from a corner to send them into raptures. A second goal from Kenny Dalglish sealed a 2-1 win. Such was the joy of the Scots, not to mention their lack of respect for their opponents, that they invaded the pitch on the final whistle, ripped up the turf and broke one of the crossbars. He gained a further three caps to bring his total to seventeen, with Leeds, when, on 7th September 1977 at the Stadion der Weltjugend, Berlin, they went down 0-1 to East Germany and a fortnight later they took a huge step towards qualifying for the World Cup Finals with a 3-1 win over Czechoslovakia in Group Seven, at Hampden Park and made sure with a 2-0 win over Wales at Anfield, Liverpool on 12th October 1977. However, things had not been going well for McQueen at Elland Road. His close friend, Joe Jordan had been sold to Manchester United and he had been involved in an onfield fight with David Harvey in a Third Round home Cup defeat by Manchester City in January. It cost a then British record fee of £495,000 to take him to Manchester United in February 1978. On signing he famously stated that "99% of players want to play for Manchester United and the rest are liars". He played his first International, while with his new club on 22nd February 1978 as Scotland defeated Bulgaria 2-1 at Hampden Park, before making his club debut at Anfield on 25th February 1978, losing to Liverpool 1-3. He was voted into the 1977–78 Football League First Division PFA Team of the Year and took his total caps to twenty with two 1-1 draws at Hampden Park in the Home Championships. The first was on 13th May 1978 against Northern Ireland and the second four days later against Wales. He was a certainty for the Scotland squad due to go to Argentina for the World Cup Final stages, but that all changed in the second of those games, when in the twenty-eighth minute he sustained a bad knee injury when he collided with a post and had to be replaced by Tom Forsyth of Rangers. He travelled with the team but was unable to play as Scotland failed to get beyond the Group stage. He was quickly re-instated in the Scotland team as soon as he recovered and played six games in the 1978-79 season. In the first of these he gained his twenty-first cap and his fourth goal on 20th September 1978 as Scotland went down to Austria 2-3 in a European Championship Group Two game at the Praterstadion, Vienna, when he scored in the sixty-fourth minute for scotland's first goal to reduce the arrears to 1-2 On 25th October 1978 Scotland beat Norway 3-2 at Hampden Park in the same Group and there was a further game in the same Group as Portugal triumphed 1-0 at Estadio da Luz (Stadium of Light), home of Benfica, in Lisbon on 29th November 1978. McQueen helped Manchester United reach the F.A. Cup Final in 1979, scoring a late goal as Manchester United came back from 2-0 down against Arsenal to level the scores, only for their opponents to wrestle the Cup back with a last-minute winner by Alan Sunderland. He won his twenty-fourth cap came in a 1-0 win over Northern Ireland on 22nd May 1979 in the Home Championships at Hampden Park and this was quickly followed by another one at Wembley four days later as they went down 1-3 to England, before his twenty-sixth cap and fifth and final goal in a 4-0 win over Norway at Ullevaal Stadion, Oslo, on 7th June 1979 in which he netted the fourth goal in the fifty-fourth minute in a European Championship Group Two game. He brought his total caps to twenty-nine with three appearances at Hampden Park in the first half of the 1979-80 season. They were in a 1-1 draw with Peru on 12th September 1979, and two European Championship, Group Two games, the first a 1-1 draw with Austria on 17th October 1979 and a 1-3 defeat by Belgium on 19th December 1979. He took his haul of full international appearances to thirty, a figure that he would surely have increased had it not been for a spate of injuries at Manchester and a bad Achilles tendon injury at Leeds in 1975-76, when he made his final appearance for Scotland on 16th May 1981 in a 0-2 defeat by Wales at the Vetch Field, Swansea, in the Home Championships. McQueen was a first team regular in the first half of the 1980s, finally winning an FA Cup-winners’ medal in 1983 after a replay against Brighton and Hove Albion. He also was in the team which lost the League Cup Final to Liverpool in the same season. He was also a regular for Scotland, when not injured. McQueen stayed at Manchester United until 1985, leaving after the arrival of Paul McGrath, who took his place in the centre of defence. He made one hundred and eighty-four League appearances and scored twenty goals for Manchester United. He also scored four goals in sixteen League Cup games, two goals in twenty-one F.A. Cup ties, and appeared in one Charity Shield, three UEFA Cup, and four Cup Winners' Cup games. A total of twenty-six goals in two hundred and twenty-nine appearances. He made his final appearance on 12th January 1985, in a 0-1 loss to Coventry City at Old Trafford. In August 1985 he was appointed Player-Coach at Seiko FC (Hong Kong). The club finished fourth at the end of the season but were disolved. He took over as Manager of Airdrieonians in June 1987 but resigned in May 1989 because the majority of the players would not play full-time on the contracts offered. McQueen then ran a greetings card shop in Paisley and in June 1989 he coached St Mirren and was match analyser for Scottish Television, before re-entering the English game as Reserve team Coach at Middlesbrough in July 1994 under his former Manchester United collegue Bryan Robson. He left the club when Robson did, and has since become a pundit for Sky Sports. He was diagnosed as having throat cancer in October 2011, but thankfully he has responded to treatment.