When Allan Clarke became manager of Leeds United in September 1980, following the sacking of Jimmy Adamson, it marked a change of direction for the club. For the best part of the next decade, the board would place the club's fortunes, ultimately unsuccessfully, in the hands of former players of the Revie era.

Like Jock Stein two seasons earlier, Clarke's first home game in charge was against Manchester United, ending in a 0-0 draw. Given our plight at the time (we were languishing in 21st place in the table!), this could have been seen as a creditable performance. However, in hindsight, the lack of goals -and entertainment - was to be a feature of Clarke's managerial style over the nest two seasons.

He arrived at the club with lofty ambitions. After a successful spell at Barnsley, where he had achieved promotion to the old second division, he stated before the opening Manchester United game, " I shall regard myself as a failure if we have not won a major trophy over the next three years." As it turned out, within less than two years, his team would be staring relegation firmly in the face.

Clarke's spell at Leeds wasn't just unsuccessful. It was marked by dourness which seemed to hang like a black cloud over the whole club. With his team scoring less than a goal per game over his time in charge, even the manager's press and television interviews became excruciatingly grim.

By Saturday May 15th, 1982, the game was almost up. Prior to our final home match against Brighton, Clarke pointed out that our destiny was still very much in our own hands. I can still remember the euphoria which greeted the team at the final whistle, when, after going 1-0 down, two late goals from Gary Hamson and Kevin Hird gave us a deserved 2-1 victory. Then, as almost the entire ground stayed back to 'celebrate', the dreaded news was relayed over the public address system: our relegation rivals had all achieved similarly good results. Elland Road was transformed from a party to a wake in seconds.

What took place in the following week had a grim predictability about it. A 2-0 defeat against fellow strugglers, West Bromwich Albion, on the following Tuesday, meant that we now had no control over our top flight futures. On the Thursday, at the Victoria Ground, our only hope was that West Brom could pull off a win against another team who had been part of the relegation dogfight, Stoke City. However, the fact that a point would be good enough for both teams, coupled with the way Leeds hooligans had wreaked havoc outside The Hawthorns two days earlier, left you with the distinct feeling that they wouldn't be desperate to do us any favours. And so it turned out. The game ended in a draw and Leeds relegation to the old second division was confirmed.

Clarke's fate was sealed: over the close season, he was sacked. What an irony that one of our greatest players, and one of the most lethal finishers in modern times, should have been the man to preside over the end of two decades of first division football. Suddenly, the sacking of Jimmy Armfield, just three years earlier, didn't seem like such a shrewd move.

If Allan Clarke's spell at Leeds had been characterized by dourness and disappointment, Eddie Gray's three seasons at the club centred around a belief in the exuberance of youth and football as entertainment. Ultimately, though, the great prize of a return to the top flight would elude him, as the board of directors' patience ran out.

The 1982-83 season began brightly enough. Would we bounce back to division one with ease? After a 1-1 draw against Grimsby Town, at Blundell Park, one Sunday newspaper was already giving us the label, 'The entertainers'. What a difference three months could make. Three wins and two draws from the opening five games gave us confidence that perhaps good times might just around the corner, once again. We remained in touch with the top six for most of the season but, never really looking like making the necessary surge to the top three promotion places, we finished the campaign in eighth place.

If Gray's first season had started promisingly but ended in anti-climax, 1983-84 began disastrously, with us losing six out of our opening nine games. The only bright spot was the emergence of a pool of young players of genuine talent and Eddie's brave attempts to keep 'playing football' in times of adversity. These factors were enough to keep him in a job, at the end of a season which saw us finish tenth.

1984-85, Gray's final full season in charge, saw his group of talented youngsters start to gel together into a team. Sheridan, Sellars, Irwin, Linighan and Wright all went on to make an impact, to differing degrees, in their future careers. Yet, for all their skill and youthful promise, you always had the feeling that they never quite had the 'steel' to escape what was a physical division. As the run-in to the season's close neared, Gray made an astute signing in Ian Baird, whose goals pushed us close to promotion. Unfortunately, though, we would miss out once more. On the final day, we still had a mathematical chance of going up, as we traveled to Birmingham City, but failed - again with hooliganism providing an unsavoury backdrop to events.

Eddie Gray's reign as Leeds manager was terminated at the start of the 1985-86 season, after a poor start to the campaign. His dismissal, however, was not popular with the fans - and even one of the directors resigned in protest. The reason for Eddie's popularity, despite a lack of end-product? It could be summed up in a single word: hope. After seasons of seeing the team packed with old pros, nearing the end of their careers, Gray provided us with the promise of youth, a team who clearly had years of good football ahead of them. With a Batty or a Jones in midfield, who knows what he might have achieved. Of course, he's now back where he belongs - in the Elland Road dugout - as David O'Leary's assistant. And he's still as popular as ever.

What can you say about Bremner the player? An all-time great whose untimely death marked one of the blackest days in the club's history. But as a manager, like his two predecessors, he failed to deliver what everyone at the club craved: promotion to the first division. His sacking, in 1988, also brought to an end an experiment, on the board's part, which had ultimately failed: great footballers don't necessarily make great managers.

Bremner lasted three seasons in charge but, instead of building on the youthful foundations of Gray's team, he decided to be very much his own man. By the end of his first season in charge, Linhigan, Wright, Irwin, Sellars and Terry Phelan had all been sold, and cheaply, to make way for seasoned pros who had spent much of their careers doing a steady job in the lower divisions. Not surprisingly, Bremner's opening campaign had been very much one of transition - but not even the most pessimistic of us could have expected it to be such a grim battle against the unthinkable: relegation to the third division. But this proved to be the case. Not until the last couple of months did we begin to pull away from the dreaded drop zone, finishing a miserable 14th.

1986-87 started very much as the previous season had ended, with fans now getting used to defeats against lowly opposition in a less than half filled stadium. However, at the start of the new year, Bremner began to turn things around. He made several astute signings (Peter Haddock and Keith Edwards amongst these) and we began to put together a useful league run. However, what really made the season was our first decent FA Cup run for over a decade. With victories against non-league Telford United, Swindon Town, first division QPR and Wigan Athletic, we set ourselves up with a semi-final against Coventry City. What looked like the easiest of the semi-final pairings turned out to be a contest with the eventual winners of the trophy. However, despite the disappointment of defeat, the game had proved such an entertaining spectacle that Leeds were very much back on the map. An upbeat Leeds, under Bremner's managership, now looked for the ultimate goal, automatic promotion. Finishing fourth meant a place in the newly contrived 'play offs' against Oldham Athletic. Negotiating this hurdle meant that the dream was almost reality. All that stood between us now was a two legged tie against first division Charlton Athletic. A 1-0 defeat, away, and a home victory by the same score led to dull third match at Selhurst Park, the game even going into extra time. What followed was yet another 'near miss': 1-0 up at half time, we were sunk by two late goals. The only consolation was the sense amongst supporters that we had a team who would have struggled in the first division. Perhaps next season we could do it in style.

Bremner seemed to be turning things round. The next season began with a sense of optimism and with crowds starting to return to Elland Road. Yet, despite the promise of newcomers such as David Batty, we finished a disappointing seventh. The following season, 1988-89, saw us win only one of our first six games and Billy's dream was over. A Leeds man through and through, he had been unable to retrieve the club's ailing fortunes and lost his job. Who could Leeds turn to now?