“Side before self, every time.”It’s a motto synonymous with Leeds United, which has been repurposed and repackaged as the rallying cry for an entire nation at the World Cup.In the aftermath of Sunday’s 1-0 win for Scotland over Haiti in Foxborough, Massachusetts, an image of the Scots’ shirt was shared on social media. Billy Bremner’s famous line had been printed inside their collars.He was a Scotland international with 54 caps between 1965 and 1975, but Bremner is also a Leeds icon, and that’s a quote running through the core of the West Yorkshire club. It adorns Elland Road’s facade and is engraved in the steps beneath Bremner’s famous statue outside the stadium.The inspiration, it transpires, has come from Scotland’s kit manager, Jim McAlister. He is the man who pushed to have it printed on the inside of their shirts.“The team hotel and the training ground are branded with inspirational quotes from some iconic Scottish football figures,” he tells The Athletic.“The strips are an extension of that. We just wanted to do something a bit different for the players. They’re following in some famous footsteps, so it’s nice to have that historical link as well.”
As legendary as those five words are in Leeds history, it’s actually very difficult to source them. Bremner is associated with them, undoubtedly, but there is no clear record of where or when he first used the phrase.When The Athletic asked Eddie Gray, 78 — another Elland Road hero from Bremner’s era across the 1960s and 1970s — about that sentence, he could not recall its origins. Club historian and author of more than 10 Leeds United books, Dave Tomlinson, also drew a blank in researching where it all started.“I’ve looked through and can’t find anywhere that he’s said it,” he tells The Athletic. “Now, it’s probably been around the camp before.“It’s probably been in something one of the managers has said and he’s just embellished it, but certainly, it was accepted and it was always associated with Bremner, but I can’t find exactly when it came about.”
