Former Barnsley manager and England World Cup winner Norman Hunter has died with coronavirus.
The 76-year-old died this morning after a week in hospital, Leeds United announced today.
Hunter, who is from County Durham, played for Leeds for 15 years, winning two league titles as well as the FA Cup and League Cup while he played in the 1975 European Cup final loss to Bayern Munich. He collected 28 caps for England and was in the squad that won the 1966 World Cup. After a spell with Bristol City, he returned to Yorkshire in 1979 to reunite with his former Leeds team-mate Allan Clarke who had promoted Barnsley into the Third Division.
He played 31 games for the Reds and, after Clarke moved to Leeds later that year, Hunter was appointed manager – guiding them to another promotion the following year. The team he managed in the early 1980s is considered by many to be among the best in the club’s history, with stars such as Ronnie Glavin, Ian Banks, Derrick Parker, Trevor Aylott and Mick McCarthy. He left Oakwell in 1984 then managed Rotherham United and Bradford City.
Banks said: “I played with Norman and under him. I loved him and respected and really took to him as a person and then a manager. He just lived football and was really passionate about it. We had a great team back then and I have a lot of very good memories.”
