HENRY McStay was pushing for a first team breakthrough when the hammer came down on Leeds United in 2004.
Sixteen years on, the Lurgan native is now head physio at Elland Road and one of the few links between the wilderness years after relegation and the joy of promotion back to the Premier League .
After narrowly missing out in the play-offs last season, Leeds romped to the Championship title this term by finishing 10 points clear of second-placed West Brom. And rightly so, says McStay, who regarded Marcelo Bielsa’s team as the fittest and best footballing-side in the division this season.
“It means everything to the players and to the fans who follow us all over the world,” said McStay.
“When we got relegated I didn’t think it would take until now to get back up. I expected a club the size of Leeds United to bounce back up again. Obviously the club has been through a lot of issues and whatever since then and it has taken an awful long time and a lot of hard work to get back to where we belong.
“Since the chairman (Andrea Radrizzani) came in, we’ve changed a lot of things and obviously we have the manager, Mr Bielsa, whose work-ethic rubs off on everybody else. Everybody has worked extremely hard and to see the team get promoted is fantastic. It’s what everybody has worked towards and after missing out last year it meant even more this year.”
Since his appointment at the start of the 2018/19 season, Bielsa has been able to give leadership and direction to a sleeping giant that had finished in the Championship's top 10 just once in the previous seven seasons.
Leeds were transformed under the highly-regarded and studious Argentinian who began his playing career with Rosario’s Newell's Old Boys and also managed the club before going on to spells with the Argentina national team (guiding them to Olympic Games gold in 2004), Chile and around Europe with Athletic Bilbao, Lazio, Marseilles and Lille before arriving at misfiring Leeds.
The lung-busting 1-4-1-4-1 system he patented demands huge effort and levels of fitness from his players but, as the season progressed, Bielsa's Leeds became increasingly fluent and ripped a succession of opponents to shreds with their passing and movement. .
The lockdown suspension began with Leeds top of the table and their form since the resumption was spectacular. The Yorkshire Whites won seven of their last eight games (drawing their other) and scored 21 goals in the process to clinch the title.
“Mr Bielsa is an excellent coach and all the players and the staff have the utmost respect for him,” says McStay of the Leeds manager.
"He sets the tone for the club and the amount of work he puts in makes everybody else work harder.
“He doesn’t speak much English but he has the staff that he’s brought with him from Argentina.
“They study each team, each game and they have everything sussed out before we play.
“It takes hours, upon hours, upon hours and they put that into the training pitch so the players are drilled to perfection. You can see the standard of football they’ve played over the last two years – it’s nothing short of amazing really.
“Over the lockdown period the players had their own personal training programmes and they grafted all through that. Since we came back in they’ve all worked their socks off, they worked really hard and you could see that in their performances. We were the fittest team in the league and it stood us in good stead because ultimately that’s why we were able to play the football we played.”
After leaving Leeds in the aftermath of the 2004 relegation, Republic of Ireland U21 international McStay had spells with Halifax Town, Morecombe and Portadown. Injury cut his career short but he qualified as a physiotherapist and returned to Elland Road to work with the Academy players in 2011.
His medical team is responsible for treating injuries, pre-match and post-match, player recovery and rehab and have played a vital role in this season’s success.
“We’re a part of it,” he says
“We get a lot of contact with the players so that’s why you get enormous pride from what the team has achieved and it’s just great to see them do it.
“I’ve watched the team progress and the ultimate goal was to get back to the Premier League and, sure now we’re over the moon that we’ve finally got there.”
He made the step up to the first team in 2016 under Steve Evans but, as long-suffering Leeds supporters will know, managerial appointments tended to be brief during that period. Evans departed in May 2016 and Gary Monk, Thomas Christiansen and Paul Heckingbotton all came and went before the arrival of Bielsa brought the stability that was desperately needed.
Leeds native Kalvin Phillips who, like McStay, began in the youth team and worked his way through the ranks was pivotal to the promotion push. He has become crucial to the side as a defensive midfield quarterback and is now being tipped as a future England international.
“I remember Kalvin when he came to the club at 14 or 15,” says McStay.
“I’ve seen him develop as a player and, in my opinion, he was the best player in the Championship this season. He’s another player who Mr Bielsa has worked tirelessly with and you can see that. Over the last couple of years he has developed into one of the best midfielders in England.
“Being a local lad, it means the world to him and you could see after the games how much it meant to him and that is great to see.”
Phillips is one of a clutch of home-grown players who have featured for Leeds this season and Jamie Shackleton, Robbie Gotts and Northern Ireland hopeful Alfie McCalmont will all look forward to making an impact in the Premier League next season.
“It’s great to see those lads come through,” said McStay.
“In a lot of big clubs it’s very difficult but we have a world-class coach in Mr Bielsa and he’s given a lot of the young fellas a good chance. He has improved them all and they’ve all turned into fantastic players.
“They got their chance and they’ve been able to take it because they’re so well educated tactically and their fitness levels are brilliant. No doubt they’ll be able to cope with the demands of the Premier League because their performances speak for themselves. If they weren’t good enough, Mr Bielsa wouldn’t have put them in, simple as that.”
During McStay’s playing days, future Republic of Ireland internationals Gary Kelly, Ian Harte and Stephen McPhail came through at Leeds and the club continues to have a strong Irish presence with McCalmont will hope to join Stuart Dallas in the Northern Ireland team before too long.
“Wee Alfie has really improved this year,” says McStay.
“The pinnacle for him is Stuart Dallas, who got the Players’ Player of the Year this season. He really took off over the last two seasons and he is a credit to himself. Every game he is Mr Dependable, he plays any position he’s asked to and gives his best in every game.”
Reaching the Premier League is an outstanding achievement for Dallas who began his career with Coagh United before progressing to the Irish League with Crusaders before moving into the professional game.
McStay describes the Tyrone native as “one of the nicest people you’ll meet” and adds: “It just shows young players coming through that you don’t have to go over (to England) early, he has come through the hard way, he has come through the Irish League and had great experience playing against grown men.
“He went to Brentford and did well, moved to Leeds and he was doing rightly in the seasons before Mr Bielsa came but he has really bought into Mr Bielsa’s fitness programmes and how he wanted him to play and he took off.
“He will give you 110 per cent every time and to get Players’ Player of the Year in the year that you get promoted… There’s no higher accolade than that.”
After a short break, McStay will join the Leeds players for pre-season training. How will the new boys survive in the dog-eat-dog world of the Premier League? Some will write them off but there’s nothing new there.
In an interview given before his recent, untimely, death, Leeds legend Norman Hunter recalled the reaction when the team he played in were promoted from the old Division Two in 1964.
“Everybody said: You’ll go straight back down,” he recalled.
Four years later, Don Revie’s Leeds were first division champions and history repeated itself in 1990 when Howard Wilkinson’s side were champions in their second season back in the top flight.
McStay is confident that Leeds will be able to hold their own next season.
“Oh definitely, without a shadow of a doubt,” he says.
“Last year we were very, very unlucky I thought. We played rightly the whole way through the season and at the end we didn’t get the results we wanted but sure the play-offs are a lottery.
“After the heartache of last season, this season we knew exactly what we needed to do. We’d been there, done-that and the experience paid off. As hard as it was to take last year, the experience of losing out has been so important to what they achieved this year.
“Leeds was the best footballing team in the Championship. There is such a great togetherness in the squad and Mr Bielsa has improved every player. I’m confident in the boys, in the work they have put in, the quality of players that we have and the belief that the manager has in all the players.
“Mr Bielsa is a really experienced coach and from watching the team play and listening to the pundits and the fans I don’t see there being any problem with them going up to the Premier League.
“Obviously the main aim next year will be to stay up but if they keep going the way they’re going there’ll surely be no problem with that.”
Only three months after iconic former centre-back Hunter died, Jack Charlton, another member of that legendary Leeds United team, a World Cup winner with England and a bona fide Irish legend as the manager who took the Republic to the 1990 and 1994 World Cups, also passed away.
“I knew Norman because he was an ambassador for the club and on a match day you’d see him when he’d be going about doing talks with fans,” said McStay.
“He was always in and around the club and obviously for me Jack Charlton is a legend as manager of the Republic of Ireland and everything else. I always noticed how highly people at the club talk about him – he was a one-club man, played 700 games for Leeds and he was a great ambassador for the club as well.
“It was a hard few weeks in the lockdown period and since it and I think losing those great people gave everyone a bit more emphasis to succeed in what we wanted to do. I think all the players were thinking about that and, ultimately, they did it for them.”
