NORMAN HUNTER was nicknamed – and even defined – by a single Wembley banner.

The legendary daubing from a Leeds fan at their 1972 centenary FA Cup Final victory over Arsenal read: ‘Norman Bites Yer Legs’.

Those words stuck as firmly as if a vicar had christened the great Leeds defender with them at a font.

And yet those who played alongside Hunter – who has died aged 76 having tested positive for coronavirus – as well as those fans who worshipped him, will attest that this nickname never did him full justice.

Hunter, who won six major trophies during 14 years as an Elland Road first-teamer, was also a wonderfully gifted ball-player.

His long-term team-mate Eddie Gray remembers Hunter as ‘one of the best passers I have ever seen’.

And Hunter was so highly regarded by fellow professionals that he was crowned as the inaugural PFA Players’ Player Of The Year at the age of 30 after his second title-winning campaign in 1974.

In many ways Hunter epitomised Don Revie’s great Leeds team more than any other player.

They were renowned as the hardest and most streetwise of outfits during a time when top-flight football was no place for shrinking violets.

And yet Revie’s Leeds could pass an opposition team off the pitch every bit as masterfully as they could kick them.

Hunter forged an outstanding long-running central-defensive partnership with Jack Charlton.

But Hunter was unfortunate to have been the second-best ball-playing centre-back in England at the time of the greatest of them all, Bobby Moore.

As a result, the Leeds man won a meagre 28 England caps. He was a non-playing member of the 1966 World Cup-winning squad – finally collecting a winner’s medal in 2009 – and played just once as a substitute in Mexico four years later.

His international career was best remembered for an uncharacteristic missed tackle which allowed Poland to score in a 1-1 draw which saw Sir Alf Ramsey’s men fail to qualify for the 1974 World Cup and effectively ended the tenure of the greatest England manager.

Despite his reputation for biting challenges and flying fists, Hunter was a gentleman and a hugely popular figure.

It was at club level where Hunter was able to truly excel – winning two league titles, a League Cup, two Fairs Cups (the forerunner of the UEFA Cup) and that FA Cup on the day his famous banner was unfurled.

In a team of gifted street-fighters – including Billy Bremner, Johnny Giles and his partner in crime Big Jack – Hunter was perhaps the steeliest of them all.

Many opposition forwards described him as their toughest opponent, because of his ability to bruise them as well as bamboozle them with his quick feet.

Born in Gateshead in 1943, Hunter joined Leeds at 16 and stayed at Elland Road until he moved to Bristol City the day before his 33rd birthday.

Hunter played a prominent role in the outstanding English club side of the era – although Leeds collected runners-up medals at a more prolific rate than winners’ prizes.

One defining image of Hunter’s career is of him leaping several feet in the air with out-stretched arms as Allan Clarke scored the winner in that 1972 Cup Final.

Another is of an infamous fist fight with Francis Lee during a visit to Derby’s Baseball Ground in 1975.

Hunter hammered Lee with a right hook during an off-the-ball punch-up and, after both players were sent off, Lee threw a succession of punches at Hunter as they headed for the dressing room – Hunter dodging each one in a boxing exhibition Tyson Fury would have been proud of.

Despite his reputation for biting challenges and flying fists, Hunter was a gentleman and a hugely popular figure.

After a brief managerial career with Barnsley and Rotherham United, he became a successful radio analyst and an in-demand after-dinner speaker.

Diners would lap up Hunter’s tales from the good old, bad old days of hatchet men such as Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris, Tommy Smith and Nobby Stiles.

Yet Hunter was often too modest to suggest that he was a far more talented footballer than any of those fellow hardmen.

Leeds today issued a statement saying that Hunter’s death – a week after he had been hospitalised with coronavirus symptoms – leaves a ‘huge hole’ in the family of the club.

It continued: "His legacy will never be forgotten and our thoughts are with Norman's family and friends at this very difficult time."

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