Mel Sterland reflects on Leeds United's title-winning victory at Bournemouth that fulfilled Howard Wilkinson's promise

By his own admission, the no-nonsense right-back did not care about other teams and rarely looked at the league table.

All that mattered, said Sterland, was that Howard Wilkinson’s side won.

Thirty years ago today, Sterland knew a Whites win under clear blue skies at a red-hot Dean Court would seal Leeds’ promotion to English football’s top tier.

Thanks to Chris Kamara’s cross and Lee Chapman’s header it was job done and, says Sterland, the completion of boss Wilkinson’s promise that United would win the league.

United were beginning their eighth consecutive season in Division Two as they headed for an opening-day clash at Jim Smith’s Newcastle United on August 18, 1989 in which goals from Bobby Davison and Ian Baird counted for little in a 5-2 defeat.

Yet the Leeds class of 1989-90 were to prove something rather different to anything else seen in the 1980s in Wilkinson’s first full season in charge and Sterland was very much part of his revolution with the Whites.

Nine months after former Sheffield Wednesday boss Wilkinson had taken over the Leeds hot seat, Sterland was recruited to the club after just four months at Glasgow Rangers under Graeme Souness to be reunited with Wilkinson who had been Sterland’s boss for six seasons at Hillsborough.

Four months after signing Gordon Strachan, Wilkinson’s message to Sterland, as the duo met for talks at a hotel in Nottingham with Whites managing director Bill Fotherby, was clear – Leeds would win the league.

By May 5, victory at Bournemouth would ensure exactly that bar a Herculean effort from Dave Bassett’s second-placed Sheffield United who began the day level on points with Leeds but with a 10-goal inferior goals difference as they lined up at Leicester City.

What really mattered was that United kept their promotion destiny in their own hands by winning as Newcastle began the day just two points behind in third ahead of a north-east derby at Colin Todd’s Middlesbrough.

But Chapman’s winner meant matters concerning the Magpies were irrelevant as Wilkinson’s promise was delivered successfully as part of a day that Sterland says he will never forget on the south coast.

As it happened, Newcastle were beaten 4-1 at Middlesbrough but United’s win at Bournemouth proved crucial in sealing the title with the Blades running amok 5-2 at David Pleat’s Leicester.

“I can’t believe it’s been 30 years,” Sterland told The YEP.

“Wowie. That’s frightening.

"I have been retired 26 years, I’m 59 this year and it’s absolutely scary that it has been that long.

"But I can remember winning the league obviously. It was amazing, when you have worked hard all season with the players that Howard fetched in.

“We had some great players and, to be honest, Howard said to me when I signed that he was going to win the league.

“When he brought me from Glasgow Rangers and I signed, I went down to have talks with Queens Park Rangers and I could have gone back to Sheffield Wednesday but Howard said we were going to win the league.

“I met Howard at a hotel in Nottingham and we sorted a deal out there and then with Mr Fotherby who was a great, fantastic guy.

"He said we were going to sign some good players and we did sign some good players as well.

“Howard signed players he could trust and a lot he had worked with before, ie a lot of Sheffield Wednesday players.

“But we had Gordon Strachan, the best player I have ever played with as a player and a footballer and a gentleman with a lovely family. We had some good players.