Another 24 hours on (it’s lasted at least twice as long as our new badge design!) and the Elitist 6 have all given up the ghost. Now the recriminations and retributions are in full pelt. With SkyTVisf**kings**t now asking what the punishment should be. Notably, all their guests have said that any docking of points and relegation to a lower league will “only harm the fans”. In other words only harm SkyTVisf**kings**t and the other broadcasters as they’ll have to go to more Championship grounds more often.

Me, I see nothing more fitting than public humiliation in stocks being paraded round the streets, finished with a nice bit of old fashioned public flogging with the obligatory cat o nine tails. And that’s just to start with.

Boris is going on about a shake up of rules and relook at the “fit and proper test”. Well, we all know how that is going to end with Rick Parry and his bezza mates in charge. They’ll just suck up to them, bit of lip service, call in Ernst & Young who will do an audit at great expense for their consultation, and decide it’s all ok anyway, and tell Boris that’s there’s nothing here to see. They’ll get away scott free if the decision is left to Boris – he doesn’t even like football.

Jokes aside, the only thing that these owners know is money.

1)They need to be hit hard with a fine and then that fine needs to be redistributed between the clubs in the lower leagues – not to the FA, ensuring it passes down to where it is needed. With a guarantee that the financial hit not be  passed onto match going fans.

2) 15 point deduction at the start of next season.

3) To give back to the match going fans, all tickets in the PL to be no more than a top price of £50 (in the best seats) per game and away fans to go back to being allocated 10% of ground capacity for 48 hour selling window at £20, any unsold to go back to the home team to be sold at £20.

4) All teams involved to be forced to start at the initial rounds of the League Cup and the FA Cup, playing their first team players for the next 5 years. Again, ensuring that any gate receipts will be shared amongst the lower league divisions and serving as a reminder of where football actually started.

5) Transfer embargo from now til the start of season 2023/24.

6) Salary cap in the Premier League to be set at a maximum of £100,000 at week. No one needs £5 million a year.

and this is just for starters

https://www.britannica.com/topic/cat-o-nine-tails just in case you younger ones don’t know what a cat o nine tails is

The last 48 hours has demonstrated the desperate fight to keep it in the family of the Entitled Elite v The Masses.

Who is going to win? Well Adam, in this battle of Man v Fools – who knows?

But what I can tell tell you is that the display yesterday at ER, although initally may have been borne from well meaning genuine gestures, played right into the hands of the greedy JP Morgans of this world. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

There’s going to be many of you who will take instant insult and indignation at that, after all, what harm can the team wearing T shirts in solidarity for fans, a plane fly by and a few banners do? It sends a message to the Italian, American and Middle Eastern owners, right?

Wrong. All it tells them is that their plan of over the top sensationalism and their mantra of “no publicity is bad publicity” is “selling” and they need to wholeheartedly carry on. Those clips and pictures will have flown round the world in the last 24 hours, via youtube, instagram, tiktok, whatever and be all over the global news channels. And all those platforms will have added their logarithmic click bait, tracking cookies and the rest of the s**t, and right now they are rubbing their tight fisted, grubby little paws in glee. Because all this publicity for them has given them access to all the data that they can now harvest and make money off – and they love it. Because that’s what they truly want.

There used to be a saying in the 90’s when the war lords were taking over the world “Peace Sells, Who’s Buying?” (also the title of an excellent Megadeth album). Well now it’s “Advertising Sells, Who’s Buying?”, because the Rich and The Entitled have bought most of the material possessions that they can buy now. They have moved onto the only thing that is left – fame, publicity and power to influence over the rest of us minions, and tell us what to do. That used to be down to Governments, now it’s down to Corporate Banks and Bill Gates.

That display yesterday really only affected the team and the manager. None of whom were guilty of anything. Unless Klopp and those players actually stood up and said they were completely happy to play in this new league, it’s nothing to do with them. I really felt for Milner last night, it’s not his fault. Ultimately, short of refusing to play, there was nothing he, nor the rest of the team nor Klopp could have done. ***Disclaimer Alert*** As I have repeatedly said, what I write here is what I think and doesn’t purport to be any reflection of anyone else. Certainly I am in a minority of one right now, as I don’t think that it was right to do that yesterday. T shirts, big flag, plane fly by, supporters shouting “scabs” / “greedy b******ds”. Everything, the whole kit and kaboodle. Shouldn’t have done it.

Anything and everything needs to be aimed at the owners of these clubs and anyone else who agrees with the Elitist. The players and the managers are pawns in this. Until any manager or player of the 6 clubs in England or the rest of the Judases in Italy and Spain openly agrees to this league, they aren’t to blame. The blame lies with the Elite Entitled owners and the governing bodies for allowing this to happen on their watch.

I have been harping on about this for ever. I saw a T shirt or a meme or whatever they are called, yesterday “Against Modern Football” it said.

Ha – bloody ha! 

SkyTVisf**ings**t and The Premier League have been at the forefront of “Modern Football” since they took it off us in 1993. Many of you younger folk have been indoctrinated into it, and can’t even conceive that there was any football before 1992. The concept of Division 1 as the top league and then Divison 2 etc. etc has completely passed you by, all you know is “The PL and The Championship”. Division 2, incidentally is where we used to belong, with the likes of Scum and Chelski, Nottingham Forest, in fact Notts County were the top clubs in this country. When SkyTVisf**kings**t first said they would televise games, they promised that they would compensate the match going fans for the inconvenience if (yes – IF) games were moved for TV! Effing joke isn’t it?  The only saving Grace is that they weren’t allowed to schedule any live matches at Saturday 3pm – because that’s when football used to be played. 

Do as I say, not do as I do.

Thatcher started it in 1985 with the Sporting Grounds Act (look it up younger ones – this is the thing which effs up our away days). Yeah, there was the odd skirmish, but Mrs Thatch DID NOT LIKE FOOTBALL FANS – FACT. The Act was drawn up and has been repeatedly used against match going football fans to stop us doing what we want to do. It doesn’t stop the coach loads of racing or rugby or cricket fans having a drinkie on the way to the game – because it’s not football. But it stops us. The fans of these other sports a) more or less do the same as we do and b) are probably THE SAME people who do THE SAME thing because there isn’t a football game to go to. And, bless them, it’s only been the racing fraternity who in recent years have had to endure “dry trains” on the way to York or Aintree and that’s their own fault for being posh, dressed up to the nines, getting inebriated and being daft enough to get their picture spreadeagled all over the broadsheets. 

SkyTVisf**kings**t and BT –  The True Gods of Football, and now Amazon and Netflix are getting in on the act. Power and greed, all driven by the desperate need to have more influence over us and the continual need to have the opportunity to advertise the “brand”. More fame, more notoriety, more presence in the TV and social media universe. Ultimately they all end up kowtowing to the people with all the money. They end up cowering to the Corporate Animals that are the global banks and corporations … and Bill Gates. Who just use all the subscription information to gather more knowledge about individuals, which can then be passed on to whoever the highest bidder is.

UEFA have now come out with the same snivelling “football is for fans” bollocks. This is the same UEFA who not two weeks ago were advertising on their own website corporate packages for 23,000 quid or euros (it’s more or less at parity now anyway I think) to watch all the Euro 2021 games in the best seats in the house. £23,000 – an entire years wages for some, two years for others, for essentially 2 and a bit weeks of watching 90 minutes of 22 men kicking a ball on the pitch. A brilliant “punishment” for this new league – they won’t let any of these players play in their National teams. Gary Neville – what do you think about that then? The same Gary who under Fergie’s reign played in a side many who mysteriously had “injuries” just before International Duty, but miraculously recovered the very next game. Gary – how many games did that proud Taff Ryan Giggs turn up in for Wales? Scum and Livarpool are hardly going to see that as punishment, they’d be ecstatic at the thought of not having to risk their star players getting injured in any of these meaningless competitions. They’d much rather be enjoying the break and effing off to USA or Asia in some overseas friendly, promoting their brand.

Exclusivity / Elitism / Entitlement. Call it what you want. UEFA are only up in arms about it because FIFA are going to rob them of some of their exclusive advertising revenue, threatening their livelihoods. They couldn’t give a crap about the fans. UEFA had already gone back on their principles and “let” teams who hadn’t qualified for the Champions League spots by actually playing good football into the league, in anyway. After all, why should you need to be good at winning to get a place in a competition featuring the best teams in Europe? It should be a given that Scum and Livarpool get into the Chumpions League every year, because they deserve to – right? As for Spurs? When was the last time they won anything? Answers on a postcard to The European Super League Headquarters…

Whilst I am on about it – the FA and PL / EFL and Boris (or the other bloke had he got it). What did they care about the Oystons of this world when Blackpool supporters were having their club ripped away from under them? What did the EFL do to stop Bury, one of the founder clubs of the Lancashire League in 1885 from going under? Bolton Wanderers was one of the ORIGINAL founder members of The Football League in 1888. What help did they get from Weasel Harvey? When Charlton basically turned into the feeder club for Standard Liege when the owner realised that the EFL actually expected Championship clubs to make losses. 

https://talksport.com/football/efl/579976/charlton-athletic-roland-duchatelet-efl/

What did they do? Jack all. Fans matter though.

Football is unique in that in the UK certainly and South America,  it has come from poor working class roots. This is the time if this was an interview on the telly, to switch to a scene of young children kicking a ball about in the dust in the favelas. In the US of A “football” is soccer. As much as SkyTVisf**kings**t have been trying to make “Morning Football Show” into a “thing” (yes I mistakenly clicked onto it on Sunday thinking it was a re run of our Citeh game) , our American cousins know it as soccer. In America, football is what I call Gridiron football. It is basically some sort of rugby, with helmets, a lot of padding and a funny shaped ball which isn’t even round, so I’m not sure how it can be a ball? Anyway, in America there has been a bit of spate of TV / movie / reality stars / sporting stars investing in soccer teams and becoming part owners of these franchises. Why? maybe because all the American Football teams have already been taken. It’s so popular that Ryan Reynolds who did that classic “Green Lantern” has become a part owner in Wrexham. Well done Wrexham FC by the way for attracting Ryan! Let’s hope the next Green Lantern film gives some exposure to sunny Wales.

There was an interview with Ian Wrighty Wright and Kalvin this weekend featuring shots of Kalv walking down terraced streets in Armley . Kalv told him about growing up in Leeds and how proud he was to play for us and how Granny Val told him to sack Villa off. How many other PL teams can boast the same? Home grown youth players brought up the ranks? Rashford and McTominlay at Scum? Foden at Citeh? Maddison at Leicester – (oops not Top 6!). There’s few and far between.

In the same breath as fans have hailed our under 23s for being Champions, there was even a 1st team guard of honour at some point, the same ones are going on about which “star” player we need to buy in the summer to keep us up. Where are these U23s going to be next season? Probably not in the 1st team, and probably not even here, is the answer. All these keyboard warriors who have been outspoken about comparing them to the “true class of 92” , were all sat in the close season and the January transfer window furiously going through the stats of our next Jean Paul Augustin. How many of these were the same ones slating Cooper, Dallas and Kalv 3 seasons ago as part of Whattheheckingbottom’s failures? How many of them can stand up and say that the names of Vydra, Rhodes, Charlie Austin, Grealish, Forestieri, Eze, Pukki never passed their lips as players who needed to be brought in as a wholesale replacements for our crap team?

Not many is there?

Money, greed, power and Elitism. Here’s what you could have got for a years wages from UEFA.

      

This week marks 21 years since two Leeds United fans went off to a game of football and never came back. Never has the phrase “never forgive and never forget” been so apt. Although my blogs are rarely contain any serious material, it would be remiss of me not to mention it. RIP lads.

Coincidentally, this week, branch member and ex (old) Knaresborough Branch secretary, Dave Rowson, has had his book published, which vaguely chronicles, those heady European days. There are many many stories from those days, some we’d rather forget and some we will fuzzily remember fondly. All I can say is, thank The Lord there was no such thing as social media and camera phones at the time. Some memories we will treasure forever and some, simply put, we won’t.

A fair few of the branch were in Istanbul that night. Some were waiting at LBA for a flight because they could only get the day of the game off work. And, as much as I dislike our then Chairman, Peter Ridsdale, to be fair, that night he did the best any Chairman could have done. That was probably his finest hour, at a very distressing and difficult time.

There has been enough written about that terrible night and the days after, and the subsequent lack of justice since. There is nothing I can add to this sad story, but it was good to see that excellent banner and the tribute from Leeds United at T’Blades game. Well done to all those involved.

My piece today however, refers to one of the many (many) failings of our then Chairman, Peter Fibsdale ( and don’t even get me started on that terrible book he “wrote”).  

Peter was ultimately one of the architects of our ruin. However, as The Secretary rightly points out, there didn’t seem to be much corporate oversight either. The rest of the blame for our initial fall and then repeated falls from grace could also be laid at the feet of our manager, a certain Mr O Leary and the air of complacency that had developed at ER, along with certain off pitch antics from a number of our squad.  But for your delectation, here is the article that still vexes me from 20 years ago:

https://www.leedsunited.com/news/team-news/20019/ridsdale-backs-skelton-stadium-switch

and for you none believers, it even made it to The Grauniad:

There are a few who might say that I am still quite bitter about this.

As the old saying goes, a grudge is for life, not just Christmas. I am not exaggerating, but to me it is probably THE biggest lie ever told. Yes, since then, there’s been multiple others that I can trawl up e.g “Fabian Delph is NOT for sale”. There’s the usual comical ones “Ken Bates saved Leeds United” , “It’s (CVA) the only way to save the Club”,  “GFH will save Leeds United”, the Shaun “Weasel” Harvey famous ones of ” I have no idea who owns Elland Road, but it definitely isn’t Ken Bates”, “I have NEVER known who owns Elland Road”, “No-one knows who owns Elland Road” . The clear codswallop that we as Leeds fans have had to endure is endless, not forgetting the most one current one of “The design of the new crest was done with consultation of tens of thousands of Leeds fans, and fans are happy with the result”. 

This lie of lies, however, that we wanted to leave ER, was full on bulls**t. 

Yes, we all got a vote on whether we thought Elland Road should be moved to a “better” site …. er… Swillington. Swillington …. seriously …. near the sewage works …. anywhere but Swillington …. so they called it Skelton instead. And remember, this was in an era when many clubs were getting rid of their old grounds, and moving to wraparound newer, modern grounds, which promised better facilities and increased capacity but were all built out of town, in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest pub, all in the name of progress. Not for the benefit of normal fans though. None of this getting off the train and walking down to the ground via the pub. Nope, only for the ones who drove to the game or got a coach, where’s the fun in that? Not for the benefit of the businesses in the  local community either, who used to get the football trade. Nope.

It was never anything to do with selling off the valuable land that the old ground was on and getting minted on the profits from the Barratts / Wimpey / Persimmons of this world (remember this was 2000s), though. So, this was the major discussion in the pubs and clubs around the country, and the YEP and Radio Aire had their two penn’orth as well. Fibsdale announced that there would be a consultation, and he would go with whatever the result was.

No-one and I mean, NO-ONE I knew actually voted for the move away from our home. EVERYONE I knew wanted to stay at ER. So, imagine our surprise when, in the programme notes and the YEP, Fibsdale comes out with “more than 80% of our loyal support have voted for a move to … Swillington …. er Skelton”.

That’s full on vote rigging to the scale of most third world, sub continent, despotic countries. How concerned was I? Concerned wasn’t the word. I was LIVID. I spent the whole of the time in the pub before the game, after the game, and in the Kop, during the game, going all Tommy Torquemada on everyone within 5 square foot. I stopped at burning people at the stake, but  Inquisition mode was on, and no-one, not even the stewards was spared. For those of you who don’t know who Tomas Torquemada was, look him up. Whilst you can’t help but admire him for his work ethic, I fear he enjoyed his job that little bit too much. The man was the epitome of taking religion to that extra enthusiastic mile. Unfortunately.

Why am I harking back to two decades of newsworthylessness?

It stems from hearing a snippet from TalkSport or Radio 5, where the two commentators were going on about how Leeds United needed to get a more “competitive” edge by building a new stadium. As if the only way team would get better and be able to compete in this league would be if it had a new stadium. 

We’re 10th in our first season back in the PL and we have had most of our defence out for most of the season. How not competitive are we? In the alleged, most competitive league in Europe, how does being 10th with a makeshift defence for 80% of the season transpire into not being competitive? Do I not sound like Graham Taylor?

What they really mean is that they don’t like being sat up on that gantry above the crumbly West Stand. And why would the metropolitan snowflakes want to sit there? You are basically swinging in the rafters up there, right above the pitch. None of this nice warm studio, shielded from the baying fans below stuff. That gantry is as unique to ER as the old Stadio Delle Alpi was to Juve. No one can compete with that.

I hope that when we do get a new stadium, things like that are remembered and retained, within the limits of Elf and Stacey of course, as much as possible.

I don’t want the new ER to welcome the away fans and the journos. I want them to dread coming to Fortress ER. I don’t want an IdentiKit ground with a running track separating us from the pitch. I want us to be there, right in their faces. I don’t want the opposition and their fans to have an enjoyable experience, I want them to dread every single second of it, and be able to watch it on a nice big screen, which doesn’t look like it’s been rescued from a skip outside the studios after they filmed The Running Man in 1987. I don’t want the new ground to be an overwhelming monstrosity, just tidy up the West Stand so it doesn’t look like Wembley in 1936. Stick a museum in it, sort out a decent scoreboard and telly, put some decent bogs in the stands, get some proper beer and more importantly proper functionning beer pumps in. It doesn’t need to look like the Starship Enterprise, all shiny and new, it just needs to have 50,000 capacity, at least 48,000 for the paying fans and then the rest for the necessary corporate animals. 

Statesman like but under stated – like Bielsa.

There’s not much news for the April 2021 update as yet, seeing as Bojo and the Premier League Circus  still haven’t made up their minds about letting us go back to sitting outside in the fresh air in an outdoor stadium for little under two hours, but will be happy for you to be dragged round inside White Rose / Meadowhell by the missus for 3 hours along with everyone else in a week or so.

Monthly Branch Meeting

Hopefully this will be the penultimate branch meeting forced to be held by zoom. Thanks to all who attended (with or without a big glass of red wine).

There was no LUSC exec meeting in the latter part of March as Kalvin was playing for En-ger-land but there is a Player Of the Month vote for Thursday 8th April. There haven’t been any SAB meetings either but questions have been put to Leeds for the next agenda (see AOB). The MPO won £100 in the last (big) 250 draw though – which has gone towards successfully helping the rust bucket, which is the car, pass it’s MOT for the last time – honest. If anyone does want an 08 plate Ford Ka with an ABS light which reassuringly goes on and off intermittently – please get in touch, usual channels.

Player Of The Month

Thank you all for your March  player votes vie email and facebook. This months votes at the Exec will go to Dallas and Raphinha.

A.O.B

Eric Ware RIP.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to remember Eric with their stories for the tribute and for The Secretary’s speech at his service. Eric’s coffin was fantastic as was the wreath in the shape and colours of our home strip. We are keeping in touch with Joan and have been to see her. She is doing OK, as well as can be expected, she would like us to pass on her thanks to everyone for their kind words.

Raffle

The raffle will be drawn before the Citeh game on Saturday by The Chairman and Dave Rowson. Thanks to everyone who has taken part and good luck to you all.

We’re Not Leeds, We Are Leeds

Congrats to Dave Rowson on his new (first) book. It covers our European games and promises to be an excellent read, bringing back memories of the Glory European Nights / Days and the not so glorious mornings afterwards, severe steaming hangovers, complete mind blocks, terrible flashbacks and prison cells…. Various branch members have supplied Dave with some “select” pictures from the old days, as has Dougie Kaye (they are definitely HIS photos!) and Dave has procured some from other sources as well. For those of you who don’t / can’t remember those days, it will be a useful guide to help you fill in the blanks. For the ones who are too young to have been there – this is how it used to be before cheap flights. Think yourselves lucky that if / when we do get back into Europe, you’re never going to be sat on a coach for 19 hours just to watch Leeds.

Stan Bowles Calendar

It was decided at the meeting that the branch will support Dave Rowson with his Stan Bowles calendar in aid of Alzheimers Research. Dave is donating some of the money from his book to this very worthwhile cause. He is also going to attempt to raise funds for Alzheimers Research at match days by having a “Stand For Stan” where people will be invited to have their photo taken with the calendar for a donation with a purpose made photo op stand somewhere near ER. Details have yet to be confirmed, but, as I am sure most of you will agree (especially following the “Finding Jack Charlton” documentary), Alzheimers is a terrible disease and research is very much needed into finding some treatment for this horrible disease which robs so many people, and their loved ones, of their lives and, just as importantly, their time. Life is short, time is precious. We will also try to support the Maverick team and Potton Accountancy in their efforts to get a stand named after Stan Bowles at QPR. He was after all, their greatest player, and if Leeds United can have the John Charles, Norman Hunter, Don Revie and Jack Charlton Stands, then other clubs should be making an effort, and recognising their history and their great players too.