It sounds a bit greedy, it sounds a bit needy but PLEASE put us first.

I’ve done many pieces over the years around the subject of how marginalised I personally feel by the rise of “modern football”. They’ve been under the banner of “Fans Don’t Matter” and in the main, they’ve been a lighthearted look into  how abandoned I feel by the money men and TV companies that are the “True Gods of Football”. I suppose there’s been the odd one when I’ve blown my fuse and had a rant, but it’s been deserved.

I personally feel that long standing supporters like myself aren’t valued by, well, just about everyone really. I’ve pledged my undying allegiance to Leeds United, and I’ve spent a long long time unconditionally following my beloved team all over the country and the world. I’m not alone in this, there’s thousands more like me who win, lose or draw support Leeds United. We put our club first, it’s about time Leeds United put us first.

I will never tire of saying it either. It’s not selfish, it’s the truth. Those of us who tirelessly supported Leeds, home and away, when we got relegated, and relegated again, and still steadfastly turned up to cheer them on at those horrible crappy grounds (and not just to tick off one of the 92 either), all deserve to get away tickets, this season, next season and for however long we stick with it. We know who these people are, probably only 1000 maybe, who went to the majority of the aways, so it’s probably less than half of the normal away allocation in this league.

The Club know who they are, they could tell us, but they won’t. They should be proud of these supporters, they should be proud of our loyalty and we should be celebrated and acknowledged.  Any other club who are proud of their fans would. At least this season they have given us the “Super Away Attendees” , so at least there has been some recognition of loyalty over the last 10 years. Selfishly, I believe this recognition of our loyalty  should be maintained should be continued, in perpetuity. We aren’t going to live forever, if these last 2 years have taught us anything, it’s that we should value these things, before they are lost. Please put us first.

Why am I digging this up again?

Not just access to away tickets, this time. This time it’s properly about match going fans, primarily the safety of match going fans.

Ah! Now you’ve clocked it.

Everybody knows what happened at Chelsea. We have all seen the scenes on social media about the calamity in the shoddy Shed End at Stamford Bridge. Those of us unlucky to get caught up in it, experienced the mayhem first hand. Surprisingly some had no idea it had even happened until they heard about it afterwards. Many of us complained, some sent in videos for supporting evidence. The result? The usual cover up and as usual the blame was on us – the fans. For those of you who haven’t seen the official response, see snapshot below.

For once, our experience wasn’t in isolation.

Unfortunately, another near miss at the turnstiles occurred, this time at our own club. For those of you who haven’t seen the shocking scenes, here’s a link to The Chronicle

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/watch-moment-newcastle-united-fans-22858546

Put fans first.

The above two incidences are two extremes of how little match going fans are engaged with. There are many less extreme examples of how fans don’t matter at ER. The loss in pre match facilities for families has been previously highlighted in this blog. The move to give the Pavilion over to the Corporate Animals has meant that short of cramming into Billys or The Peacock, there is no place to meet family and friends for a pre match drink or some scran.

The introduction of cashless systems has forced many into not buying anything in the ground ever again. It was done in the name of convenience, but has it made much difference in the queues? It’s difficult to say at the moment because it’s winter, but when it gets warmer, will the service be better and more efficient, or will they still run out of beer, like they did at the start of the season? There hasn’t been much difference in the quality of the food or alcohol by all accounts – but I don’t buy anything anymore – so it’s just hearsay.

Electronic payment, well electronic systems are my bugbear full stop.

As we saw with the (now redundant – hopefully forever – papers please) passport, there were all sorts of issues because the signal at ER is so poor. Even though the PL rules said that you needed to show proper electronic ID, people were forced to take screen shots of their pass or (Heaven Forbid!) print it out on a piece of paper.

They are even stadia round the country who are pushing paperless e tickets. Given the problems with the turnstiles already, it’s not looking good is it? There’s nothing wrong with paper tickets and season ticket cards. Would they be any more difficult than e tickets? Probably not. Are they anymore environmentally challenging? Probably not. At least they wouldn’t be dependent on getting a signal on your phone and having enough battery on your phone. Yet, they tell us e ticketing and cashless is they way forward, and having the choice isn’t. Put us first.

Realistically, it’s not about what fans want, it’s what PL and clubs want. It’s probably to do with making all stadia “One size fits all”, so all the clubs are all the same. Who wants that? We value our individuality. Each club is unique. Who wants to be another identikit club, with an identikit ground and identikit fans? Ah! Therein lies the answer – it’s not about the fans, it’s about the commercial enterprise that is “Modern Football”.

I can see behind the scenes there are deals with e ticketing firms, internet security, infrastructure companies who make turnstiles, electronic supplies, etc. etc. etc. all partners with the PL, FIFA and UEFA, all with vested interests to make each club, in each country, all use the same companies and facilities. All in the name of progress and convenience, but in truth, it’s all about money and contracts. All of these companies will all have deals selling on your data as well, to make more money out of us. The digitally excluded will be just that. Excluded. If you can’t afford the phone / device , that’s your luck out. Just like trying to order tickets – if you don’t have decent broadband reception and a decent device, don’t even bother.

If the turnstiles were all manned, like they used to be, would there have been the problems experienced at Chelski? Would there have been issues at the West Stand with the visiting Geordies? Who can say? But I doubt it. It’s supposed to save money on staffing I’m guessing – but fans should come first and no money saving measures should compromise fans’ safety – surely?

This season we’ve actually managed to visit Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea etc. and seen the impact on the grounds when all the corporate hospitality all disappear at half time. The stadia are soul less and needed the managers running up and down the touchlines to stir up the noise and support from the home fans. I’ve heard that they deliberately sell more corporate tickets, at a premium price, to those who can afford it in order to keep the prices down for the normal fans in the cheap seats. Well, after speaking to a few season ticket holders from these London clubs, there isn’t much sign of that helping them out with their match day prices. If and when ER gets its’ make over, what is going to happen to us? Are we going to sacrifice swathes of seats for the corporate animals, just so we can keep our season ticket to less than £600 a year? Is ER going to end up cheap but bereft of atmosphere? Are there going to be anymore proper seats for normal fans, or is it going to be full of corporate entertainment? 

There’s mention year after year of the ticket prices of the German clubs compared to ours. It gets brought up every season about how the Chairmen in the Bundesliga are proud that they don’t charge their fans anywhere near the prices that the PL charge. Because they value the fans. Tonight Boro are playing Sc*m in the Cup. I believe Sc*m are charging the Boro fans £46 quid! Scandalous. Mind you they charged us £42 and that was yonks ago.

The PL boasts that it is the best league in the world, yet the Bundesliga treats fans better than the PL does, not just in ticket prices but the standard of food and facilities. You’ll not see the Germans paying nearly a tenner for a nuclear chicken balti pie and flat lager.  

No doubt though, in future years the PL will also try to bring in an identikit price for season tickets and match day tickets, to go with the identikit stadia and identikit fans in their bid to standardise everything. However, at least away tickets have been capped, so there is one tiny glimmer of hope.

Put fans first.

To conclude, this week Derby have been given another stay of execution. Some might not sympathise much with them after the Fat Frank shenanigans, but as I said before when I wrote about Bury and Bolton, this isn’t the fault of the fans. Once again, the problems at Derby County are down to the greed of the money men. Like so many clubs, ours included under B*tes, the fans are always the ones who suffer the most. The fans are the last to know (if in fact they ever find out) about what is happening behind the scenes in the boardroom.

The Chairmen, the owners, their accountants and their lawyers, in cahoots with greedy agents and oligarchs, chicken farmers, small nation states and businessmen with big mouths but shallow pockets and all manner of shady figures lurking in the shadows, they control everything. If it goes wrong, they move to their next vanity project.

The fans? We are left to suffer with the fall out. They’ll all be there though, piteously wringing their hands in public,  pretending they didn’t see it coming, whilst in private they are blaming their accountants for not managing to fiddle the figures better, and their lawyers for not leveraging up the loopholes properly.

It’s a romantic ideal that they should put the fans first.

But we have to dream about something right? Other than having a fully fit first team.

The full original quote of “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness” was said by Oscar Wilde sometime in 19th century.

I concur with that, so there is no point repeating what has been said about Bielsa and our magnificent 3-2 victory at the London Stadium last weekend. Enough had already been said in the days / weeks since we last won a game. Most of it negative, most of it slagging off Bielsa, Orta, the Leeds United board, the Leeds United physio and training staff – blah, blah, blah. The majority of it has been said from all those renowned Premier League managers off of facebook and tw*tter – and by jingo – how right they were, weren’t they? They all called the result of West Ham on Sunday correct – didn’t they?

You know the ones, they’ve all been in the managerial / coaching game forever and their names have been on the tips of the tongues of the chairmen and owners at Chelski, Arsenal, Scum and Citeh every time one of those teams gets kicked out of a tournament, or goes on a losing streak. They are all master tacticians and speak from years, decades even, of on field experience and spend hours endlessly examining and analysing every available bit of video from every club in the PL for the last 20 years. They have extensive knowledge of sports science and psychology and are in possession of every dietetic and nutritional qualification known to man.

Oh wait, no that’s a complete lie.

None of the keyboard warriors on Noseybook and Tw*tter have any actual managerial / coaching experience outside of opening the box off FIFA and sticking the disc in. Some don’t even have that. Some only started calling it “football” about 2 seasons ago. Some didn’t know Leeds United existed BB – before Bielsa.

Harsh? Nah – not really. 

Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery though? I’m not sure, especially in the instance when someone copies and pastes something you have written and pretends that they wrote it. Once bitten, twice shy. Three times just plain careless. Copy and paster wasters as I like to call them!

But in the case of Sam Smith v Tom Petty and Vanilla Ice v Queen (I’m afraid you younger readers are going to have to look that up) – imitation actually costs you quite a bit of money. Especially if you don’t have the decency to ask first.

When it comes to music plagiarism I’m guessing there is only a finite number of notes and only a finite number of combinations of said notes that can be put together to make something sound good. But, honestly, the likes of Sam Smith and Mark Ronson / Bruno Mars, at the very very least, should have bothered to ask the old dinosaurs ( aka Tom Petty and the Gap Band ) that they were ripping off, before they put their name to their music. It’s not like they couldn’t afford to slip them a bit of cash in royalties. Sadly though, another case of the Entitled Elite thinking they could get away with it. Tight gits!

Another example of songs / intellectual property being dis or should that be misappropriated is those songs at football.

There is no doubt that Marching On Together is a Leeds song – could any other team pull it off? I doubt it.

Traditionalists were surprised when our run out tune was changed to Tin Tin Out’s Strings Of Yasmin in our European heyday, and then for a while ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ from Rocky by Survivor. But there can be no confusion when “Going Home” from that great film Local Hero comes on at St James’s Park. There’s no doubt at all that “Mull of Kintyre” will be sung at the City Ground. Same with the Gerry and The Pacemakers’ version of the Rogers and Hammerstein Carousel song,  “You’ll Never Get a – sorry Walk Alone” at Anfield and the theme from Z Cars at Goodison.

But even then, the famous Z Cars was stolen off Everton by Watford as it was Bill McGarry, the managers favourite TV programme at the time, apparently. Plus after Watford, played it once, they went on a 20+ game winning streak. When Watford got taken over by Elton John, the music got changed to “I’m Still Standing” – and then the Hornets got relegated! I have to acknowledge though that ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ has actually been played at Celtic and sung by the Yellow Wall at Borussia Dortmund too.

There’s the controversy over classic hits like “Liquidator” at Wolves, which in 2002 was banned because the Rozzers didn’t like the words “F**K Off West Brom” being shouted at the end of it. They now sing “Hi Ho Wolverhampton” (Jeff Beck) apparently, but we’ll have to wait until March to find out. I’m looking forward to Leicester who, unusually, have the PostHorn Gallop as their run out tune, surprisingly I can’t remember much about the last time we were there. Something to do with hunting foxes I am guessing.

So we can’t say that songs actually come under the remit of “intellectual property” when it comes to football fans and clubs – apart from Marching On Together, The Ballad Of Billy Bremner or any number of songs from that Leeds cd. There’s obviously some exceptions when it comes to anthems / songs that the players walk out to, but what about football chants?

The newest / latest Leeds chant is “follow, follow, follow”. To me that’s a Sc*m song I’m afraid. According to G*ggle it’s  Rangers and some it’s Boro. You can look it up and you’ll see the lyrics from years gone by which go with the songs, so don’t shoot the messenger, I do fact check some of my stuff!

Follow Follow Follow –  I certainly wouldn’t sing it – but then I could never bring myself to sing “Dennis Wise’s Barmy Army ” either, in fact almost spat out my Bovril when I heard the Misled and Misguided sing it at ER in the B*tes Days of All Pain and No Gain. What you sing at football is down to personal choice at the end of the day. Some of the chants or music , like Z cars have decades long associations with football. Some songs were originally catchy excerpts from either some classical music or old War songs etc. Some have been filched from 90’s classics like “Go West” from the Pet Shop Boys. Who, from those old enough to remember the video from that song, wouldn’t think that this tune would still be rattling around now, 30 years on, at just about every football ground in the country? Certainly not Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.

Which brings us nicely round to West Ham again. I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles is their very annoying song, which has the most bizarre beginnings which, having investigated it, I’m not even bothering to share – cos it’s so boring. At the “Other Boleyn Ground” aka the London Stadium, we suffered in the Cup game, with our massively depleted squad. We had a bench of youngsters because we had so many disastrous injuries. We could have “played the game”, like some clubs, and got the match called off because we couldn’t field a full first team side. But that’s not Bielsa’s way. We could have moaned and whinged about it and berated our medical team and blamed the owners for not investing more money. But that’s not Bielsa’s way. Every pundit and hack and armchair fan / keyboard warrior was waiting in the wings to jump ship and claim that we were going down with the Norwich, with Bielsa at the helm. 

But we didn’t, we played with the team we could – because that’s Bielsa’s way. And while West ham were forever  blowing bubbles, Bielsa was bursting them. Because that’s his way. Imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery, but everyone is mediocre when it comes to the mastery of Bielsa.

photo removed 4/07/2025 as requested

Thanks to the Guernsey press for the photo

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fguernseypress.com%2Fsport%2Fuk-sport%2F2022%2F01%2F16%2Fmarcelo-bielsa-praises-desire-of-leeds-players-after-win-at-west-ham%2F&psig=AOvVaw059Ir24F9oYLB9Gcs2vpJO&ust=1642880653742000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCNCyudbNw_UCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAP

Merry Christmas Folks! Thanks again go to Former Branch Secretary, Dave Rowson for the article below. It is a mish mash, I think you younger ones call it a “mash up” nowadays, of the last few away days, as Spurs, Brighton and Citeh all basically merged into one. The MPO has reserved “Publisher’s Notes” on the text, but unlike the Editor of “We’re not Leeds – WE ARE LEEDS” , nothing “pervy” has been taken out!

The influencer

Since The Chairman’s arrival on social media, that fateful day 23^rd April 2018, when Dave Rowson setup his Facebook account with him at the Swan on the Stray, the world has changed for ever.

Taking to Facebook like a duck to ice skating, The Chairman soon got to grips with growing his followers. Indeed, he soon got to grips with a particular follower, a lady who sent the kids out and invited him around for some tuition in IT. Telling Rouse this story at the Knaresborough bed race in June, Rouse said, “bloody hell, been on Facebook for years, nowt like that has happened to me!!!”

He had a few teething problems getting used to Facebook etiquette at first, re sharing (posts not the lady above). He nearly got himself threatened to be blocked by a few folk, and he also continues to like all his own posts. He has now steadily built his followers to the 5k limit, and now operates a waiting list system, on a “one in one out” basis. Average waiting time for men – 18 months, average waiting time for women – 18 seconds. Running the operation from home on his iPad, he has to take a break from proceedings when out and about, and carries his traditional Nokia brick phone, he’s no plastic fan taking pics in the ground! He assures us though that his brick phone is in constant contact with the control room at home letting it know his whereabouts.

Publisher’s notes – it’s technically called a “candybar” phone as The Secretary has a Nokia 3210 that still works and the MPO still has a functioning Nokia 6700, all classics of their time!

We first noticed the impact of The Chairman’s arrival on T’internet, when he began asking Dave to check him into pubs on away trips. Arriving in a town at 11am and the pub quiet, once Dave checked him in, the pubs always got far busier for knowing The Chairman was in attendance, (not that they had just opened). The presence of The Chairman attracted folk from far and wide to the town and these specific establishments ( according to The Chairman’s infinite wisdom ). This also happens coincidentally, on an evening out in Harrogate. You go out at 5pm, all’s quiet, by 9pm or 10pm its heaving. Below we see a graph of Charley’s impact on the footfall of his chosen venues, next slide please. As you can see this is proven by the analysis of the branch’s top scientist, the Membership Officer, Mr Roy Flynn.

However, it has now gone way beyond this, and the knowledge that his reach expands to his Chinese 8 million followers, has made him one of T’internet’s biggest influencers.

Pop stars now seek him out to promote their tours. He is in regular contact with Hazel O’Connor, Thereza Bazar (Dollar), Susanna Hoffs (Bangles) and now Anita Doth (2 Unlimited). However, when asked about Kate Bush, one of his favourite songstresses, he says ‘no, she doesn’t run her own account and she’s a bit of a nutter in real life’.

Publisher’s Notes – in defence of Kate Bush

1) Kate Bush has brought out a new book, published in November 2021, and she is happy to leave her music as her preferred way to communicate.

2) A bit of clarification of the difference between a “fruit” and a “nut”

His opinions of Kate Bush notwithstanding, The Chairman is now adamant he can make or break venues or individuals based on his T’internet influence. Several bars have suffered as a result of not allowing him entry on a Saturday night, I think as they are worried about being swamped and not having enough staff on (it’s the only explanation as they sometimes still let the rest of us in).

Warm drinks at football –  Bring Back The Bovril!

The Chairman’s power has most recently been demonstrated when on the way to Brighton, The Chairman began a conversation about drinks in football grounds and specifically warm drinks in winter.

The Chairman told us that his favourite warm drink at football was Bovril. However, he recounted a trip to Everton 21st March 1991, a night match second leg of the final of the ZDS Cup no less.

Publisher’s Notes – ZDS Cup was a tournament held between 1985 and 1992 when English clubs were banned from European football because of some very poor behaviour on Belgian soil by some scallywags (checked – I’m allowed to use this term). Younger readers – look it up, a very inglourious part of Liverpool’s history. 

It was a very cold night and the Chairman wanted his favourite Bovril drink however, on getting to the refreshment stand, it had sold out of Bovril (bumper 12k crowd) asking what they had left to drink, he was offered a Slush Puppy!!

Rouse then recalled one of the first Sunday games we played, was away at Hull in the 80’s. Taking advantage of not playing on a Sunday morning he had gone all “Promotion Klich” and got totally hammered (doesn’t need an excuse now not playing, Rouse not Klich). Nearly sleeping in, and missing the bus, he ran it back home to get the tickets, but on arrival at the ground, no tickets were required so they could have been left. He says the only thing that could remove the hangover was the chicken soup served in the ground. Spookily I am sure these were Klix instant soups and used to have machine at office where Rouse worked.

Publisher’ Notes – you can still get these at Nissan Sunderland for a bargain 55p according to Top Gear

Anyway, The Chairman decided at Brighton there should be a “Bring Back The Bovril” campaign for football grounds, and that Leeds United Supporters Club should champion this under the “Get It Back at Elland Road” campaign.

On the trip to Chelsea, he informed us that he had been in touch with Bovril via Facebook and suggested they return to football grounds. Instantly, it seems his influence once again paid off, as at Manchester City on the Tuesday they had reinstated Bovril in the ground.

So, I am sure there will be a tidal wave of Bovril across the country now in football grounds.

If you need anything promoting contact The Chairman on Facebook, (not you Rooney, Derby can @@@@ off!). You would need to be the right sort of approach to get on The Chairman’s radar anyway, possibly a sales cougar?

I bet you’ll have a Bovril now!!!

So, if you want to grow your brand or want a brand destroying, check-in with Chairman Charley. (Now there’s a thought, ‘Evening & Merry Christmas Prime Minister’)

The Chairman’s Christmas Message

Merry Christmas from the Chairman, hope you get something in stockings this Christmas too!!

It’s been a while since the last Chairman Charley, I’m sorry to say. The Chairman has been getting a bit uneasy about the lack of news to keep all his followers updated, but hopefully this chapter will go a bit of the way to easing his pain.

Thanks to ex Branch Secretary and now published author, Dave Rowson for the text. This Chairman Charley is bound to be a lot better than the usual tat that I do.

Cars pains

The Chairman has had a few difficulties lately, namely the breakdown of the trusted motor that took him down to Luton and back in 2019. Dave and Entertainment Secretary, Andy Yates, still talk fondly of that memorable trip. Most notably the “Keep death off the road – drive on the pavement” moment when The Chairman mistook a flower bed for a roundabout on the way to pick up Ripon Kev (HUNTY to his mates) on that very foggy morning, and ended up on the pavement.

After that little mishap though, he was the model driver, and did a sterling (Moss) job the rest of the journey.

The Chairman’s car, by the way, you’ll be pleased to know, has been fixed and is all present and correct. Luckily when his car broke down, he was literally outside the garage. When the recovery man turned up declared that the clutch was D.O.A, he asked Charley where he wanted the car taken to for repairs. The Chairman pointed across the road, and said, over there. It was the shortest trip to a recovery garage the mechanic had ever undertaken. You know The Chairman – always glad to be of assistance.

Spurs pain

Unfortunately, his car was the least of his worries on the way to Spurs the other week. The major concern was his body letting him down. Rest assured, ladies, that department is OK, the issue was more to do with his left arm.

The Chairman informed us that he had got a bit of a bad back, and had tried some Deep Heat to no avail, so he decided to use some Voltarol. Since then, his left arm had been aching and giving him grief. It wasn’t only his arm that was giving him grief, as Spurs hailed the return of our driver Jonathan. The usual front of the bus banter of “It’s not a bus – it’s a coach” (now that could be a good title for a book) , had already begun when he may have took umbridge when Dave might have suggested that the coach was a little late to his pick up stop outside Halfords.

In response to this banter, the banter further ensued when The Chairman drew the comparison to Star Trek when Sulu and Chekov sat in front doing the driving, with the main characters sat behind them in chairs, telling them what to do.

The Chairman must have been in some pain as he curtailed his pubstop early, returning to the coach as he was in agony. He was offered a massage in a local establishment on the way back to the bus, he says. But he assured us that he turned the offer down.

In the ground, he managed a smile for the camera though. Well there was a lady involved!

After visiting the shiny stadium in a shithole of an area, The Chairman’s pain seemed to be getting worse on the return journey. The on board doctors of Rowson and Smuff PhD, MFI, GPS, MD 20/20 were suggesting a heart attack or stroke. The MPO suddenly paid attention as we were nearing home and said “I thought you were just taking the piss! I would have taken a look if I had realised. Is it swollen?” The reply “Are we still talking about the arm”. Well you can see why, the MPO thought he was joking, can’t you?

On the return to Harrogate, Sulu and Chekov were suitably concerned enough to divert the bus to Harrogate Hospital, and he was delivered to the door of A&E.

Brighton. A story of snow, wind and pain.

Storm Arwen meant a 7 hour picturesque trip down the M1 with jack knifed lorries and snowy diversions a plenty. Fortunately, this gave The Chairman plenty of time to tell us stories of his time in the NHS whilst nursing his pain. When a patient kicks off in the waiting room and gets thrown out, you know it’s not going to be a good night.

When it was The Chairman’s turn to see the out of hours GP, he got sent to wait in an empty room. There was a desk in there with a phone on it, but no doctor. After 30 minutes of waiting, the phone rang and The Chairman eventually decided he best answer it. It was the GP! The Chairman remarked that he could have gone home and they could have rung him there. Dave is not sure if the GP had asked him to put his arm in the air like the Swedish phone engineer in Stockholm in 1984, but it was diagnosed that the arm pain was due to the reaction to the treatments he had applied to his back. He was told not to do it again, and was given painkillers for the bus to Brighton.

After the pubstop in Lewes, we hit the Amex stadium and the sniffer dogs weren’t much cop as they didn’t sniff out his painkillers. The Chairman’s pain was further eased again, when he was plied with alcohol from Kirsty Palmer from Keighley again. She had given him some Capri-sun at Scum and now she gave him vodka and coke. Having a lady trying to spike him in the grounds this season is something The Chairman can cope with, and he has taken to singing the Patrick Bamford song to Kirsty. For inclusivity, he also had a picture taken with a bloke too.

Inner Circle pains (as opposed to inside leg pains)

For the journey home, The Chairman gave us news of his latest entry to his Inner Circle. Contacted on facebook by his first girlfriend from New Park Primary School, she is planning a visit from her Australian base to the UK. After seeing the A&E visit on facebook, she contacted The Chairman to say she wished she could be there to take his pain away. He also informed us he had received other feedback suggesting things he couldn’t do to himself but insisted it’s his left arm and he’s right handed – clearly no Ronnie O Sullivan. (Just would like to point out here, that these words belong to Dave Rowson – NOT the MPO).

The Chairman is now trying to work out how to be in pain when she visits. He rejected a proposal to do the Escape To Victory keepers broken arm, and possibly, as she has been in Oz a while, is going to claim that an escaped snake bit him down below and the poison needs removing.

But Ladies you ease The Chairman’s pain ( I have no idea what that means by the way – it’s what Rowsey wrote)

Resist.

Resist what? Everything? No, just modern corporate sport.

Swim against the modern tide. That used to be part of the lyrics to some song in the 70s or 80s that I can’t remember. In the late 70s and 80s, all we seemed to do was rebel against authority and the Rich and Powerful. Mind you there was an awful lot to rebel against in those days. Whether it was CND, Mrs Thatch, poll tax, whatever, we resisted. Nowadays people just accept things, it’s a strange carry on. But if we don’t resist against those who want to force change upon us, or at least try to resist, we will never know what we can achieve. Football belongs to the masses, not the suits.

Football belongs to the fans.

It seems that more and more sports are being swept up into the big corporate conglomerate models of the US style buying, selling and trading players and teams. Take the IPL for example, where the competing teams choose players to play in their side in what seems like a bidding war at the start of the competition – actually it is a cricket cattle market auction. There isn’t any history, there’s no long standing  allegiance, no nobel cause rooted in passion for your team. It’s just like it used to be when we were kids, taking turns to pick your footie team. Even if you couldn’t stand the lad, if he was going to score, you picked him. In the NFL and MLB, players can be traded every season like Top Trump cards. The teams as I understand it are franchises, all dependent on the whims of their current owners, who can simply up sticks as they so desire, even, if they fancy it, to a completely different state, let alone a different city. The US of A is a very big country, but nothing can stop the owners from packing up though. There’s also no relegation, and therefore no promotion, so it’s just the same players rotating round teams who can afford to buy them. It’s highly dependent on agents and business deals. The richer you are, the more powerful you are. The paymasters are in charge.

Football isn’t like that. Well not the football that I want to watch anyway. Football teams belong to their grass roots. Local kids should be able to look at their local teams, who have home grown talent, and have something to aspire to. 

It’s not just football that is being affected. Look at cricket again. We used to have a great county championship tournament. Players were proud to represent their county or at least adopted county. Yorkshire County Cricket Club  was very unique, as up until 1992, no one born outside of Yorkshire’s boundaries was allowed to play for the team. When they did abandon the rule, it was only the legendary Sachin Tendulkar who was the first non Yorkshireman to grace our County Club. At the time, Fred Trueman apparently called it a “bloody disgrace” and whilst now it would be an absolute scandal and there would be no end of parliamentary debates about it, in those days, it meant that our county was proud to stand firm and field only home grown talent – no matter how bad they were. But you can’t and shouldn’t judge what we did decades ago  by todays standards, or the Italians would summarily be sued for what the Romans did between 27 BC and 429 AD, and don’t even get me started on those Vikings!

Even in these modern times, there are still clubs like Athletic Bilbao who have an unwritten rule that states that only players from the Basque Country and Navarre, or the Northern Basque country in France are to eligible to play for them.

https://sqaf.club/athletic-bilbao-transfer-policy/

In 2017 there was a massive controversy when the question of Catalan independence was raised. For you younger readers, Barcelona used to be a vocal champion of the Catalan people, the Nou Camp or Camp Nou has the words “mes que un club” written on it’s stand. Translated into English ” More than a club”.

Unfortunately since 2017, Barca has sold out in a lot of respects, with some fans claiming it has been reduced to  “Madridification” in it’s bid to be a global brand. Barca used to proudly be the only club without a sponsorship logo on the front of their shirts, however, now that they are skint, all that has gone out of the window.

Football belongs to the fans though, as our great FA says – fans matter!

We need to resist.

Football, or at least the football that I know and love is fiercely partisan. It’s them v Us, and if you are not with us, you are against us. Something which had to be spelt out to Alan Smith that day at Stamford Bridge. I was amongst those in the crowd that day, sat on the side in that shitty stand, on the receiving end of his two fingered gesture when we sang “You go to Scum, you don’t come back” . The same applies Jordan and McQueen, who, after a 40 year gap are still not welcome at ER by certain fans who really know how to hold a grudge. We’re Leeds United, we don’t give a f***. That’s what makes it so special. We are Leeds and we are proud of it. How I long for the fans who sing “all Leeds aren’t we” and all the rest of these new songs to actually believe this. Sadly, as demonstrated by the comments on social media of late from some of our “fans”, we are probably not all Leeds.

I am realistic. I know we don’t own the Club. We don’t make the rules, we are not in charge, it’s not our money. You need to be one of the Rich and Powerful to own a football club, unless you are GFH of course, who were skint and powerful and managed to “save” our Club by buying it from B*tes according to a certain fan group. And if you believe them, you’ll believe anybody. Sentiments from the recent Tracey Crouch review were similar. Fans don’t want to own their clubs, we just want to have some say and we want the owners to respect the match going fans. 

The Premier League, UEFA and FIFA are all basically in it for the money. Football is a cash cow and they are milking it, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You only have to look at the last six months and the attempt to launch the European Super League. These football organisations hold the rights to a massive money making business opportunity. Football to them is just a huge commercial enterprise, full of dodgy dealings, corporate glad handing and TV, advertising and gambling revenue streams. The fact that Platini and Sepp Blatter are currently being charged with fraud isn’t a surprise, the only surprise is that it has taken so long. It is pitifully laughable that the EFL chose to pick on Cellino, claiming he was unfit to be our owner because of some VAT on a yacht, when all the shady dealings were going on with the awarding of the World Cup etc. Pathetic to say the least, when Shaun Harvey couldn’t even tell us if Ken B*tes actually owned or sold Elland Road under his tenure.

We can resist this corporate globalisation.

Some sportsmen are actually doing things. As much as I dislike Djokovic, he is standing up against the big sponsors in tennis and refusing to play along with them. I have read somewhere that part of the terms and conditions of sponsorship in tennis is that you are duty bound to appear in TV interviews after a game. Unlike football which is 90 minutes, plus Fergie / Klopp time, a single mens tennis game can last hours. 11 hours in that Isner v Mahut match at Wimbledon in 2010. Yet they are all forced to sit there, like performing monkeys facing questions like “how do you feel?” and they can’t reply with “bloody knackered, mate, what do you think?”. Even Ronaldo covered up a Coke bottle in an interview in 2020. 

Corporate sport is fake, it’s choreographed nonsense. Words are rehearsed and pre planned to fit the required corporate image. Answers are set and practiced using language that has been carefully opinion polled and monitored by the image marketers to ensure that nobody says anything that might upset anyone else, in case it damages the brand or doesn’t fit the narrative. Like Trevor Sinclair last week, who raised the delicate issue of whether the Sheffield Utd player had received his required intervention in his arm, following his mysterious collapse on the pitch. His feed was summarily cut by a panicking producer.  Oh dear, Trevor.

All we want on MOTD is to see the highlights and replays of the action / goals from different angles. We don’t want to see three middle aged, rich men pretend that they are not reading from a scripted autocue, with carefully rehearsed cliched dross, speckled with the fake Wrighty loud bursts of laughter. As the brilliant Mary Whitehouse Experience guys before they grew up used to say, “Chinny reck on” .

This is why Bielsa is such a breath of fresh air. His interviews at times are just majestically maverick. 

The PL wants all the teams in the league to fit the brand, right down to the same seating style in the dug outs. It doesn’t matter if the stadium is shiny new like Spurs, or like the 1930’s relic that is currently our West Stand. It all has to be the same, so it looks good on the telly. Even though each team has a unique history, with an equally unique fan base, they can’t treat individual teams like individual identities. I agree that standardising things like away ticket prices is a boon. But they expect a one size fits all, and it clearly doesn’t. Not many clubs will take their full allocation of away  tickets to every game, especially the long distance ones. But we do, and we fight to the death for them as well. Not all the PL clubs fill their grounds to capacity, but we do, and tickets are like gold dust.

Our club want us to fit the PL brand, and it’s probably somewhere in the terms and conditions of the PL to do so, but when it comes to ticketing that’s a different issue. Bearing in mind when it comes to away allocations the rule is something like 10% of the total capacity up to 3,000 max, not many of the PL clubs take their full allocation of away tickets. Of those clubs that do, many have an effective closed shop for away tickets, dependent on a points system with a historical loyalty record of regular ticket purchases including home season tickets. I was speaking to a Spurs fan who has just accepted he’s never going to get an away ticket, even though his season ticket is more than double what we pay at Leeds. He and many others respect the fact that long standing loyalty trumps new fans. When we asked Leeds to continue with it’s loyalty accrued in the doldrums over the last 16 years of non PL football, well you know what happened.  

The PL wants football to be available to everyone all the time. But at the expense of the League and FA Cups, but UEFA and FIFA would rather the Chumpions and Europa Leagues take presidence over all. After all, European football is the main selling factor to the global TV audiences, isn’t it? The home nations Cup competitions are minor inconveniences, apart from the fact that winning the FA and League cups still get you into Europe – until they eff around with that one, of course.

Did you know Leeds don’t have another scheduled away 3pm kick off on a Saturday after the Chelski game until February? Unless the True Gods of Football decide different in the meantime. But fans matter?

Clubs like Spurs and Man City (albeit without consultation of the fans) have bought in paperless e-ticketing. Most have gone cashless. Why? Because it’s convenient for them. With the plus side that they can monitor your every purchase and tailor you ads on all your devices to their company sponsors. Hmmm. Did they ever ask what we want?

If you ask the average match going fan, they would rather the club spend money on decent beer and food and facilities, and make it cheaper, than splashing the cash on swanky turnstiles and MORE electronic payment systems that crash when the going gets tough. At the start of the season they introduced touch screens for beer that didn’t have the capacity to recognise that a product was sold out, so people were merrily ordering and paying for something that just wasn’t available. Would that have happened at the cash till? 

As for the e ticketing. What happens if you have someone who doesn’t have a smart phone because they can’t afford the £35 (and the rest) a month for one? What about people who still have a Nokia 3210? What about people who can’t afford the latest tech? This is active discrimination against the digitally excluded. Paper tickets are green, can be recycled, but more importantly are a lasting tangible memory. Even plastic season ticket cards can be recycled. E ticketing requires electricity and no end of tech management to protect your security and data from being hacked, all which requires masses of servers using masses of power. Not as green as what you think.

My final salvo is banking.

When Leeds first introduced card payments for tickets, it was a given and accepted- progress. They started with the initial admin charge for using a bank card. It was just one charge for every time you bought something regardless of how many tickets you bought. Fairs fair. The banks charged them for using the service. Then under B*tes, they said that they had to charge a transaction card for each ticket you bought. Eh? Why should the banks charge them for every ticket you bought in a single transaction? They were only processing one event, surely? Now it’s common place.

Recently Amazon have decided to stop letting us use UK based Visa cards for purchases. Why? Because the bank charges are too high? Given Amazon make so much money from UK sales, how much can UK based Visa companies  be cutting into the mass wealth of Jeff Bezos? He’s sending weirdly shaped rockets into space for a laugh. He doesn’t need the money. Are the banks so ruthless?

If we go completely cashless, we will be at the mercy of the big banks. Then they can do what they want and hike up the “transaction charges” as they like. We are not going to be able to stop them. It’s a quid now, but once the system gets ingrained, the routine £1 may well end up a fiver, and we will be powerless, slaves to the big banks and big corporations. If you stick to contactless, you won’t even see the money leaving. You could be paying anything to get into the ground, and no know about it – but hey – that’s progress. NO! Cash is king

Swim against the tide.

RESIST