There’s been a recent upsurge in interest in the branch lately and enquiries about becoming a new member.

If you want to join the branch, please complete the attached pdf which is the new members form.

Sign it and post with two passport sized photographs and a stamped, self addressed envelope to the address provided. Once the form is processed, you will receive your membership card and your photocard and free LUSC card wallet.

Any email enquiries, please use pjmcmanus2011@yahoo.co.uk or facebook https://www.facebook.com/HarrogateWhites/

Things to know about Harrogate & District LUSC.

We are an official LUSC branch and abide by the rules and regulations of the LUSC.

If you want to travel with the branch, you will need to become a member. You can join up from wherever you are in the world. Our furthest paid up members are in Norway. The branch is Harrogate and District – Norway is kind of a district. However, you can only be a member of ONE LUSC branch at a time, we are not in the business of poaching from other branches.

If you just want to follow us on facebook, the public page is open to all. The closed group is just for branch members only, and this is where the departure details for away games etc. is. We don’t routinely accept or send friend requests on facebook, nothing personal, just don’t do it. But if you wish to join the closed group once you have joined up, we will message you directly. We do not have any other social media presence.

Please note, we have NO exclusive access to away match tickets or home match tickets.

We do not have a magic ticket tree. If we did, I wouldn’t have so many grey hairs.

We can help you order your own tickets on ticket sale days if you do not have access to a computer / device, but you need to have a Leeds United customer number.

We can only offer a reasonably friendly group, albeit a little sarcastic and cynical at times, who like a chat and a seat (and a sing song) on the bus, if you are lucky enough to get a ticket. The days of the LUSC getting tickets have long, long gone. Most of us enjoyed those times when we had them and are now embittered about the how times have changed. But we do enjoy a reminisce about the old days – at least The Chairman does.

The branch meets every month, normally on the 1st Sunday of the month at 8pm at the Londesborough Club, Bower Road, Harrogate, unless Leeds are playing, in which case it is the next Sunday. All current and prospective members are welcome. The branch regularly attend the fortnightly LUSC exec meetings (alternate Zoom ones). Anyone can attend the exec meetings at ER, you just cannot speak / vote unless you are on the exec of the branch. There is an AGM every year in July for the branch and the main LUSC. Every member is welcome to attend. Every month we have a vote for Player Of the Month, this gets collated and then at the end of the season, the LUSC Player Of The Season gets a nice shiny glass trophy (if we are ever allowed to get near the players again to award them it)

Our branch is non profit, any monies raised just goes back into the branch via reduced coach fares to away games and prizes etc. for our raffles, and on the end of season BBQ.

We do currently sponsor a Leeds United player and any funds that are generated go towards that sponsorship as well. Our current sponsored player is Harrogate’s own, Ryan Edmondson, who is currently on loan at Fleetwood Town. According to the Leeds United programme Joe Gelhardt is standing in for Ryan at the moment on the sponsors page.

There is an end of season BBQ normally which is our main fundraising event. There is also a chance to participate in the weekly football card, again to raise funds, via our Fundraising Secretary, Andy Yates .

The Chairman Charley Megginson and ex committee member Dave Rowson are normally found at the Peacock matchdays. Some of us spend pre match and post match at The Golden Lion in Holbeck, where the steak and chips is excellent!

Dave Rowson is also responsible for the Stan Bowles calendar, which is aiming to raise funds and awareness for Alzheimers Research. Dave has also written a book “We’re not Leeds, We ARE Leeds”, which describes some of our memorable moments from our European days. Branch member Phil Reeves has also written a book “You Are My Sunshine” which describes a cracking few years before the Premier League took over everything. Both available via Amazon or direct from the publishers. If you get in touch, we can give you a cheapness code, as we are from Yorkshire and that’s how we are.

The website is run by The Secretary and the Media and Publicity Officer in between proper (paid) work and running the branch. We are not the quickest to respond to things, but all good things come to those who wait.

The blog is the blog. If you get offended easily – don’t read it. It’s completely independent of everything and everyone. It is just opinion and thoughts. You are allowed to disagree with it, but the MPO will just ignore what you say anyway.

Any further questions, please get in touch. If you cannot print off the pdf, just email us and we will send a form out in the post.

Cheers

MPO

New members Form

It seems Leeds fans as a collective have been wishing for lots of things lately. A new stadium, somewhere to go for a drink with your mates before the game now that the Pavilion is out of bounds to us non corporate plebs, three points at home, three points away, the midfield stringing three passes together. How about a new striker, maybe a new defender – but definitely not any more new midfielders. Getting straight onto the website on ticket selling day, actually getting a ticket on ticket selling day, not seeing this on ticket selling day…

The list of things that we wish for is as infinite as the number of braids Kalvin can get in his hair.

In the main, most of these things are positive. In the main, aside from the initially fury at gifting a goal  because of a Cooper backpass gone wrong, or Dan James’s inability to get the ball out from under his feet in the 18 yard box, or after yet another 90 minutes of random refereeing decisions have flummoxed us, we are more or less grown up about these things. Once the frustration has passed after the in depth post mortem discussion in the pub, we calm down and we go again. In the main, most of us can come to the conclusion that it still isn’t Christmas yet, we’ve seen a lot worse with all our players fit, let alone with 5 of the 1st teamers out and realistically, we are still only 6 points off Europe as it stands.

I say in the main.

Fortunately, I don’t do Bunch of Titters, Instagram etc. and only go on facebook when I have to. I get people telling me second hand what’s been said on these social media platforms. Generally, it’s people who are new to the Leeds United ups and downs malarky. Some are recent returnees though, and old enough to know better frankly, but some are the newer fans who have never seen us in the Premier League. Apparently second season Bielsa tactics are wearing thin and we need to get rid of everyone apart from Raphinha. Apparently the Board need to spend at least another £100 million in the January transfer window and get a “proper” number 9 in. Apparently, Bielsa has lost it and we need Jose if we are going to stay up. Be careful what you wish for – I say.

Honestly?

I have pairs of pants and socks older, wiser and with far more football experience than some of these whingers. I have more respect for the opinions of my Champions League lucky pants and the Europa Cup, now sadly singled, orphaned, lucky socks, than our new fans right now. And as for those miserable wasters who felt fit to run down to the front at Southampton away after the final whistle and shout abuse at Meslier, well they can sod right off. It’s fair enough to vent your spleen during the game at poor clearances and misplaced passes, but to run to your players giving them the w**ker sign after they know they’ve been a bit poor, that’s just pathetic. We are Leeds United, win, lose or draw. If they haven’t played well, by all means, don’t clap them off the pitch, but screaming abuse at them because you can’t handle us losing (with our makeshift defence and Lord  Bamford still out) is pitiful. You don’t do that, whatever you are on. Get a sodding grip. The next time I  see that, I’ll film you all and then name and shame you glory hunting kn*b heads. No doubt it will all be in complete contrast to your famous debut on “awaydays lads bible” when you’re stood in your skinny jeans, bomber jacket and flat cap proudly singing “All Leeds Aren’t We”, because you’re the bestest Leeds fan in the world.

Be careful what you wish for. Very careful. Fame is a fickle thing.

Should the fans with the patience and concentration of a gnat, or cat on a hot tin roof, even, get their way and Bielsa goes, who are we going to end up with? If Bielsa goes, I can’t see Kalvin staying, and if Newcastle put a bid in of £100 million, who is going to turn that down? Not Radrizzani. But all these keyboard warriors know more about the game than Bielsa does, surely?

If we get a new stadium, how’s it going to look? There’s so much corporate interest in Leeds right now, if the capacity goes up to 60,000, how much of that is going to be normal fans and how much is going to go to the money men who want to wine and dine their clients? This was Arsenal last week, the whole of that middle tier right around the ground disappeared at half time. You’re not telling me that they all just happened to go en masse to the bog or to get a pint in, at the same time? If they did, the bogs and facilities must be miles better than the ones in the Captains Corner.

I’m not saying that the team don’t deserve a bit of criticism at times, but it has to be taken in context of the situation we are in. Bamford is still out since that knock in the Newcastle game. In fact, Patrick hasn’t been the same since he opened that cycle lane outside the ground. Elland Road hasn’t been right since he opened that cycle lane. Probably one of the most ill conceived ideas by Leeds City Council ever, to reduce pollution around Holbeck and Beeston. For approximately 20 days a year, depending on Cup runs, the traffic is gridlocked for two hours before and after the game. No one can move. Cars, buses nor coaches. This doesn’t even include when they have the fun fair on or when there’s concerts or big events at ER. So, for the minor green benefit of the other 340 odd days per year, when realistically there might be 10 people cycling along ER per day, that carbon reduction is completely negated by the fumes of congestion generated by the 20+ days of static traffic, crawling double decker R2’s trying to get to the bus park and dropping people off on the motorway, taxis doing 6 point turns to try get back into town after they’ve dropped off, people (new fans) going repeatedly up and down ER trying to find somewhere to park and the massive queues trying to get in and out of the car parks, pre and post match. And this doesn’t even include the ones who to drive to ER and then have to swap so the Mrs gets in the front seat, normally blocking that bit before you get to McDonalds,  cos yeah, that’s a great place to stop.

Leeds City Council – ruining our roads since 1976.

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/transport/leeds-united-striker-patrick-bamford-backs-new-cycle-lane-which-runs-from-elland-road-park-and-ride-to-leeds-city-centre-3389937

Kalvin has International Duty fatigue. He played his heart out in the Euros and now is suffering from England Lag. If you look at it, most of the England players who were in the Euros have got International Lag. None of them have genuinely competed much this season. £100 million man, Kane? Ok, he has his own, very selfish, reasons. But Rashford, Maguire, Mount, Henderson, Sterling, Rice – hardly any of them have even got to 50 fantasy premier league points this season. We were all very proud of Kalv, but what is the price Leeds has had to pay for such a good showing in the National Team? Is playing for your country truly worth it? Future captain at Leeds? Future captain for Engerland? Be careful what you wish for.

We are still on a second string defence with Firpo, Ayling and Koch out. We have no replacement for Kalvin, we just haven’t. If Ben White was still here and his Emirates price tag hadn’t gone to his head, he would have been a good option, but the £ signs have gone to his head and he isn’t here. It’s all well and good saying we need a better defence, where are we going to find them? If we do get someone, it’ll take them 6 months to get fit enough and used to playing Bielsa’s way. That’ll be no good either – the season will be over. New players in the January transfer window? Careful what you wish for.

This whole “second season” thing. These comments that Bielsa has been “found out” and we are going down. In a way, yes, other teams have found us out, but not how you might think. The rest of the league have learnt a trick or two from last season. They aren’t necessarily winning because they are playing the better football (apart from Scum raising their game). They are merely disrupting our game by falling over all the time and ruining our rhythm. The referees aren’t doing anything about it, so are complicit in the mass cheating that our games have become. The Wolves players spent more time rolling about and sat down on the turf than actually passing the ball to one another. As soon as they were about to lose the ball they just fell over, clutching a finger, a thumb, an arm, or a leg or nod of their head ( …. stand up, sit down, keep moving). When they did foul us, they fell over as well, so it deflected from the real suspect of the crime. They struggled to put a clean tackle in, so they just went down. It was like the paddy field scene in the last Rambo film, but without the explosions or bow and arrow. If you haven’t seen it, get it out from Blockbuster. It’s ok but it’s an 18 – for profanity and violence it says – honest. But, Bielsa’s way is not to play for a foul though, we just get on with it. Our players will just get up, carry on and not look to penalise the opposition. I’d rather we played like that, than play like Villa.

What I’m trying to say is, we aren’t playing that bad with what we have got. When our team is fully fit and we are still as bad? Then you can start moaning.

Finally, technology. Our next away game is Spurs. At Spurs, for your “convenience” they are doing away with paper tickets and the “ticket” is a QR code on your phone. Luckily this hasn’t extended to away tickets as we speak. I think this has happened at the Etihad as well, without, I might add, consultation with any fans or fans groups. Now you know how I feel about technology. It’s helpful at times, but it’s not the be all and end all. Cash is king!

Tickets on your phone?

Really?

Why?

My fondest memories are of football and gigs. Films and theatre shows. I still have a collection of my old tickets somewhere, and when I look through these little tattered bits of paper, everything comes rushing back. The younger / tech generation just want convenience, click, click, swipe, move on. Where are your lasting memories? Where’s your tangible mementos? There’s nothing like waiting for the postman for your little white envelope (when you actually get on the Leeds website and get a ticket!). There’s also nothing like feeling the panic when it gets to Thursday and everyone else has got their ticket apart from you. Then you ring up the ticket office and they tell you that it has definitely been sent out, but if it hasn’t arrived by Friday, you’ll have to ring them and arrange for a duplicate.

Think of all the fun things you would miss out on if it just came up on your phone. It wouldn’t be an away day if you weren’t sat there, the night before, making sure your ticket was where you put it. Then double checking the same before you go to bed. Then checking it the next morning when you wake up and just before you leave. Checklist – keys, wallet, ticket, head. This is providing it’s just your ticket, of course. Imagine how quiet life would be for all the branch secretaries out there who sort out transport and tickets for their branches! We’d have nothing to do and might actually get some sleep the night before!

Plus, you’d miss out on the fun of taking multiple shots of your carefully arranged ticket, beer and the pack of cards on the table on the train, so you get the perfect picture to upload onto social media. They’d also be no stash of beer soaked, crumpled tickets in your adidas trainer box to take a photo of at the end of the season. It takes time to arrange all your tickets out in order. It would be no fun if you just had print outs of black and white QR codes.

There is something unique and special about having a paper ticket. Plus, paper is recyclable, so it’s green enough. No need to charge up and take two power banks (with the leads) with you in case one runs out and you can’t get the code up on your phone at the turnstile. That’s provided you get enough reception, and if your phone hasn’t died after using the flash on the last 20 photos hasn’t drained it. You’ve already wasted enough charge getting your acca on and checking out the latest instas after the reception kept going down in the train tunnels. Too much stereotyping? Ok – I’ll stop.

Football isn’t just a spectator sport. Football is a ritual. It’s a routine. It’s a release from real life (spoiler alert – see next blog). It’s not about convenience. It’s not about the result. It’s about the experience and everything you have done to get there and back again. Fans aren’t just spectators, we are willing participants. If you want proof, just think about the build up to the last minute equaliser against Wolves. We are all individual, valuable assets and I don’t want us ending up as just another barcode, to be just scanned in like another number in the Big Machine.  Unless of course, you are a trained assassin who kicks ass – like this guy.

As the old saying goes “there’s two sides to every story”, I’d probably say, there’s at least two sides, if not more. What you choose to accept and believe, is up to you. The trouble is, nowadays, the “truth” is often what the people with the power of influence, want you to think, rather than what the facts are. It’s not to say that everything in life is purely objective in the true black or white definition. It’s impossible to not have shades of grey in fact. And a lot of stuff is down to opinion at times depending on the given scenario. When it becomes more subjective, rather than objective, there’s always going to be disagreement.

So I read with interest some of the discussion around what Pep Guardiola said about the Man City fans after the Leipzig game. It’s the early rounds of the Chumpions League, the ground was a bit empty and quiet and he was disappointed. Was he wrong to say what he said? I think he has now apologised for saying it, but why should he? All he was saying was what he thought. He’s been castigated for saying it by many, some of the Man City fans have hit back. But there’s two sides to every story.

This was the take of the Manchester Evening News:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/man-city-guardiola-empty-seats-21622921

Why am I particularly interested? Well, it might be us in a few years, mighten it? Well, we can only hope that in a few years, we are playing in the Champions League so regularly that we are getting bored with it.

Was Pep wrong? Where do we start?

All he did was say what he thought. What is wrong with that? Firstly, the facts. It was the 1st round of the Chumpions League. They were playing RB Liepzig. Citeh won 6-3. The capacity of The Etihad is 54,000 give or take, the attendance was 38,000 give or take. The price of a ticket at Citeh is getting more expensive. The regular fans are going to games twice a week as a matter of course-in every cup generally to the bitter end. Citeh have forced a digital ticketing system onto their fans without any discussion, which unfortunately doesn’t work properly, leading to multiple problems with getting the right tickets for the right games.  The reaction. Pep looked round, there were huge gaps in the crowd, it had been a bit quiet at times during the game, he got a bit cross. How was he to know what problems fans were having with their tickets? How was he supposed to know the effect of being so good that you are in basically every competition going year on year, is going to affect fans pockets so severely?.

Of course , as usual SkyTVisf**kings**t did it’s best to shit stir the pot and sought to further drive a wedge between the manager and the fans. Divide and conquer. It’s an old trick, works like a charm if you want to increase your viewing figures by getting “latest” reaction from the usual hasbeen pundits. Let’s ask our expert panel. None of whom have never been in Pep’s enviable position of multiple trophies and league titles though.

Divide and conquer is also fantastic if you want to cause trouble and capitalise on the weakened parties after the dust has settled. Bates tried it with us, but we were made of stronger stuff. We stuck it out, but there were casualties of war and some of the bridges can never be unburnt, and some of the cuts will never heal. A grudge is for life after all. I digress…

Both sides, the manager and the fans have the right to have a little gripe though. two sides to every story.

The real difficulty is managing the expectation, of both fans and the players and managers (also including Chairmen and owners, I guess).

Take our position after the game on Saturday. It wasn’t a bad display, but we lost. Arguably Antonio shouldn’t even have been on the pitch after the antics of his flailing arms. Their equaliser was a unlucky ricochet. Our defence has once again been torn to shreds, by injury to Llorente and Koch and by the fourth official and Gurning in Struijk’s case. Even with these extenuating circumstances, our so called fans have still felt fit to condemn the team, the manager, the board and the owners with their usual vitriol. It’s fine to have a rant, we all do, but to continue to whinge and over exaggerate our position in the table even though it’s not even October, that’s just excessive.

How do these people think it makes the players feel when they see this terrible language?

How do these people think it makes the manager feel when he hears this? I won’t even mention what Kinnear, Radrizzani and the 49ers might be feeling.

Bielsa isn’t going to react, because he won’t. He’s a consummate professional who takes his job very seriously. We know from the picture from QPR in February 2019 just how seriously Bielsa takes his job. But if he wasn’t such a dedicated manager, if he didn’t respect his work and his job as much, he’d be completely entitled to go off on one and have a pop at the “fans” who are criticising him so vehemently. But he won’t, cos he’s not like that.

It’s not even October.

Like most, I have stayed away from social media since Saturday so I can avoid all the naysayers and doom mongers. I said at the start of the season, it was going to be a marathon not a sprint. We need to hold our nerve. We’ve seen much much worse. They’ll be some clever dick reading this now who going to start saying “oh God, they are going to dig up going to watch Hereford and Histon when we were shit again” .

Actually, I am.

I was once deigned a “glory hunter” and I retorted by saying if I was a glory hunter, I would have never staved the course when we were terrible. Like a few select loyal fans, we have been there through the good times and the bad. The ones who have almost self imploded with vitriol, brimstone and fire this weekend just need to have a good look at themselves and listen to what they are spouting. If they can’t take that we are three wins away from Europe, having played 4 of the top 7 in the league, still technically in the League Cup and it’s still not yet October, they really need to give their heads a wobble. If we are still in the same position by Halloween then I suppose they can get worried.

Are these same people going to be clamouring for tickets if we get past Arsenal and end up in the quarter finals? I’ll tell you what, if we do, anyone who has been slating the team or Bielsa off these last 48 hours doesn’t deserve to get a ticket. Ooh they won’t like that, will they? 

Please, for the good of the rest of us, if you expect instant success and won’t accept anything less, just hand your season ticket back, or get yourself off that season ticket waiting list. Definitely don’t try for any away tickets either. Just leave the rest of us to it. We’ll see you back when we start doing well again, I have no doubt.

Here’s Chorlton to cheer you all up

thanks to googleimages for the picture of the happiest dragon on the planet

Just a little update for Slow Mo September.

Slow Mo September because frankly since Newcastle it has been slow motion for the last few days.

Those stairs were horrendous for those of us who chose to use them rather than cheating by using the lift. For some bizarre reason, when I think of Newcastle away, climbing up those stairs is never the first thing that pops up in my mind. Trying to get 3,000 people through 2 turnstiles with 5 minutes to go before kick off – that’s what I normally remember.

To top it all off, for those of us who did the St James’s stairs without stopping for a breather, when I got to the top it was like a bloody sauna. Couldn’t flipping breathe. The least they could have done was taken a leaf out of the Great North Run and had people with those foil blankets, cold water and maybe a few oxygen cylinders on tap. Flipping nothing …. apart from a load of drunks. Even a massive cheer for those who reached the top would have been welcome. Nothing.

Yeah, Gary Neville and professional Scouser Carragher apparently did a race or something, and one of them made it up to the top in less than a minute. They’d have been better off enjoying the whole matchday experience and trying it then. Putting themselves on an even keel with the average away dayer by going round a load of pubs first knocking back 10 pints of Double Maxim or whatever the lager drinkers imbibe now, finishing with a couple of rounds of Jagerbombs or port if they have any, then a bacon cheese burger, with onions covered in tomato ketchup from outside the ground…. and THEN trying to get up those stairs. THEN they could have drawn a comparison that I would have been interested in.

You may jest – but those of you who want the ground to be developed – beware. If they start even thinking of copying anything like that, I’ll be straight on them demanding full on facilities for the old, decrepit and intoxicated. Never mind a lift, I want fancy shiny moving walkways like they have in airports. Mind you, if Leeds City Council had any say in it, they’d be demanding a bloody cycle path to go alongside it. St James’s Park might look good on the outside, but the view is crap, you can’t see the goal properly, sober or tiddly. Think of the fans, we have rights as well – old fans matter!

As for Fulham. I sent a few feelers out for a quick branch health survey after that penalty shootout and then that long, long journey home, resulting in most of us not seeing sight of the bed before 3am.

I’m pleased to report Mr Smythe finally saw a game at Craven Cottage at the 5th attempt. The Chairman similarly enjoyed a balti pie during the game and found the bus afterwards. Sonia managed to keep all her bones in one piece and Mad Max actually went to a game with an intact pair of glasses, and got home with the same pair still in one piece.

Proof of Life?

Here it is- I declare these last two games casualty free ( as far as I know anyway) and therefore a pretty good result. Roll on a nice home tie for a place in the quarter finals. Full house at Fortress ER again.

Modern day football.

Like all things (supposedly), football is better now than it used to be in the old days, because simply put we have progressed. With the benefit of more knowledge, better education, faster technology, sporting breakthroughs in science, modern day football is so much better nowadays.

But sadly, modern day football, like modern day life, in it’s desperation to demonstrate continued progression, the pursuit of true progress has fallen by the wayside to progressiveness. Producing something which is so sterile, it is devoid of the passionate football we fell in love with all those years ago. It has become something which we barely recognise, the bare skeleton of 22 men on a pitch, dripping only in rags of ridiculous rules, VAR, TV companies (along with their biased narratives) and money, money, money. 

What am I on about now, Dear Readers?

I have finally brought myself round to watching the Livarpool game.

Ah.

Now you know what I am going on about. And I have to say, I use the word “watching” in it’s loosest meaning. Those of you who subscribe to SkyTVisf**ings**t understand what I am on about. The bit that I was really interested in “watching”, I couldn’t actually “watch”. As Gary “If Rashford can get an OBE for a non football related thing, why can’t I get one” Neville kept reminding us, “they” couldn’t show us the challenge.

Why not, Gary?

By the way, Gary, I understand you want to be the one who champions “real” football fans who want “fairer” football for fans. I understand you want football to have more stringent rules of ownership etc. and you want “proper fans” to have more power and a say of how they want their football clubs to work. I know, because you say this ad infinitum given the opportunity. But I don’t think you understand the hypocrisy of where you are coming from. If you take your situation in it’s most basic form, you are a TV pundit. Your wages are paid for by the very TV company who has singlehandedly helped ruin football for matchgoing fans since 1992. The team you part own, Salford FC is sponsored by a division of the parent company of  SkyTVisf**kings**t. By this virtue alone, YOU are part of the problem, NOT the solution. I love it how you preach (on SkyTVisf**kings**t) about how fans are cheated by bureaucracy and how “the System” needs to reflect what fans want and that fans “need a voice” and true representation. All this whilst you and your pundit pals are responsible for churning your rhetoric narrative, nauseatingly at times, in order to get what your bosses, the True Gods of Football, want. Which is football on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so they can get their audiences and all their viewing figures up there to create all the advertising income they need to fund their greed. The greed which in turn, feeds the greedy agents and players who just want to line their pockets more. The TV companies need constant exposure and their pursuit of their global brand is the only thing that drives their ambition. Their addiction is publicity, and they will stop at nothing to keep themselves at the top of that tree. Why do you think they spend so much time on the non stories which are the transfer windows when the football isn’t particularly interesting? Why do you think they blow every little bit of “news” out of proportion? To keep the audience figures up, Gary. It’s airtime and the longer they can keep folk addicted to their channels, the better. 

Gary, give yourself a break lad. You aren’t going to get an OBE like Rashford. Even though he could feed all the poor and needy children in the UK with what he earns in a week. Even though, what he gets in sponsorship alone in a day is more than what most people earn in a year, no one will see that. Why? Because they choose to ignore it. It’s like film and TV stars at the Oscars, or the Emmys making “statements” about lack of inclusivity and poverty, all whilst parading obscenely expensive outfits and jewellery, barely a stone’s throw from some of the most impoverished people in the cardboard box ghettos of Hollywood and New York. The stench of hypocrisy hidden from the glittery lights by the perfume of the middle class Elite.

I digress – back to the blog.

Free the Pascal One.

Why couldn’t you show that tackle, Gary?

Was it really that bad? After all, from where I was in my stand, it didn’t actually look that bad. In real time, Struijk went in for the challenge, they both got up from it, or at least Elliot tried to get up but sat back down again. The ref turned,  looked at them and played on. Both of the teams played on for a few seconds. Salah went up to Elliot, told him to stay down and Gurning Klopp ran onto the pitch. Then a load of people ran onto the pitch. It was then, and only then, must have been 10 seconds later, that the ref ran back and blew. I couldn’t see what was going on properly, the stretcher with the head stabilising board came onto the pitch, but Elliot was clearly conscious. It didn’t look like a head injury. Yes, there was a load of confusion, but the lad was clearly alert and it wasn’t a concussion. It wasn’t an incident like the sad Christian Eriksen episode, which incidentally the cameras were focused on 100%. Did Gary and SkyTVisf**kings**t think it was as serious as this? Honestly?

I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure if someone is still conscious and moving, they are safe. In real time, if the challenge was that dangerous the ref should have stopped the game there and then and brandished his red card, rather than waiting for Klopp, Stockley Park, the 4th official and the rest of Klopps relatives to tell him to do so. It wouldn’t have surprised me if GCHQ, Menwith Hill and the Big Ball at Fylingdales hadn’t put their two pennorth in as well. And all the time, there was Gary on SkyTVisf**kings**t saying “We can’t show it”.

Why Gary? We have all seen Roy Keane’s tackle on Alfie. We all saw Cantona’s two footed leap at that Palace fan. We even saw that Son tackle on Everton’s Gomes.   

The TV audience has been completely desensitised to any violence / peril / gore over the last 30 years. What is the actual difference of watching that tackle going to make?

30 years ago, you wouldn’t have heard the F word said in the cinema without having a XXX certificate shoved in your face. You used to have “parental advisory” stickers on your “risque” album covers. Now Samuel L Jackson has that as his personal Snakes On A M****F***** Plane motto and even cartoon characters use smutty language.

We were brought up on the likes of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, and Rocky and Rambo. Later on it was Tarantino and Kill Bill et al. The 30+ year olds were brought up on a diet of GTA and TuPac & Biggie gangland shootings. The 20+ year olds have been brought up with SAW, Gears of War and Halo. The 15 year olds are brought up Fortnite and The Walking Dead. The average 18 rated film of the 80s in the cinema, has now been totally eclipsed by the 15 rating films in today’s film theatres. We don’t need to be protected and cossetted by SkyTVisf**kings**t and FA old codgers censors board. As if you lot know what is right and proper, your moral compass is so far apart you wouldn’t know inpropriety if it smacked you in the face with a wet fish.

With the advent of Youtube and social media, all you need to do is whisper something about action films and those cheeky algorithms will select similar content for you to see next time you switch your device on. Tailored content which increasingly gets more intense the more you look. Before you know it, you could go from Colin The Caterpillar to watching The Human Centipede. Incidentally, this is an extremely unpleasant film – please do not go to Blockbuster and hire it.

What I am trying to say is that, in the 70s and 80s the scariest films you saw were Carrie, The Omen and Salems Lot. Nowadays, even the 12a films show violence and bad language de riguer. Limbs being hacked off and 15 minute fight scenes are common place. The Disney Channel is the only place to watch The Walking Dead. Disney – that’s right – the company that brought you Steamboat Willy and Minnie Mouse, showing you gruesome, gory zombie fight scenes.

Some of the Drill and Grime music on the radio glorifies gangs and violence and the music videos that kids and young people aspire to show scantily clad persons in suggestive poses and are little with lurid language. It’s a far cry from the New Seekers “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” and “All Kinds Of Everything” by Dana. We sat through the Sex Pistols and Punk for Pete’s sake. No one needs a modern day Tipper Gore to protect us. And for those of you who don’t know what I mean, here is the link. The might of Christian values and wholesome good Old American values – God Bless Dee Snider

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/filthy-fifteen-pmrc-censorship/

The viewing customers of today have been so anaesthetised by modern day life, nothing is going to phase them, Gary. Modern day sport includes a dedicated boxing channel, two competitors punching the living daylights out of each other. Boxing is an Olympic sport. MMA which is much more violent, isn’t an Olympic sport, but it’s still readily available to stream. Two guys punching and kicking the s**t out of each other in a cage. 

So, Gary, when you say “We can’t show you this” and “No one wants to see this sort of thing” actually no. Not really. No one is particularly bothered about a football challenge. Christian Eriksen having a medical emergency, that’s what we don’t want to see. A competitive challenge in a contact sport? That’s part and parcel of the professional game.

I’ll tell you what we don’t like to see in the professional game. Cheating and diving or to give it it’s modern day football correct terminology, clever game management. We don’t like to see things shown out of context, manipulated by the TV camera angles to make things look different to what they actually are. We don’t like deliberate selective misinterpretation, for effect, in order to sensationalise something. We don’t like to hear insinuation, supposition, hearsay or speculation, which may exaggerate or over emphasise something that isn’t really true. We really just want to watch the football as it happens on the pitch and listen to the commentary of the game as it happens.

As for Elliot, I hope he gets well soon. No hard feelings. Even he admits the challenge was fair and the way he landed, or perhaps how he stood up after the challenge caused the accident which damaged his ankle. At least he admitted it. He will hopefully heal and get back quickly as he’s young. Struijk? How long is it going to take him to heal? He’s been accused of deliberately going in with an illegal dangerous challenge. He didn’t, it was a fair tackle. He knows that, Elliot knows that. The FA may know that, but they are not going to admit it. After all, with all the furore that it has generated, with all the mass hysteria from Klopp and his team, with all the confusion from the ref not looking at VAR (why do they have VAR again?). Together with all the exaggeration from the TV pundits, they are going to look a little bit stupid if they withdraw the red card. 

All this just plays right into the old adage of Them v Us. As if Leeds fans didn’t already have a massive persecution complex. As if we didn’t need anymore excuses to feel let down by the FA and footballing authorities Elite. 

They All Hate Leeds Scum