Apologies for lack of monthly updates, The Chairman Charley slot is taking up far too much time but worth it, I think. Monthly update from the branch meeting held on Sunday 11th November as follows:

Monthly Branch Meeting

Thanks to everyone who showed up yesterday. Minutes from the meetings will be emailed out to the email list. Points arising are mainly regarding the Centenary plans, which will be dealt with in the A.O.B section below. The Player Of The Season prize will be presented pitchside at the QPR game on Saturday 8th December to Saiz. Any branch member who wishes to be put in the ballot to be the one who presents it to him needs to let us know by Weds 21st November. Thanks to Dave Rowson and Makaela Rolph for already asking to represent the branch in this venture. It was pointed out that had Kalvin Phillips been the winner of the trophy, that we excluded Andy Yates from entering it, just in case Kalvin starts to worry. The lucky dip from the Leeds United bag was won by Andy Yates (no surprise there) who selected one of the body fit shirts as his prize. It was agreed that the rest of the Leeds United stuff in the bag would be distributed out Tombola style at the pre Christmas monthly branch meeting. All branch members will be entered into the free draw, provided they get in contact with us to confirm before Friday 30th November (via email/messenger/text) or turn up at the meeting. As each winning ticket is drawn, the winner will have an opportunity to select their prize. If your ticket gets drawn but you are not at the meeting, it will be up to you to arrange to pick up your prize at another convenient time. The Chairman will select your prize for you if you are not available, I suggest being nice to The Chairman in this eventuality.

Memberships

Membership requests are still coming in. The Membership Secretary was seen by Mally at some point this last week and apparently he was also observed allegedly enjoying himself in a bar in Benidorm, according to Dave Rowson. (If you believe that, you’ll believe anything). Any  sightings of the Membership Secretary are welcome. We are hoping to have a teatime meeting with him soon at the curry house with any luck to give him another stack of forms.

Can I take this opportunity to remind folk that you can request to join the closed group of Harrogate & District on facebook, but if you haven’t filled a form in, you don’t stick a chance.

Away Games

It has been a bit busy lately, especially with the run of the two coach games due to the free for all ticket sales at Blackburn and Wigan. Thank you for all your patience. It is not easy sorting out two coaches. Luckily enough when we get to the Premiership the away allocations are so small that this won’t be an issue. We are currently taking bookings for T’Blades and provisional ones for Bolton (as we don’t know the allocation as yet). Thanks to stand in drivers Jamie and Mark, as well as the main man Jonathan for their services.

A.O.B

Centenary Plans

Football tournament 11 a side: We are still awaiting confirmation from Dean re the format of the competition, but the branch definitely has enough for a team and reserves should the schedules be a bit challenging. As soon as we hear back from the Club regarding the dates of the games etc. we will start the ball rolling. We still need to know about kit / officials / venues yet, hoping to hear from the SAB meeting group sooner rather than later.

Football penalty shoot out: Again, waiting confirmation, but we are envisaging that it will be a five man penalty shoot out at half time, run throughout the 2019-20 season at ER. We are hoping that it will go to sudden death if there isn’t a winner after 5 shots each (otherwise we could be there for ever). Depending on how many teams enter, it may not be as simple as winner goes through to next round, but we are hoping that it will be just a knockout competition week by week as it is much simpler. If anyone wishes to help organise this etc. please get in touch with the LUSC exec as many hands make light work.

Programme page

Anyone who has any interesting articles for the Leeds United programme page is welcome to send these in.

Christmas cd

As long as the cd player works on the coach, anyone is welcome to bring their own music for the bus (except Kevin bloody Wilson – Dave Poole!). Can I make a personal request for anyone who has a copy of the Wombling Merry Christmas by The Wombles to let me have it so I can add it to the Christmas cd for Villa. The Chairman informed me that the only thing that kept it from getting to Number 1 in the charts was actually some random song called Bohemian Rhapsody (weird name for a song) by some group called Queen. I have looked it up and according to the Official Charts, it was beaten into 5th place in 1974 by in ascending order 4th Barry White – you’re my first, my last, my everything, 3rd The Rubettes – Juke Box Jive, 2nd Bachman Turner Overdrive – you ain’t seen nothing yet and Number 1 pop pickers, Ken Wood’s favourite glam rock band –  Mud – Lonely This Christmas…. by 29th December 1974 it was Number 2 but technically that’s after Christmas.

 

The Wonderful World of Charley continues. Aided and abetted by Dave Rowson, front seat wing man Dave Poole featuring guest appearances from Sonia and the branch pedant. This week’s episode we pay homage to Star Trek cleaners, primary school assembly and second hand goods but firstly the 3,000

What are your top 5 things Charley, people are waiting desperately.

Q: Which people are waiting desperately?

A: My followers, 3000 of them

Q: 3,000? What do you mean followers? Are you their leader?

A: Followers, people who are following me. All these people who like me.

Q: Who are all these people? Isn’t it all a bit weird, people who you don’t really know, following you around. Isn’t that stalking?

A: There’s 3,000 of them, all waiting to see what I do next. It’s an army of followers, hanging on my every word.

Sonia: That’s what happened with another famous Charley……. Charles Manson.

Rowsey: Just tell me what your Top 5 is

Front of bus: KFC

A: No, that’s not my favourite

Front of bus: Yes it is, Leicester Forest KFC. The best KFC in the world. Next question..

A: Okay, KFC then

Best job in the world

If you were an actor and got given a part on Star Trek, can you imagine, you turn up on the first day and they say, you’re part of the landing party. I’d just say, thank you very much and get up and leave straight away.

Q: Eh??

A: That’d be it. You’d never be on again. Really, if you were going for a part, you’d be in with with one of the favourites, and say, no thanks, I’ll just stay up here with Scotty and fix the engines instead. I don’t want to go down to the planet.

Q: Well, if your part was a name you never heard of, I suppose?

Q: And why is it you never saw anyone else in that engine room? Why didn’t Scotty have a team of people to help. Why did he have to do it all himself?

A: Probably cos they had all gone down in a landing party to the planet and got killed.

Q: Well what were the rest of the crew doing on this 5 year mission? I tell you what, it was always very clean on The Enterprise. There must have been a load of cleaners on that starship. Imagine that, going all that way into space, trip of a lifetime, just to spend all day cleaning a starship. It must have took ages.

A: Yes, 5 years. At least they wouldn’t have to go down in a landing party to the planet .

Hymns at the Hawthorns

Q: Did you see they had The Lord is My Shepherd on that stand?

A: Yes, they must be very religious there. But they probably didn’t need His help today, we were awful in the 2nd half

Q: That’s a hymn you know. When we were at primary school, we all had to sing in assembly because we were Catholics.

A: I think everyone had to sing in assembly in those days, even if you weren’t Catholic

The Chairman: We used to sing Morning Has Broken, in assembly, that was my favourite

A: Great choice for the morning

Dave Poole: I got done for not singing, I couldn’t sing. I used to mime it.

A: What’s wrong with just miming it if you can’t sing? That’s a bit harsh. At least you were making an effort

Dave Poole: Was miming the wrong words

Mucky books (featuring “Life on Mars is the best song in the whole world ever”, Mr Pedant)

I would never choose to read a book if someone else had already read it.

Q: Eh???

A: I just like the smell of a new book, turning the pages no one else has turned. You know what I mean?

Q: So you wouldn’t read a book that someone else has opened?

A: No I prefer crispy untouched pages.

Q: So you would never go to a library?

A: Well that’s different, but I haven’t been to a library for years. I don’t think there are libraries anymore.

Q: But you would never get a book from the charity shop?

A: No, because someone else has already read it

Q: What about church? What do you do with the hymn books?

A: I just don’t like it when someone has left grubby marks on the pages

The Chairman: Yeah books when all the pages are stuck together

A: I’m not on about those sorts of books Charley

The Chairman: No. I mean when you can’t turn the pages at the top because someone has wet them

Dave Poole: I hate it too, all those bodily fluids sticking the pages together, it’s disgusting

The Chairman: Sticky pages, when you have spend ages peeling them apart

A: Christ, I really don’t mean those sorts of books!

Dave Poole: I don’t know what you are all on about, I’m on about when people have sneezed all over them, what were you all thinking?

Oh the innocence of it all…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rantings of a madman continue with the next installment of Chairman Charley – the Puppet Years.

I know I have kept you waiting long enough. The audience has been itching for more helpings of wise words from The Teachings of Charley, served up with a healthy dollop of creamy goodness last night – with the help of front of the bus tagmate Mr David Poole (I  really cannot unhear what I heard!) and the irrepressible / repressed but certainly not depressed – maybe depraved ?, Mr Dave Rowson.

So the question on the lips of The Chairman last night was…. drum roll please….

Q: How is it that no one ever noticed that Jeff Tracy bloke built a pool with a moveable lid for that rocket ship to come out of?

A: It was a brilliant camouflage. Do you mean Thunderbird 1?

Q: But didn’t anyone notice how much money he spent doing that? It must have cost a fortune, what were the authorities doing?

A: He was a billionaire Charley, he owned the whole island

Q: But he had that space centre as well, right in the middle of space – didn’t anyone notice that he must have spent a fortune getting all that stuff up there. The government should have said something?

A: The guy owned the whole island, Charley – I don’t think they were bothered as long as he paid his tax bills. He also had Thunderbird 2 and the underwater one.

Q: But someone should have been keeping an eye on all of this expensive stuff that he was spending his money on?

A: I genuinely don’t think they were bothered, plus Lady Penelope was minted anyway

Q: Yeah, someone should have been looking into her affairs as well

A: You do know this was just a puppet show don’t you, and not real life?

Q: But she had that big pink Rolls Royce and her own butler, Parker, swanning about all the time to these exotic places. How much would that have cost?

A: She was loaded, I don’t think it bothered her

Q: She had the lifestyle of the rich and famous, that one

Enter David Poole

Charley, it was just a puppet show on TV, it wasn’t real. How did you think that they could get away with it? They were all just puppets, not people. But I bet you fancied Lady Penelope didn’t you? I bet you had pictures of her which….

…and that, my friends ends the PG 15 of the Teachings of Charley ,folks.

As much as the Disclaimer on the website does what it is supposed to do, the rest of the conversation is over 18s only

 

 

 

 

Skytvisf**kings**t turns out is actually a great combination of characters for a password. It is probably the only good thing about it. I tell a lie, when it is sung, it forces them to turn the volume down and apologise for any bad language that anyone may have been offended over. Anything that forces them into making an apology is something to be applauded, so long live Skytvisf**kings**t!

I just need to acknowledge, I am well aware that there are many Leeds fans who are ecstatic that Leeds United are on telly, because otherwise they would never get to see them. I know that there are fans who live in Oz, the USA and the Far East etc. who without a doubt would trade in their nearest and dearest to be at a live game, but geographically find it impossible to do so. I know that there is an army of Leeds United season ticket holders (some of them first time season ticket holders at that) and platinum/gold/silver members who don’t stick a chance of ever getting to an away game who benefit from it. When we get promoted and the away allocation is EVEN less, there will be a lot more people who won’t get to see us play away.

It doesn’t make up for the fact that we, the paying fans, are basically slaves to the television gods though.

Having said that, the rescheduling of the game at Wendies on Friday night did have some perks. It spared us the ridiculous RVP (rendezvous point for those of you who don’t travel to games by coach) along that stretch of hard shoulder as you come off the motorway. It spared the annual blushes of people who are forced to use the outdoor facilities because the coaches aren’t allowed to move on until the man from Del Monte says yes.  It spared us the delaying tactics of  South Yorkshires’ finest to escort us to Hillsborough in the snails pace crawl that we normally endure. Thankfully, if there is anything that the rozzers are afraid of, it is the thought that Friday night rush hour on the M1 becomes more of a nightmare than it normally is. Because you certainly don’t want to be late home for your tea, do you?

After trying my hardest to stay awake for the Premiership clash of the titans that was Cardiff v Burnley on Sunday (failed by the way), I know why Skytvisf**kings**t show us all the time. The game was as dull as ditchwater. Hardly the cauldron of excitement that you get at our games, more like a pot of gruel slowly, stodgily plip plopping away, matched by their midfield actually.  It obviously didn’t warrant most of the Burnley and Cardiff fans to turn up either, as there were massive gaps in the ground. Skytvisf**kings**t must have realised that most people would have been watching the golf, so chose to show the dullest game that they could, in order to fulfil their Premiership obligations, so they could justify the poor viewing figures. Luckily, I recorded the Wendies game, seeing as I was stood right behind a huge pillar (for a paltry £39 plus £1 bates tax) and struggled to see most of the game anyway. Yes, I had to put up with the prematch build up with Jimmy Floyd Piggybank, but that’s what the fast forward button is for. And, I only did it to see Marcelo’s legendary pre match interviews, but Skytvisf**kings**t have now cottoned onto the fact that Bielsa is basically taking the p*ss, and the spoilsports won’t show any more than a sentence now. It took them long enough. Although the post match interview was much , much better. I vote for more Marcelo, please, come on change.org!

I am not keen to give up my satellite subscription even though it is the source of my continued frustration. If I keep the sports package, I get a cheap movie deal for a start. I am not yet SkyQ ing as I’m not bothered with that. 401HD undoubtedly gives you a brilliant view of the game (especially if you are stood behind a pillar for £39 plus £1 bates tax) and it enables you to see shots from several different angles. It is MUCH better than that Irish guy on the EFL show. The fact that I now find Ian Holloway endearing, is testament to how annoying Murray is. Even Liam Rosenior is better than Colin. He is much better than Jimmy Fled for the Money in my Bank though.

As Leeds United will be on Skytvisf**kins**t for another 6 games, before they release what they are going to schedule in December (I wonder who???), it will be interesting to see who else they can scrape from the bottom of the barrel to feature as the guests on our live games. Who will be the next washed up, publicity seeking hasbeen guest to jealously tow the “Leeds will never keep up this tempo” party line? Who will be the next victim of fast forwarding at x30 just so I can see the Bielsa interviews?

The phrase if you can’t beat them, join them, simply cannot apply here. We are stuck with Skytvisf**kings**t for the duration. At least when we get promoted, we will get more of the share of the TV money for our appearances than Shaun Harvey could muster from his mumblings – sorry –  “heavyweight punch for punch calculated brow beating bargaining” to get the best deal possible for the EFL TV package. We should get a decent reflection of what we should be earning given the number of people that watch us on the telly. The advertising revenue and visual worth of our team and our fans is probably more than the lower half of the premier league added together.

What we can do is continue to make our disdain heard on the telly as much as possible. What we can do is turn down any advances by Skytvisf**kings**t to give any interviews or photo opportunities to them which may promote their gospel. What we can do is complain as much as possible at any given opportunity about what we, and I don’t just mean the away travellers who have to rearrange flights, coaches, hotels etc. at such short notice, I mean ALL of us who are short changed by the rescheduling of games by the television gods. They treat us like a bunch of performing monkeys, just to be used to promote their brand.

We are not, We Are Leeds and We Are Proud. They are the fools.

 

 

 

Not wanting to be carried away on the wave of optimism that is sweeping across the amassed Leeds fans in country (and the ones who don’t support us but want to see us back in the Premier League), I am dodging the addictive enthusiasm by briefly looking back at how far we have actually come since the demise of the miserable beardy bad loser.

Believe it or not, this months blog has been inspired by, of all things, ordering Hull tickets. Hull tickets are £24 plus £1 bates tax for the cheap seats and £27 plus £1 bates tax for the nice(r) seats down the side. They do not have any concession prices for senior citizens or juniors. The reason for this stems from their last few seasons of turmoil. If you remember, when they got bought out, their new owners decided that they wanted to change the name (in an all American franchise-type way) to Hull Tigers (as opposed to Tigers  Tigers Ra Ra Ra). This despite the fact that Hull City Association Football Club has been in existence since 1904 (technically older than us then) and completely against the wishes of the fans. On their return to the Premier League in 2016, the club badge had the “Hull City AFC” “The Tigers” (Ra Ra Ra) removed and instead just had a picture of a tiger on the front. Their crowds have dwindled since the heady days of Phil “Tango” Brown and sealing that brilliant promotion ( that technically we gave them by beating Watford) in 2013. Even with the falling ticket sales, the new owners are still embroiled in a dispute with the fans regarding ticket pricing and now, I believe the Football Supporters Federation are involved as well to help the Hull Supporters Trust to sort this out. The season has begun and ticketing has not been resolved. Interestingly enough, Hull FC (egg chasers) share the same ground/ ticket office/ facilities etc. and they DO have concessions. So much for fans being the heartbeat of the club, hey?

Meanwhile, across the border, in another one of Peter’s flawed attempts at Chairmanship, after hoisting up his white flag to the Malaysians, the Bluebirds were threatened with fire to re brand them into Red Dragons. (oh I am getting the puns in here). Across the proper Pennine border, Blackpool are still neck high in the mire with possibly the worst owners in football history, closely followed by Charlton, whose new owner practically declared that they were merely a feeder club to his European teams. Regular readers need not be reminded about the Blackburns of this world.

Leeds United have had their fair share of difficulties, and this piece is not the case of people in glass houses not chucking bricks. My point is that since Beardy finally got his marching orders from Sig. Cellino we have still had our ups and downs. And, unfortunately s**t sticks, so the phrase “doing a Leeds” is still evident in the ether. However, it seems that whilst we bore the brunt of the full force of the Football League and the hefty points deduction in 2007, like most things in 2018, carefully placed money can now resolve this issue (Villa, Bolton, Sunderland..woo hoo!). Thankfully,  despite all the showboating aerial stunts, projections, coffins and other (un)social media campaigns, Leeds fans have not yet had to resort to throwing tennis balls onto the pitch or boycotting en masse, since Bad Santa took his sack of toys out of Elland Road, without taking a penny in wages – remember. In real terms, we have not had it as bad as some. It is something we can count our blessings on.

Our club went through the lowest of the low in those 10 years. Those who thought that it was bad under Cellino either can’t remember how bad it was, or have chosen to block it all out of their memories. Even before Beardy, there were signs of trouble ahead. For example, the insistence that the majority of the fans voted to move to Swillington and the badly thought out titles of books and DVDs (Leeds United – A Season on Trial, United We Fall and my personal favourite – Peter Ridsdale -My Leeds United). Never has the phrase, you reap what you sow, has been so apt.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. We had Swillington Sewerage Works, the Fullerton Ice Rink and Beeston Super Casino, then the Bates Hotel / Motel , all which would help the Club??? We went from semi-finals in the Champions League to not owning the ground, the Academy, the  training ground and not even the matchday  catering made us any money.

So when Cellino came in and cleared out, he did what no one else had the balls to do. He took back charge, or at least he tried to. He tried to stick two fingers in the face of the Football League, Harvey and his not fit for purpose buddies, Skytvisf**kings**t and everyone else who realistically couldn’t run a Subbuteo football team, let alone a Division 2 outfit. Yes, he made managerial mistakes, but in doing so, he laid the foundations clear for Radrizzani. Yes, under his tutelage we made some random signings, but it was the basis for what we have now….Beradi for one, without Kyle Bartley there would have been no Ayling… But of course, Cellino will never be credited by some people for what he did.

And, back to the now. This Saturday sees a meeting between the Supporters Group and The Club about our Centenary year celebrations. Badges aside, our Club is listening to it’s fans, and in the end, the board did listen to the fans anyway about the crest.  We have secured Bielsa who has transformed our team of end of season relegation dodgers, into tip, top, top of the leaguers, who are being raved about from all four corners.

Yes, it is early days still, but it is looking like the sun is shining….