The Chairman was on form over the festive period. No doubt many of you have seen the footage on You Tube etc. so I won’t bore you with the details. Here are some wise words which were shared with Mr Rowson over the last week or so. They aren’t quite New Year Messages, but they are the best The MPO could do at this short notice. There will be more after the monthly branch meeting on Sunday 14th January.

HAPPY NEW YEAR FOLKS!

Apologies for the absence for the last few months. Ill health and all of that. Let’s hope 2018 is a better year for us all, on and off the pitch.

Monthly branch meeting

The first branch meeting of the year will be held on Sunday 14th January 2018. This is due to the fact that we are (properly) playing Newport away in the FA Cup, as opposed to just pretending to play them in away in the League Cup last year at Elland Road. What are the chances of getting the same team drawn in both cups in one season? So, only for the second time in quite a few years, the meeting has been moved. The branch meeting in December was unfortunately cancelled due to ill health of both The Secretary and The MPO. The much delayed draw for the Eddie Gray memorabilia will be done on Sunday 14th January.

Away games

The branch is not running a coach to the Newport game due to the lack of tickets acquired as the ground is tiny. Deputy Yates is running a minibus, please contact Mr Yates directly for info.

The branch is running a bus to Ipswich, there is currently a very limited number of seats left for members. If these seats are not taken up by branch members by the end of the week, these will be opened up to non members ( of which we have a wait list).

The next away game could be Hull or the 4th round of the FA Cup depending on what team is put out by TC on Sunday. I am seriously hoping that TC and Mr Radrizzani are sticking by their words that they will put out a team to win every game. They said this at the start of the season as part of the new era at Leeds United. At the time, I quoted the words of Billy, side before self, and reiterated how dedicated our great side were in the days where it wasn’t unheard of to play 4 games in 7 days. In the good old days of the replays, The Secretary says you could be playing a replay on the Tuesday and if you needed another replay, you could be playing on the Thursday. None of this penalty shoot out rubbish! You played until you properly won a game! Fixture congestion? My rear end! You played for the love of the  game and the pride of the shirt.

Memberships

The Membership Secretary has been out on manouvres since his misfortune. It doesn’t mean he will show up at the next branch meeting, but the branch is pleased to know he is functioning in some way, shape or form. There will be an update on memberships imminently.

A.O.B

We will ask Brian and Trish how much money was raised for the British Heart Foundation event before Christmas.

Mick Husband is somewhere in the Pacific on Dare to Lead in the Clipper Race For Life. Look out for his photo in the programme soon.

The MPO has some ideas for the LUSC Centenary and if anyone else has any ideas, please can they get in touch?

The latest edition of the blog will be coming soon.

The branch has bought a stone on the Bremner Square, albeit smaller than the one planned, but the larger sizes sold out pretty quickly.

Not wishing to hijack the Movember project at all, which is a worthy cause raising awareness for men’s health issues, I would like to propose “Move-ember”. Move-ember is a cause designed to raise awareness of playing your players in the right position thus facilitating said players to move into the best positions to score a goal or defend the goal as a team.

Since my last blog in September, I like the team have taken a short leave of absence due to various problems. Unlike the team, however, I have not headbutted / kneeded anyone in the short and curlies to give me a 3 match suspension, I was not taken out by my own player, I did not dislocate my shoulder nor has my wife given birth to a child. I am back now and hopefully hot on my heels, so is the team.

After last night’s display against Derby, unlike a large number of fans who disgracefully boo-ed the players off the pitch, I was still strangely calm in the face of such adversity. If we had scored another goal just before half time, if we had continued playing in the second half as we had in the first and if we hadn’t gifted both those goals away, it would have been ok. Plus, there are no excuses for the shoddy effort from the referee and the linespersons in that game (how anyone could give a penalty for that is pitiful). There are flashes of brilliance in our team, the problem just seems to be exactly that – there are flashes of brilliance but no consistency. I don’t mean thick enough to coat the back of a spoon either (Chef reference there!)

It isn’t as if Lasogga cannot score. It’s not as if Saiz cannot make a decent run at players. It isn’t as if we cannot close anyone down effectively in midfield and peg them down in their end. It isn’t as if we cannot defend our goal. Simply put, we can do all of this, just not consistently throughout an entire game, let alone lately, string a few wins together. After all, we are still 7th in the league. We can get to the play off positions if we beat Brentford. It’s not even Christmas yet!

I can see how some fans are a bit despondent, especially those whose interests were only recently rekindled by the new era of Radrizzani and Orta et al. You were fooled by our fantastic start, the first 6 games where we looked unbeatable, and everyone was calling TC the Messiah. More fool you, dear Hector, I still remember Sutton. The season is played and won across 46 games, and it doesn’t really matter where you are until after Christmas, as we all know well from last seasons monkfoolery!

So, where do I start? Good question? Let’s start at the defence.

In the first seven league games we looked unbeatable. Everyone said we were going up as Champions ( including me). The defence looked rock solid and Felix – Felix didn’t concede a goal in 6 games! Cooper looked a changed man from last seasons (Sutton) debacles and the team picked him as Captain. Many ate their words in a 2016/17 Chris Wood -esque turnaround with a massive helping of humble pie and despite Beradi dislocating his shoulder at Bolton, our back four looked pretty darn good. Whichever combination of Ayling, Cooper, Pennington, Shaughnessy, Jansson, Borthwick-Jackson and Anita, TC picked, it worked! It worked so well that Ayling turned into a right winger and started flinging in some seriously good crosses.

Then Millwall, and reality hit, and it hit us hard, right in the balls. If the bottle that got chucked on the pitch that day, which was ignored by the referee, the linesman, the EFL etc.etc. had hit the ground as hard as our team got hit, there would have been a meteoric hole in the den, and I don’t just mean in our defence either. Felix tried his best, and to be fair, had he not pulled off some cracking saves, we would have been 5 nil down. The goal wasn’t his fault, the blame for that goes to Jansson for hoofing the ball into the air in the penalty area rather than clearing it. There was a school of thought that it was offside, but the ref having already risked life and limb for disallowing that Morrison goal, caved under pressure. Jansson then went off injured and we were down to 10 men for the rest of the game.

Since then, our defence has been a bit of a mess. But not without reason. Multiple injuries have seen off a regular back four, Anita picked up a knock and got subbed at the Ipswich game, Pontus carried the injury he got from Millwall into the next few games. The relative inexperience of Shaughnessy, Pennington and B-Jackson (all who had already picked up niggling injuries) was exposed as Ayling and Cooper tried to take the strain. It seemed to take ages for Beradi to get back after he dislocated his shoulder, and with the inconsistency of the back four, Felix suffered the most. Felix, unfortunately took the brunt of the abuse from the fans, which frankly doesn’t help anyone’s confidence, and subsequently his dip in form has put Warhorse Lonergan back between the sticks.

So, you would think that TC would just stick to playing a flat back four until his defence shores themselves up and gets a few clean sheets under their belts, wouldn’t you? Well, I would anyway. Sadly not. Ayling has been caught forward so many times lately, it seems inevitable that any team that makes even the feeblest attempt to trickle the ball down our right flank, is going to put the ball in the back of our net. Even O Kane was coming in to cover last night, and before anyone starts this whole, “midfield should be able to drop back” rubbish, this is what Bridcutt did last season, and look how well we did with that!

The fact is that there is no point us having a 40-goal-a-season goal machine up front if our defence leaks in 50 weak shots. I would much rather us win 1-0 keeping a clean sheet, after all if we keep a clean sheet for the rest of the season, that’s play offs a cert, isn’t it?

Anyway, the long and short of it is, we need a stable defence.

Secondly, our midfield, or whatever configuration we are playing vaguely in the middle of the park in front of the big guy Lasogga. Even he doesn’t know who is playing in the middle, so who is he looking to to get the ball off? That’s right – the keeper! Seeing as all we are doing is getting the ball from midfield, passing it back to the defence, who are giving it to the keeper to hoof up. Or is that too simplistic? This is of course, when we are not trying to walk the ball into the back of the net. I am a bit frustrated about this, as you can tell. We have the potential, we don’t utilise it.

At times, our midfield has resembled something from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, four hobbits and some bloke with a pointy hat (ok – no pointy hat) trying to get past a load of orcs to get the ball in the goal. It may seem a bit harsh comparing Saiz, Alioski, Pablo and Roofe to Mr Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry, as they clearly don’t have massive hairy feet and pointy ears, but we are dwarfed (no pun intended) by just about every team in this league. We are muscled off nearly every ball (with the help of the refs) unless we make a break for it. It worked in the book and the films, but these particular set of skills are just not transferable to a football pitch unfortunately. I am not saying most of Division 2’s midfielders are disfigured, slobbering, cumbersome, oversized goblins (I think) , but you get my drift – right?

Like all good battle formations, use the flanks to draw the foe and then deliver the killer blow. Players attached to the touchline on a piece of slinky which pulls them back when they get near the penalty box, just can’t cut it. If and when, we get the ball to Saiz, draw the defenders away, the cross goes in and Lasogga scores or Phillips gets the second ball from the flick on. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

No Formation + No Movement = Headless Chickens

Mind you, at least there isn’t some weird, creepy creature hovering around in the background, wringing his hands and  muttering “My Precious” under his breath. He’s gone to Boro

Don’t start pretending like you never thought of that either!

Our monthly branch meetings have been held at the Londesborough Club for 20+ years now. We are happy to support this charity bash in aid of The British Heart Foundation.

The event is held in conjunction with Tempo FM, Harrogate Town and The Londesborough. The branch will lend it’s support by selling the raffle tickets for the items kindly donated by The Londesborough Club to branch members on the Brentford bus and anyone who cannot make the trip, as long as you get in touch! We will also donate a sum of money to the British Heart Foundation which will be agreed at the monthly branch meeting on Sunday 5th November.

September sees us unbeaten in the league and the Cup. So far, so good. With a near sell out crowd for Saturday’s game against Burton, and probably the same for Birmingham thanks to the 33% discount offer, it is all looking rather good. Leeds United are moving in the right direction. The football we are playing is better. The team spirit amongst the players is better. The engagement with the fans is better. It is just a pity that for some bizarre reason, the spirit between the fans is going the opposite way.

The 33% off deal was brilliant, Leeds United giving something back. Yet people complained that it wasn’t fair on season ticket holders? Eh? I have been a season ticket holder for er… long enough.. and I think it is great. We wouldn’t have got this under Bad Papa Smurf. The ticket prices for children were slashed by Sig. Cellino and continue to remain low under Mr Radrizzani. Ipswich for £1 apparently now? Yes, they could have opened more seats up for the Newport game, and in fact were forced to open the North East and North West corners on the night due to demand, but I can let that slide. We are drawing in bigger crowds – brilliant.

So, as the great Marvin Gaye said, what’s going on?  What’s happened to “all Leeds arn’t we”?

Much like the classic George Orwell novel, Animal Farm, we are all Leeds, just some think they are more Leeds than others.

As regular blog readers are aware, my words are my own, and frankly, I don’t care what people think of me. This blog was never intended to win me any friends ( haha and hasn’t!). I’ve been a Leeds fan for long enough to have formed my own opinions. Admittedly, given my age, not as long as The Chairman or certain other branch members, but long enough to have gone through sufficient good times and bad. I’ve been an LUSC member for at least 90% of that time. It was Eric Carlile’s fault that I became a member, and the condition of my liver, lies squarely at his feet!

I blame social media for most of this (not my liver- that’s my own fault). In the 90’s we never had any of this and the only time you heard anyone else’s opinion was stood at the bar pre match or in the ground. There was chatter on the bus on the way to the pubstop obviously, but there wasn’t that much in depth discussion on the way back for other drink related reasons. The fanzines were the only other outlet for topical debate on all things Leeds. So, if you didn’t see anyone for a week, any het up frustration you had about Sergeant Wilko going mad buying Tomas Brolin or the the fact that Carlton Palmer couldn’t pass to a white shirt in a coal shed, had more or less waned. Nowadays, as soon as something happens, the world is on it (via Sky Sports News) and then anyone who is anyone has their say. Then it escalates into a full-on-fisticuffs-at-fifty-paces, with the inevitable fall out over probably nothing much at all, like Chris Wood for example. Thank heavens The Chairman hasn’t got a computer or a smartphone!

Joking aside, the dissatisfaction comes from all corners and it is difficult to identify and quantify it in order to stop the rot.

It started with the gaping chasm opened up by Bates. Even after we had plummeted to the depths of Division 3 football, there were still people who defended him to the hilt for “saving the club”. Despite the fact that we probably would have been better off going into administration and clawing our way back up the leagues, even now, he still has his band of admirers. The bad blood between the LUSC and “his Bad Businessship” made matters worse, and the divide deepened. This resulted in people forgetting what the LUSC was all about, and subsequently, newer Leeds fans don’t really understand what the Supporters branches do.

Needless to say, we, the LUSC are still here supporting Leeds United, with our Centenary round the corner. With any luck, the last remnants of Sad Santa will be eliminated by Mr Radrizzani in his new era of Leeds United Football Club. If I had my way, Sad Santa would be blown into smithereens with a bazooka as soon as you could see the whites of his eyes.

A.B. (after bates), we had a certain group claiming to be the “true voice of Leeds United fans” proclaiming our new saviours aka GFH. After the fallout from that disaster, yet another group was formed, which claimed to bring even more voices of Leeds United fans together. Enter Mr Cellino, bringing in even more pro/anti groups, with increasingly louder voices and bigger budget publicity campaigns in order to get their own points across, and hey presto, a schism similar to the Mariana Trench in size has formed in all four corners of the globe.

I think the discontent generated from various groups trying to be ” the voices of the fans” has unfortunately contributed to disenchantment, with fans nowadays thinking they have the right to be consulted about everything Leeds United say or do. Speaking from my own experience, it is hard enough to get a consensus amongst the branch members of player of the month once every 4 weeks. So trying to find out what Leeds United fans think when there are fans spread across the 7 continents is a nigh on impossible feat. No one short of Professor Charles Xavier from the X-Men would be able to purport to having that kind of information.

The away ticket allocation debacles have not helped either. As much as no one wishes to admit it, there are more people wanting to go to away games now than there used to be. I have previously stated, I don’t like the term bandwagon jumpers. It is wrong. Some people have had genuine reasons why they stopped going, and now are coming back. These people, and completely new fans, are contributing to the difficulties of acquiring tickets for those of us who have been lucky enough to have continued going all these years. I have no doubt at all that some have been very vocal on social media and to Leeds United directly, about the perceived unfairness of using last season’s tracker.

The fact that Leeds United still bears the tag of “Dirty Leeds”, the long lamented hooligan element of the 80s remains another sad nail firmly esconced in the away travellers coffin. The police and the home clubs do not need an excuse to reduce our ticket allocation. Despite the sad times that the EFL find themselves in, where people prefer to watch the game on telly, the 72 clubs hardly work hard to promote attendances at stadia across the country. The sight of a full ground cheering on the team is a thing of beauty. Nothing can compare to the feeling you get when we score at an away game, when the home crowd is stunned into silence and all you can hear is Marching On Together. The one true voice of Leeds United.

This should be celebrated. Welcomed with open arms. Our support should be talked about with enthusiasm, everyone should be extoling the virtues of our fantastic fans and not just at away games either, at home too. At our home, Elland Road. With Mr Radrizzani showing that the club is valuing the family atmosphere and encouraging the younger generation to actually go and watch a live football game, we should be all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Sadly, the away game atmosphere, while enjoyable when we are winning and playing well, suffers from the actions of a few, who ruin it for the others. Time for the miserable old git in me to put a dampener on things. Both the Sunderland and Notts Forest games were a perfect example of the opportunities that are flitting away from us. There was ample space in those stands to get more away fans in, at least a few hundred more. The revenue from those extra ticket sales would have benefitted those home clubs. The Stadium of Light and The City Ground were hardly at capacity, especially when compared to the 80s. So what is going on?

Is it the fact that Leeds United will only allow less than 3000 away fans at Elland Road, therefore the home clubs are merely reciprocating? Since the days of the Cheese Wedge and The South Stand being used for away fans, there has been a noticeable drop in away supporters at Elland Road. Before any Toon Army fans who may be reading this say anything, sometimes it isn’t for want of trying. I believe the West Stand cannot take anymore away fans due to the need to segregate the home and away fans, whatever rule that is. I can’t  see any South Stand season ticket holders wanting to be usurped by any away fans soon either. Again, the change in the area used to house away fans lies solely at the feet of Bad Papa Smurf. As I believe the EFL restricted the price of away tickets so that the home clubs weren’t allowed to charge away supporters more than the home fans in a similar area. As West Stand tickets are more expensive, the away fans were moved to the area down the side of the West Stand for monetary purposes, and now that can’t /won’t be changed as the police feel the area is safer in terms of crowd control etc.

Is it because the home clubs and/or the police feel that too many Leeds fans will cause too much trouble in the ground? Given that Fulham have operated a “neutral area” the last few seasons with no massive increase in crowd trouble, is this really the case? Last season at Blackburn, Wigan and Preston, we had massive allocations. Was there any more trouble at these grounds? Is it that different clubs and different police forces have different views on Leeds fans depending on previous experiences? Would it be better if there was a one size fits all? Is there anything that Leeds fans can do about this?

My view is yes, yes we can. The rules (whether we like it or not) are that following the Taylor Report, fans are NOT allowed to stand and block aisles or stairwells. Incendiary items such as flares are banned. There is a no smoking policy inside the ground, as is the norm everywhere now, now that the fun police have stopped innocent tax paying smokers from enjoying themselves. The more considerate fans amongst us would not create havoc if and when the home clubs decide that they won’t serve alcohol at half time because there are beer fights going on. The more considerate fans amongst us wouldn’t even consider having a beer fight. The tight gits amongst us would prefer to just drink the beer. The more considerate of us wouldn’t even think about climbing all over the walls / rafters just so someone can put a you tube video up on the internet for 5 minutes of fame. The more considerate of us wouldn’t bring a flare into the ground and hurl it from the stands, where it could hit someone, or chuck it onto the concourse at half time.

The sad fact is that, there will be people reading this thinking that I am a miserable boring old git, who doesn’t understand what awayday football is all about. The reality is that every time someone does something from the list above, you give the home clubs ammunition to reduce the allocation. I waited for the Burnley allocation to come out before I published this post, I nearly posted it last night, but I am glad I waited.

The last time we were at Burnley, I am pretty sure we were told that the behaviour was unacceptable the previous season(s). Still, our fans were climbing on the walls and the rafters of that old stand at half time. There was a huge bottleneck directly inside the turnstile entrance as people were trying to escape from a flare that had been chucked on the concourse before kick off. It was all a gigantic shambles, and not helped at all by our own fans who just continued merrily to abuse the rules. So no surprise at all today when the ticket allocation has been announced and we are only getting 2000 or so. No surprise either the response so far on social media complaining about the small allocation. What do you expect? That they are going to give us that whole end after what has happened in previous seasons? Who do you think you are kidding? Moaning about other clubs getting more for a Cup game and crying that they are picking on Leeds fans?

This whole sense of entitlement is so very, very, very annoying. Right from the people who are 1st time season ticket holders who think they are entitled to an away match whenever they want regardless of anyone else, to the “all Leeds Arn’t we” crowd, who think that they can do as they please at an away game without any repercussions. No one wants to take any responsibility for their actions, not one person is willing to step up and say, f**k it, we really need to think about what we say and what we do before we open our mouths or jump in feet first. I have, and now I will be lambasted by all and sundry, as if I care!

And who are the winners and losers in all this? There are no winners. There is just us,  the loyal fans who spend our time and money doing something we love – watching Leeds United, we are not losers – but we lose.

photo removed as requested 4/7/2025