Monthly Branch Meeting

The meeting was held a little later than normal on Sunday 6th November. The main point arising was that the TV in the North East Corner has been fixed. Dave Poole thanked the committee for raising the subject at the LUSC exec meeting. There was feedback from the last months LUSC exec meetings and feedback from the last exec meeting which Bryn Stokes, the Football Liaison Officer attended. The branch has won £15 in the last 250 draw. Andy Yates has asked us to pass thanks onto Leeds United staff for looking after the luggage during the Burton game before the LUSC Annual Dinner (see below)

LUSC Annual Dinner

This was held Saturday 29th October after the Burton game at The Banqueting Suite at Elland Road. Everyone agreed it had been a good evening and we think that Peter Haddock and his family made it back to the hotel in one piece, despite the efforts of Ryan and Natalie Whyte and Steve and Cath Alderson! The players were around for the beginning of the evening and as usual all had their pictures taken with publicity shy Andy Yates. Pictures will be available in the Gallery section presently.

Away Games

There was much discussion around Liverpool in the “meaningless” Cup tie. Plans to run two buses look like they will be scuppered due to the unexpectedly low allocation and the season ticket free for all scramble on Wednesday 9th November. Buses had been run to Wolves, Derby and Norwich with no harsh losses. The branch will be running a bus to Brighton on the Friday night. We are currently taking bookings for Rotherham and Brighton. Liverpool transport will be confirmed as soon as all tickets are secured.

Membership

There has been a recent increase in enquiries.

Website

The rest of the old fanzines will be loaded on as soon as possible.

..we learn to live again.

It’s times like these that being a Leeds fan has it’s ups, downs and all arounds!

It was with bated breath that we watched Alan McInally stick his hand in that pot that night. I was desperately hoping that he would draw Ball 3 out, desperate for that precious home draw which just might, yes, just might give us a semi-final that we deserve. However, it was just not to be, and of all the teams we could have picked to be away at, Liverpool was our reward. The first away team to be drawn out in fact. I suppose it put me out of my usual misery of waiting until the end at least, and it could have been a lot worse. It could have been West Ham away or Southampton away. The tie is win-able, Liverpool have much more to lose should they be defeated by a Championship side. We, on the other hand, have nothing to lose and everything to gain. To some, actually most of the team, this will be the first time they have been to Anfield as a player. We will be going in to that game having been unbeaten at home in 7 games, having qualified despite going down to 10 men and on penalties and, and this is a big factor, we will fill the end that they give us. To press, the allocation is 5,300, which is probably only what the Police will allow them to give us anyway. There has been talk that they gave Carlisle 10,000 once in a cup game, but realistically, Liverpool do not need the gate receipts from us and we wouldn’t want a crime wave on Merseyside during the game, would we?

We had the small matter of Burton at home last weekend. After the excitement of the Cup, we came down to earth with a bang against the newly promoted Brewers. It was a hard fought first half and the second looked like we were going to hold out for a perfectly acceptable draw, given the midweek heroics.  Roofe still hasn’t perfected his finishing skills and Wood is doomed to be fouled continuously without ever getting a free kick, for the rest of the season. However, just when it seemed like we were running out of ideas, on came The Duke. What a difference a Duke makes! There was some good link up play in the midfield, resulting in a beautifully weighted pass to The Duke from Pablo. At the time, I didn’t think it was a penalty, it looked to me like he had tripped over his own feet, but nevertheless, the power that Chris Wood put in that penalty, summed up what we have finally – a team. From Mowatt hurling himself to block those two shots, to prevent the equaliser, to Wood just managing to draw players away, giving The Duke the space to run down the middle, to The Duke, just not giving up until that ball went in. I thought Ayling had a cracker of a game as well, whilst Jansson gets the plaudits, Ayling and Captain Bartley just quietly get on with it. Garry and his coaching team are proving that Leeds United can be united. It’s still only the start of November, but if we carry on like this, we will be unstoppable. It looks like the Newcastle home game will be a sell out, yes there will be Newcastle fans not in the away end, but realistically, we would only reciprocate anyway when we go up there. It will be nice to have a full crowd again at Elland Road, it’s just a shame it may only be for one game. But who knows? I am all for getting more fans to come back to us. It is a refreshing change that football is being discussed rather than the off field antics between certain fan groups.

One major problem of the increase in popularity, however, is the effect on ticket supply and demand. This has already reared it’s ugly head on social media, with the Club condemned by all sections of fans. The fact is that Leeds United are in a no win situation, the saying is you can’t please all of the people, all of the time. The truth is Leeds United cannot please anyone, at any time at all, full stop.

This branch has always tried to get enough tickets in order to be able to run a bus to as many away games as possible. In the old days, when the LUSC were still recognised for being the best way to run the away support, tickets were never much of an issue. Eric Carlile just sorted branches out with as many tickets as was needed. Then, Sad Santa came along, and basically told us it was his way or no way. The rest is history, now we need to start a different chapter, but we can’t go back as too many bridges have been burned, we need to go forward. In order to do that, there needs to be a starting place. At the moment, this starting place is what Leeds call the “loyalty tracker system”.

For me, and some (if not most ) other branches, this is a good idea. It ensures that those who travel regularly to away games, from season to season, get tickets whether they are a season ticket holder or gold member. Their loyalty is built up over the season by attending as many away games as possible, and then at the start of the next season, should the allocation be low, these people still get a ticket. I know the only way to absolutely ensure you get an away ticket is to buy an away season ticket, but it is a lot of money on top of your season ticket, to splash out on up front. Not everyone is as lucky as some to have that facility. Equally, not everyone can afford to splash the cash on a season ticket. Therefore a gold membership is the only option, and a large amount of perseverance, patience and luck.

Supporting Leeds United takes time and money. In fact, it takes up most of your life, and by default therefore, your family, friends, pets, relationships, work and holidays are all affected by football. They should be paying us for all our dedication, but unfortunately, we are the ones shelling out. The Liverpool ticket allocation is clearly not sufficient for our needs. I can see the argument that those who can’t afford to go often, would want to go to this game. I can also see the argument that if you were one of the paltry 8,500 who turned up for the Blackburn game, you should get the priority for your loyalty. But there simply isn’t the volume of tickets available to do that. So, the Club have decided to go with rewarding the people who have attended the most away games so far, as the majority of those people probably do have season tickets and probably did turn up to the earlier rounds.

Heaven knows what will happen should we get through to the semis!

This is the collection of photos from the Ireland preseason friendlies earlier this year aka The Adventures of Andy, Paul, Dave, Ben and Arron, featuring The Ripon branch and John Farrell.

The Somercotes branch photo mission ( Derby away 15th October 2016) finally resulted in some decent group pictures. It took a little bit of time to organise everyone to be facing the same way for a start, however, persistence prevailed and here are the results of the photoshoot. The branch flag in a rare outing, is still going strong and looked good at 11.30am on a cold, misty, autumn morning, the same cannot be said for some of the branch members! Included in the picture are members from the Ripon LUSC, who travel with us on a regular basis. Some of the members even managed not to have a drink in their hands for at least 5 minutes, so not a bad effort at all on their part.

Our thanks have to go to Mandy and all the staff at The Crown Inn, Somercotes, as well as the neighbours of said pub, who were treated to an impromptu and lively version of Marching On Together.

…take it eeeeeasy, don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy

It’s times like these that any fan of Leeds United is happy to write about. From the well deserved win over Wolves, to the amazing team effort on Tuesday for 90 minutes plus. Players that gave their all, and then some. What a fantastic result, probably the best way to win that game, it was a true nail biter to the end. What a penalty for young Vieira to step up to, he will struggle to score a better penalty under more intense circumstances. Plaudits of the night however, have to go to the outstanding, magnificent Marco.

Both teams had made 8 changes from the teams that had played at the weekend. I had figured that Garry would make some changes, but not as many as that. But Marco made his mark with that save early in the first half, and that was his statement of intent. Both teams had their chances, despite the changes, Norwich on top for the first half hour or so, scoring from a header from one of the smallest guys on the pitch. A Bartley goal disallowed as Kyle clearly batted it in with his hand, and all he got was a yellow card for his efforts. But we got back into the game after a bit of nifty footwork by Roofe on the byline. A lovely placed cross to The Duke from Roofe, and The Duke duly set up Antonsson for his tap in, in front of the empty South Stand. It was hard fought in the second half, but we had the edge. If Mowatt had his shooting boots on, we would have won in normal time but alas it was not to be, and with only the keeper to beat, Mowatt hacked the ball into the Kop. Garry had gambled on getting the job done in 90 minutes, using all his subs, so when Coyle landed awkwardly in the penalty area in added time, we all feared the worse.

So the scenario was extra time with only 10 men. The atmosphere was so intense, it was like being crushed under a giant Canary. The burden was being carried by our very young side and we were being battered by a side who were much bigger and quicker with the luxury of fresher legs. When they scored, we looked doomed. All the hope was gone and the majority of the Kop were resigned to defeat, but this team just does not know when it is beaten. Grimes, who had been relatively anonymous throughout the 90 minutes, put the ball through to Sacko and the whole of the Kop waited to see if he would shoot. It looked like he did, the keeper came out but only parried the ball to the waiting Chris Wood who slotted home, and the crowd went mad. Minutes later, it looked like Sacko had another chance, racing goalwards with three men crowding him out, the ball went out for what we and Chris Woods thought looked like a corner, but the ref blew and penalties loomed. Everyone was wondering where they would be taken and all we could hope for was that they would be in front of the Kop. Our wishes came true and all we could do was try to put off the Norwich players as much as we could, and hope that we could score. There was no one who honestly thought Marco would save a penalty.

After all the stick Silvestri took last season from people booing him for not catching the ball when he punched it away, he had to have balls of steel on Tuesday to stand there. Moans about his distribution on the pitch and even his own defence having a pop at him for not commanding his area, let alone the fans, marred that whole season. This, despite him single handedly keeping us in the game at Boro two season ago. Marco won LUSC Player of The Season that first season, his trophy was given to him the following season, on the pitch by Johannesburg LUSC amid cruel cries of “Don’t drop it” , “Butterfingers” etc. etc. etc. yet he still played on and his girlfriend, Sofia, stood with Leeds fans steadfastly. Sadly, Monk brought in Green, and he lost his place, in my mind undeservedly.

Honours were even after the first attempts and then Marco stood his ground and saved the second, Roofe slotting in his to give us the lead. A dive to his right, stopped the next Norwich penalty and all of a sudden we are in with a chance. I have to say, when young Kalvin Phillips stepped up, I think the Kop thought it was going to be easy sailing, with “We Are Leeds” joyfully ringing round the rafters, but Ruddy pulled off a brilliant save to deny us the two goal advantage. We were clinging on after Oliveira scored and Grimes ballooned his shot, but the giant of the man that Marco is, stepped up or rather spectacularly dived to his right give us the edge.

I don’t know how young Vieira felt walking up for that penalty, I don’t think he will easily forget it. It was fitting that one of our home grown academy players won us that shoot out. A fantastic team effort and one of the best games I have seen at Elland Road for quite a while. I hope this will be a continuing theme for the rest of the season. I admit that when the substitutions started, I was doubting Garry’s decisions, but I am very glad to be proved wrong.

The only sour point for me was that I was unable to enjoy the game from the luxury of my season ticket seat. I know that the Club were reluctant to open all the stands for fear of a repeat of the last (Blackburn) Cup game, where barely 9,000 loyal fans bothered to turn up. I had emailed them about it when the tickets were announced. To be fair to the Club, they had cut prices for season ticket holders and members to encourage a good attendance. When I arrived at the ground, the queues at Lowfields were circling right round for people who were picking up their tickets. As I got to my non preferred seat in the Kop, I saw that the Captains Corner was open, and I was fuming. Admittedly, I don’t know how The Club would have been able to transfer me or anyone else who had been forcibly relocated to other stands, back to our original seats, but frankly I don’t care. Leeds United should have more confidence in their own product, and realistically should have opened the West Stand initially, along with the two stands (Kop and East Stand) that they did.

At the time of writing, we do not know what the quarter finals holds for us. If it is a home tie, please, please Leeds United – be proactive, for all our sakes.

Until then, lighten up while you still can, don’t even try to understand, find a place to make your stand…

MPO