In Round 9 (or is it 10 now?) of the Battle of Football Hierachy v Leeds United, Leeds United have once again – lost. In the most unsurprising turn of events since that Philip Schofield saga, it was decided to rule that Kiko wasn’t quite guilty but not innocent enough. So because he wasn’t innocent enough, he was probably guilty.
8 match ban? Very harsh, I was expecting 6, but then not totally unexpected, given our history of completely disproportionate punishments to the various crimes that Leeds United are deemed to have committed. Regular Readers will be tired of my outbursts regarding the condemnation of Cellino and his yacht / car irregularities, compared to the lack of disbelief when the Football League accepted as truth when Harry Redknapp declared that he didn’t realise his dog had accidentally opened a bank account and he actually couldn’t read properly even after all these years of football management.
The trouble is we may have lost this battle but we are still winning the war. The more they do to us, the more will we stand our ground. There is a saying, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Well, they’re not exactly trying to kill us, but you know what I mean. All this is doing is reinforcing our walls, we will stand fast in our battleground and we will go again. The siege mentality is only going to get worse.
Of course, this will be playing right into the hands of the Media. All these “top” football pundits will finally have something else to talk about, seeing as Liverpool are actually going to win the League this year, thanks to VAR (only way they were going to win it, mind). Citeh are finally taking the hit of winding that bloke up from the UEFA all those years ago (now there’s a man who can hold a grudge!). Guardiola isn’t rising to it, so they’ve got bored with that tack. Thank God the EFL after 5 months of dragging it out, have finally made the decision. Because frankly that game between Norwich and Leicester was so poor, I switched to watching NCIS on Fox instead. I didn’t see the second half but there was nothing to write home about, so they would have been desperately fishing for something to discuss, and the EFL haven’t disappointed. They’ve served the story up on a silver platter for them.
They’ll be bringing every left of centre has been and self righteous ex player into every discussion tomorrow. Thankfully it’s an early kick off so we’ll be doing something more interesting instead. Even though they technically haven’t proven that he is guilty and he only is “probably” guilty, it won’t matter. Anyone who might deign to be standing up for Kiko will be condemned by association for being racist as well. But at least they won’t have to talk about Norwich v Leicester.
It’s funny, if these people were around in the 70s and 80s, probably early 90s as well, and actually opened their ears – THEN they would have heard racism. What is going on now is nothing compared to what it used to be like. And while “Let’s kick it out” and “Level Playing Field” claim to be doing everything to stop racism, they are in complete denial that most of the reduction in racism over the last few decades has actually been down to the supporters and supporters associations themselves, not these “action groups”. Most things that have changed in football have been down to supporters doing it themselves, not the Football League, or these virtue seeking groups, us – we have done it ourselves. But that’s not what they want to hear and it’s not what they want us to think, because they get government funding etc. and probably Charity status as well ( tax perks) , so they want us to believe that they are doing all the hard work. Yes, they have all the media machines behind them and have all these engagement workshops etc. and probably (!) do put a bit of work in, but the reality is that they don’t acknowledge what we, the decent minded supporters, have been doing all along anyway.
So that EFL Quest show (I genuinely do not get any thanks for plugging it) will be a right barrel of laughs tomorrow. And because we’ll be home by 6pm, there’s no excuse that we’re on the coach back home, not to see it live. If we lose, we’ll be on first for 5 minutes, with a reference to Kiko every 15 seconds. If we win, we’ll be half way through or just before they start going on about Division 3 and be lucky to see more than 30 seconds of Bamford’s hat trick.
What happens now then? Nothing. The best we can do is just take the hit and as the saying goes, we go again. Give yourself a rest Kiko. You’ve done your best. Get yourself a nice seat in the West Stand and watch the game with your family and enjoy the food in Hospitality. You might even get to eat a decent steak and chips meal for 6 weeks before you go back to your “proper” diet. You never know, Kiko might get a ticket in the away end and he can join us getting soaked in the beer fights and queueing for the bogs at half time.
The ones who will be most happy (apart for the EFL of course) will be these keyboard warriors who will be ecstatic having been handed the opportunity to put post after post, tweet after tweet and insta after insta of fake indignation and those “angry” emojis out, just so they can get a like and get themselves a bit more attention by posting a little cartoon symbol.
As for us, our barriers will be strengthened, our walls will be higher, our siege mentality will continue to be fed.
