Enduring image…isn’t it?
Not so much nowadays, Ron Manager. Plus, I don’t even know if, in this modern world of political correctness, you could even say, “small boys, in the park, jumpers for goalposts” anymore without someone showing you a yellow card for the lack of inclusivity. Should I say vertically challenged, self identifiers, in a green space, clothing dedicated as vertical structures? Oh and, by the way, this isn’t an excuse to pay homage to the Fast Show, it is merely to demonstrate how much football has changed.
For the better? Not so sure about that. On the flipside, can you imagine a 21st century version of The Fast Show? An hour of complete inoffensiveness, now that would be something. Oh hang on, it’s the BBC . Normal telly then!
After coming home from the hard fought 0-0 against the Smoggies last night and after much heated debate in the Golden Lion about a point gained over two points dropped, that phrase popped into my head. It suddenly occurred to me that Friday nights game was about as far away from “jumpers for goalposts” as it could be.
To me, the result wasn’t so much the issue, as the style of football that we had to endure. Well, it wasn’t football really was it? It was 90 minutes of the antithesis of football. There was no skill there. No perfect through passes, no floated crosses, no one-touch silkiness, no intricate cross field fluidity. NADA. It was typical Pulis, niggling, pushing and shoving and blocking. Anti football as my friend, Alan Barker put it. A team of 6 foot plus built-like- brick-shithouses giants, but with all the stability of the first of the three little pigs’ houses. You huff and you puff and you blow the house in.
That would have never happened in the park. If you fell over, everyone just ignored you and carried on playing. If you kept rolling about on the pitch as if a sniper had got you, you would suffer the indignity of being picked last next time, along with the fat kid. Or even worse, never being asked at all. In those days, it was all about getting the ball and legging it up half the pitch, to smack in that wonder goal. The goal which people would still be going on about next half term.
The worse thing was that we let THEM drag US down to their level. Gone was the one-touch finesse of Derby and Norwich away. Gone was the “We’re Leeds United, we’re taking the piss” swagger of the first few games. It was replaced by the same dross that we spewed out last season against the likes of Cardiff and Wolves. Where all we could do was try and hack people down. The same stupid tackles that saw off most of our team at some point in 2017-18 in a flurry of red cards and costs us our points so dearly. Until New Year we were on the up and then it all just fell away, the most sendings off for many a season.
I was never lucky enough to see John Charles play, and at the time, not old enough to fully understand what the great Don Revie did in the Golden Leeds United era. I am lucky enough to have seen the videos of them and the great skillful play of the likes of Pele, Cruyff and the latter years of our own Championship winning side, not to mention the craftiness of Roberto Carlos (look him up younger readers). We have seen what Bielsa can do to the team, he has improved it enormously already. Remember it is the same team as last season, bar Douglas and Klich. It is too soon to say what style of football he plays, as he is still essentially tinkering, until he finds it. God knows what happened at Preston! Must have been a blip. The positive is that the players are able to adapt, even though they are the same players, they are not limited to one role. The team are pushing forward at speed but still covering the defence. Look at Douglas flying down the wing, like a young(er) Tony Dorigo, it’s not just Ayling that can put a cross in. I am hoping that Bielsa can bring out more of the potential out of the team the longer he works with them. I am also hoping that he can build a resilience in them, so they stick with the game plan and resist the “play ugly” timewasting, cheating crap that the rest of the league resorts to.
As I was walking away from the ground, I heard someone say ” well that’s it, everyone has worked Bielsa out, that’s our season gone”. I thought, Jeez, it’s only August and you’ve given up already. There’s another 7 months to go at. What sort of a football fan are you, if you call it quits before the season has even started going! In the days of jumpers for goalposts, you could have been playing football from dawn to dusk. Doing “next goal wins” for hours until the person who brought the ball actually scored a goal and won. You needed stamina in those days to play the beautiful game. We’ve still got plenty of time before February to go up as Champions.
Beans on toast for tea. Marvellous!
