When will we ever learn? Back to Bob Dylan again. When will we ever learn?

A whirlwind start to 2018 began with the January to forget in terms of red cards, losing to lower league opposition in the FA Cup, fighting back to level up against Millwall with 10 men (only to lose in injury time), new badge launches, retraction of new badges after change.org went thermo nuclear and all the rest. You could not make this up. It’s like watching a soap opera. On second thoughts, there’s been no murders or plane crashes, so not so much a soap opera, more like a pantomime.

So, how could we top that off? I know, let’s sack the manager… oh no we can’t… oh yes we can! Lord knows what Mad March is going to give us. I don’t even want to think that far ahead.

So, the curtain comes down on TC. He bowed out after we lost to Cardiff, a fortnight last Saturday, to a chorus of boos from the crowd. No thanks for one of the best starts to the season in recent times. No thanks for some of the best awaydays we have had in years. No thanks for getting our defence as solid as a rock again, and no thanks for THAT Pablo goal against Burton. Had we kept 11 men on the pitch, we could have got a result. Warnock’s bully boys weren’t that good, they flattered to deceive. Realistically, our team is horribly depleted. Depleted because of injuries, which we can’t really do anything about, and depleted because of really poor behaviour on the pitch. Poor and at times, unsportsmanlike, behaviour which has seen us collect 7 red cards already this season in the League and the Cup.

We haven’t had our first team players all out on the pitch at the same time since New Years Day against Forest. As much as the majority of fans simply put down our losing streak to the manager, it is blatantly obvious that our dip in form is directly related to the number of injuries and suspensions that we have been subject to. Even before Forest, it seemed like some of the team were deliberately trying to get sent off (Vieira at Wolves) to jeopardise our onwards push to the play offs, ruining that brilliant start. After Bridcutt assassinated Ayling’s ankle at Elland Road in a bold and uneffacing manner, incidentally the likes of which we never saw anything of during his time with us, our players have been steadily crossed off the team sheet with the large red marker pen wielded by the football gods.

The same football gods who cannot and should not be dishonoured by fielding a weakened cup side.

Cut to the cries of those who mercilessly booed TC off the pitch, both at home to Cardiff and at the final whistle at Hull the other week. Those who have shorter memories than the most schizophrenic of goldfish in Ridsdale’s gold plated fish tanks. Not only can they not remember hailing TC as The Messiah not even 6 months ago, but they selectively forget pouring scorn on the likes of Villa and Derby for such a faltering start. Cut back to present day and look who’s laughing at us now.

When will we ever learn? What do we need to learn?

At the time of first writing this article, Radrizzani had just sacked TC. The vultures had just landed and all the amassed keyboard warriors in the ranks of Leeds United fans had one thing on their minds… we need an English manager. This is the first thing we need to learn. What exactly have our most recent English managers done for us? Using the wise words from worldfootball.net (not Wikipeddler) I have tried to sum this up in a historical, rather than hysterical, format.

Grayson? He lasted quite a while, from Dec 2008 to Feb 2012 and he did ok with the squad he had and the tight reins of the then owner. Redfearn then had his first stint then for 15 days until Warnock came in. Warnock? I have VERY strong opinions on Colin, some of which are just not suitable for this or any other public article. Suffice to say, in the words of the Harry Enfield character, Frank Doberman, Oi – Warnock – No! When Colin arrived, we weren’t in much trouble, swanning about in mid table mediocrity, as per the norm under “I promise I will get Leeds out of The Championship” bates – and surely he did – by getting us relegated to Division 3. Granted, by the time Colin left, we hadn’t got relegated, but we were dangerously swimming against the tide. Redders stepped in again for a total of 9 days before we struck gold (at the time it seemed anyway) with Brian McDermott. Brian survived a near miss sacking but then it all fell away after he struggled to have a plan B, not the first time I will say this. Dave Hockaday then survived for 3 months in June 2014, but only because we didn’t technically play any games for most of it. He was summarily despatched in the August, faring only marginally worse than contestants in the Big Brother house. For Redders, it wasn’t third time lucky, as Milanic was drafted in (see below). Redders’s – 4th time is a charm- last attempt was slightly longer before he was ousted by Uwe, again see below. Redders was the fans favourite, given his pedigree with the Youth Team, but that’s where his limit lay, sadly, no Plan A, Plan B or Plan C. Which takes us to Steve Evans, and well he did ok and should have been given more time in my opinion. Plus he came to Supporters Club meetings and wore his LUSC tie proudly! The only manager in recent years who had time for the ordinary fans, and I respect him alot for that. He wasn’t my first choice, but he was a genuine guy and I think he was proud to come to us. None of the rest of them showed any interest, for all their talk of how amazing they thought the fans were. I’m not even going to give the Snake a proper mention. No Plan A, B, C, D or E. F for fail in old O level speak! U in old A level – unrecordable – means you didn’t even get your name right at the top of the page.

I agree that our foreign managers haven’t been up to scratch either. Uwe Rosler,  he had a bad start in his managerial reign in that pre-season friendly in Austria, and it didn’t bode too well for him after that. Then, Darko Milanic, who is back at Maribor by all accounts, but at the time, given all the off pitch shenanigans with the FA and EFL trying to get Sig Cellino sent back to Italy, there were too many distractions for them to concentrate on winning games.

Going back to my original point, however, do we need an English manager? Look at the Man Citys, Chelskis etc. Yes, they have the money to buy players in, but their players still get crocked, and they play their second side. Albeit, even their third/fourth sides are miles better than the Championship first teamers. But, the last English manager to do well in the premier league was….Scottish! Even Leicester were forced to admit that Ranieri was the key to success after Pearson had built the foundations. Once the players turned on Claudio and forced him out, the truth was revealed. Leicester probably won’t get relegated, but only by the virtue that there are worse teams in that league who will. The margin between the top of the premier league and the bottom is huge. Unlike in our league, where a few dropped points from losing when we should have drawn, or drawing when we were ahead and should have finished the game off with another goal rather than sitting back, mean the difference between play offs and mid table mediocrity. Even though it feels like decades since we last won a game, we’re still in the top half and even though I have given up on playoffs and actively thinking about enjoying May this year, it’s not impossible. Just highly unlikely, that’s all.

An English manager is not the be all and end all. I wish Carvalho all the best of luck at Swansea (please can we have Bartley back?), and I will laugh if the Wendies miserably fail. A decent foreign manager with the owner’s full support, and more importantly the financial backing, may be the better solution. Which leads me to my second point, bringing in new players.

Regular readers will know of my intolerance of SkyTVis f**kings**t-all-one-word’s transfer deadline circus, and the keyboard warriors who have a field day hammering on their emoticons / emojis ( I really don’t know what they are called, and I am not  bothered either) at the next prospective signing. Then when we don’t sign any big names in the summer or January, they just bleat about not bringing enough talent up through the reserves. You CANNOT have it both ways! Either you concentrate your efforts on bringing the Youth team through, OR you go for the big money signings. No gifted young player is going to want to plough through the ranks, if at the end of the day, the only prospect of getting in the first team will be playing in a weakened side in the early rounds of the League or FA Cup, when the manager is picking names out of a hat. The reserves should be playing properly, not being despatched to Rhyl to be beaten up, and they should be the source of the substitutes. After that, the Youth team. I cannot believe that we didn’t have a reserve, reserve defence when Ayling, Cooper, Jansson etc. got injured/ suspended early this season. Yes, Pennington and Shaughnessy got injuries too, but what happened to Anita? I really felt for De Bock being brought in before the ink dried on his contract, how can we let ourselves get so depleted of players?

I hate that Alan Hansen catchphrase ” strength in depth” – what does that mean? Depth of what? The bath? Does it just mean a team need a few of each players, or a few utility players to come in for injuries? A while ago, we had Paul Hart at one of the LUSC meetings and he mentioned that premier league scouts were hanging round our Youth Team fixtures like vultures. Is that where our Youth team are going? To “bigger, better” clubs? But only to find, again, that they will never get a first team game as there is always some football agent out there who will be peddling his wares at Christmas. So realistically, it is a no brainer to a kid with talent, stick with your local team or go to a premier league club and warm their bench for more money instead? As I said,  no brainer.

So to Heckingbottom. If Radrizzani had set his heart on targeting an English manager who was already at a club and was willing to pay the other club off, I would have preferred him go to Mansfield and get Big Steve back. Evans has been doing a good job at Mansfield, he knows our set up, and when he came to the LUSC meetings, he was genuinely humbled to be received by us. He could not have shown more respect to us, the ordinary fans, it was more than the lip service that we have endured before him and since. I might add, had Colin offered to come to a meeting, I would rather have spent the evening pulling my teeth out anyway.

I may be proved wrong with Heckingbottom, he might turn out to be just as amenable as Big Steve. He’s a Yorkshireman after all. He might be approaching us as I type and begging to come to an LUSC meeting, who knows? As for his team selection, I am not sure if he picked the team against T’Blades, or he let someone else do it. As much as I like O Kane as a player, I wouldn’t have picked him as Captain. He’s too young and not had enough experience, and that headbutt was rubbish. Didn’t even draw blood. He needs to speak to Beradi and get some lessons into how to properly get sent off for a head butt.  Pablo’s captaincy was also a mistake though, he was like the Scarlet Pimpernel at times against Hull, as he has been most of the season. You cannot fault his talent, but he does do a Lord Lucan. Jokes aside, when the team haven’t been performing and you come in as a new manager, just make the changes. Don’t stick to the failing formula, create your own masterpiece. The world is your oyster. Drop Roofe, he has been pants the last few games, give him a break. Give Sakho a start, play Anita, he looked good at the start of the season before he got injured, play 4-4-2, just face it 4-3-2-1 just doesn’t work.

Put your own mark on it. Make it your own. This is your golden ticket..

Well the launch of the new badge has well and truly hijacked Blog number 3 of 2018. Bizarrely enough however, the same themes are running through, if not parallel to my original War and Peace essay. So here’s Blog number 3, take 2.

Loyalty – there’s a thing. Traditions and respect for your history and your humble beginnings – there’s another.

We lost a great friend and mentor in Eric, and as most of you will know, I personally was absolutely outraged (that’s putting it mildly) that the Club and it’s fans did not do more to show their appreciation of this great man. Although there was some outcry at the time on facebook, there was a noticeable quiet from other fan groups. Apart from BBC Radio Leeds, I did not see anything on mainstream media. I can’t recollect anything on Look North nor Calendar despite the extraordinary long service and dedication of this one man to promote Leeds United all over the world.

This led me to think that the “New Era of Leeds United fans” were just not really that bothered about the “Old Guard”. It made me think that the old supporters groups might just be outdated now, with the “new and improved” Bi-Millenials taking centre stage. Thinking about all those “The League is more important than the Cup” comments, the cynic in me says that times have changed. The way we watch football has changed, the way we appreciate football has changed, the way we talk and react to football has changed.  In short, football has changed, and I haven’t… and frankly, I’m not going to.

In the old days, unless your dad / relative / mate’s dad / relative / friend took you to watch a game, you basically were on your own. You may have been in a group at school who went together, but if you weren’t that lucky, and if you loved the team, you just went in head first, because the long and short of it was, you just wanted to watch Leeds United. These were the days when you could walk up to the turnstile and pay on the gate or climb over the walls for the more daring older members. Later on, tearing off your little paper slip from your season ticket book became the norm once terracing areas got their own season tickets. But it didn’t matter then, because you knew that everyone else on that terrace was just there to watch Leeds United as well. It didn’t matter who you were, where you came from or what you did, we were all equals – apart from the ones who had always been there. That was their spot and everyone knew it. If you went and stood in their spot, you would know about it. Terrace etiquette.

Away games were a different kettle of fish. Firstly, if you had never been to a ground before, you had to find it. This was no mean feat, as, if you remember, most grounds were in the middle of town, not these new out of town souless stadia like we have now. Walking round rows of terraced houses looking for Maine Road or Goodison Park, desperately hoping you didn’t bump into a crowd of home fans, was your first hurdle. This was of course, provided you got off at the right train station in the first place, and given that trains weren’t all that good in the old days, this was a recipe for disaster. Those paper timetables with the texture of school toilet paper were terrible if they got wet, difficult to read at the best of times. Trains though cost money, and in the 60s those who couldn’t afford it, well they just hitch-hiked, not as dangerous as it seems in those days (unless you didn’t know where Stoke was). None of this uber and googlemaps rubbish. Having said that, I think I saw something on facebook about some guy that got into a taxi to go to Stamford Bridge and the satnav took him to York. So , ho hum for technological advances.

So this is where the Supporters Clubs were a godsend. Not only did the coach pick you up, but they saved you the hassle of standing at the ticket office, hoping to God that no one could see your colours (after a few times, you stopped wearing your colours) to try and get a ticket anywhere you could. Then they would take you home, or at least to the pub on the way home, if it was open. Because all you wanted to do was to go watch Leeds United. That’s what it was all about then, watching your team. If you didn’t go and watch your team , then you never saw any football unless you caught World of Sport or Grandstand if you had a telly. None of this 600+ channels and sport on demand, every day of every week all year round, that you have nowadays. Saturday was special because Saturday meant football.

The loyalest fans went everywhere. No matter how much it cost in time and money, somehow you just did. Missing a game was unimaginable. These loyal fans weren’t celebrity fans, they didn’t tell everyone how much of a fan they were, they just went to the games and watched the 11 men on the pitch, and everyone knew it. They didn’t have famous friends, and if anything the players themselves recognised the ones that travelled everywhere, and they were proud of them. The players were proud of the fans – who’d have thought?

Nowadays, if you don’t post on social media, no one knows who you are. The loudest voices of the “fans” are those who are adept at using social media to their own ends. The ones the media take note of are the ones with all the means and the  money who organise plane fly pasts and inflated overhead projections. The ones who are famous for tweeting and retweeting and commenting on whatever late breaking news SkyTVis f**kings**t-all-one-word are peddling on their “transfer window exclusives”. Are these people the real fans, or are the real fans just those who want to go watch Leeds United? And I do mean the ones that want to watch the football, not these that want to go and do anything but watch the game. Why spend your time and money going to a game if you are just going to look at your phone for 45 minutes, take a 15 minute break and then go back on your phone for another 45 minutes? May as well just stop at home and sit on the toilet and do that. At least you won’t have to get up and go for a piss. Yes, jump up and down to celebrate when we score, but bringing in smoke bombs, having beer fights and spending the game whingeing about needing a new striker and arguing with your own fans, not funny, not clever and not Leeds. Not the Leeds of old, and as it should be, not the New Era of Leeds United.

How ironic then that Leeds United bring out a new badge that they say they have consulted with 10,000 fans on and within half an hour there are 10,000 people going on change.org moaning that they haven’t been consulted. Although, if you remember Ridsdale said that 38,000 fans voted to move away from Elland Road to Swillington, so at least 10k isn’t that bad. How ironic that some complainents may be some of the same people who think that the Club need to move forward, away from the old days and embrace the next 100 years because the New Era of Leeds United is about bringing in new blood.  How ironic is it that some of these same people believe that the loyal fans of the last 10+ years of decline, don’t really matter (especially when it comes to getting away tickets!), because it’s about the “new” generation of fans. How ironic is it that the simple act of recognising a proper Leeds United legend goes by without a murmur, brushed under the carpet because it’s part of the “old fashioned supporters club” era and this is the New Improved Modern Era of Leeds United. How ironic is it that remembering your history, being proud of your history and honouring the traditions of the oldest footballing tournament in the world isn’t that important, but when it comes to a new badge, all of a sudden, the words tradition and history are being used like they are going out of date ( pardon the pun).

Me, The new badge is growing on me. I never liked the shield, yes, it took us to the Champions League semi final, but it is tarred. Tarred with the horrors in Turkey, tarred with the Bowyer-Woodgate mess, tarred with Ridsdale and his gold plated fish tanks, tarred with O Leary and his book and last but by all means not least, tarred by Bates and Shaun Harvey.

Good riddance.

All hail the New Era of Leeds United. On On On.

ps thanks to Fear and Loathing in LS11 for the picture ( I have tried to tag you in it but this version of wordpress isn’t having it)

I’ve looked at this from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow – no,  I still can’t see it.

It isn’t just the football club with it’s lackadaisical attitude to the FA Cup, it’s the fans as well. The ones who think the league is more important than the Cup. They might as well just take off with the team on some money spinning Asia/Australasia/America tour on the FA Cup weekends. They might enjoy themselves more doing that, seeing as The FA Cup just isn’t relevant to them anymore. After all, it was only Don Revie who said that winning the FA Cup was the best day of his life.

It is just too easy to forget the days of the whole country grinding to a halt on Cup Final day and everyone crowding around the one telly in the street to see the game. The days when you only got 3 live games on the telly a year, the FA Cup Final, England v Scotland and occassionally the European Cup Final if an English team was in it.

Following on from my letter to the Club, here is the letter to the fans (in the loosest possible terms of my understanding of the word “fans”).

Dear Football fan

The time is drawing near for you to plan your football watching season in 2019.

If you are one of those who think the league is far more important that the FA Cup, can I please request that you book your holidays for the Cup weekends, thereby sparing the rest of us from your negative defeatist attitudes. As the FA Cup weekends are generally in winter, warmer climes are appropriate and you will reduce the demand on school holiday time for the rest of us.

In the extremely unlikely event of the Club taking the competition seriously and progressing into the later stages of the FA Cup, please can you spare us from the whingeing about not being able to get a ticket to that “glory tie”.  If your mantra is “The Cup doesn’t really matter”, this smacks of total, utter, complete hypocrisy and someone needs to slap you in the face with a cold wet fish. I wonder how many of you were clamouring for one of the 8000+ £48 tickets for Old Trafford a few seasons ago? More importantly, how many of you would admit to it?

I would also like to point out that joining in with the “January 3rd, remember the date” is also seen as hypocrisy of the highest order, please desist with immediate effect.

Losing any game is not to be taken lightly. Losing to lower league opposition, is particularly damaging to team spirit and the knock on effect of a defeat by minnows will invariably affect the performance in the subsequent games. As a fan, your objectives should always be to celebrate a win.

Yours truly

A football fan from days gone by

ps

Shame on you for forgetting your history. Shame on you for forgetting the great Revie era. Shame on you for forgetting Side before Self. Shame on you for forgetting that it is all about for playing for the team and the pride of the shirt. Every game matters, week in, week out. That is just how it is.

Like the Pilot song, January – sick and tired, you’ve been hanging on me. This has definitively been a January to forget. I had written a very upbeat blog just after Birmingham, but completely forget to click that publish button. Thank God I didn’t, as reading it back now, after those terrible decisions TC made yesterday, I would have looked a complete Monk, sorry fool.

This has unfortunately all stemmed from the mistake of fielding a weaker side against Newport County. You would have thought that after the buzz phrase of the decade “lessons have been learned”, has been hammered round from successive Government failures/NHS and banking crises/police f**k-ups over the last 15 years, someone would have taken a bit of notice.

Sadly not. So this is my letter. A letter that I would send if I thought the Club had any sense of humour, dignity,decorum, faith, honour in traditions etc.etc.etc . However, I think that our Club, along with the rest of the 72 other football league clubs have about as much respect for our footballing history and  traditions, as they have for the fans that pay their hard earned cash, and give up their time to travel to watch their team around the country.

Please see the section from FA Cup website ( I will attempt to attach the PDF of this just in case anyone wants to read the full rules). I had no idea that a football club has to actually apply to compete (in the loosest possible terms of my understanding of “compete”) in the FA Cup.

A Club wishing to participate in the Competition must complete the application and payment
process on or before 1 April in the season previous to the season in which such Club
proposes to compete in the Competition. A Club that is either a Full or Associate Member
of The Association who fail to pay The Association’s Membership subscriptions by 1 August
may be subject to removal from the Competition.

Dear (insert as appropriate) Football Club

The closing date for your application to play in next season’s FA Cup is looming.

Please can I request that if you are  not intending to FULLY participate in the competition, please do not bother to send in your application form.

If you have little or no respect for the history and the traditions of the oldest football tournament in the world, please do not waste your time.

If you intend on making 10 changes from your league side,  fielding your 2nd/3rd and/or youth team players, entering this competition would be a pointless exercise.

If you cannot see the value of using the Cup ties as an opportunity to develop your squad players, practice new playing systems and configurations, and see these games as a distraction from the more important league games, please desist.

If you cannot see the benefits of beating a lower league side comprehensively, both in the confidence boost from scoring and winning, and increasing the goal tally for the season, you are best to avoid the Cup.

If you choose to ignore the fact that there may be a boost to the Club revenue from full house cup ties from ticket sales and the subsequent merchandise/ retail outlets /catering streams income, that is your choice.

If you cannot acknowledge the importance of the fan experience at both home and away games, and realise that the fans that travel round the country are just as, if not more valuable, than the ones that watch on which ever random television channel decides it wants to inconvenience the travelling fans with, that is your perogative.

If this is your approach, we look forward to not receiving your application.

However, if you were simply concerned that you were going to miss the Royal wedding and had already applied for your street party licence, I fully understand. After all , moving the kick off til 5.30pm, just simply isn’t enough time to enjoy the full day of celebrations with Harry and Megan.

Yours truly

A football fan from days gone by

Smiles on the faces of Leeds manager Don Revie and club captain Billy Bremner as they hold the FA Cup which the club won in 1972 when they beat Arsenal

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!

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