Category Archives: Leeds United

Sam Byram Should Put Himself First; and Stay at Leeds United   –   by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 18/12/2015 | 18 comments
Sam Byram: learning his trade at Leeds United

Sam Byram: learning his trade at Leeds United

Wolves 2, Leeds United 3

Sam Byram is already a very good footballer as well as a tolerably wealthy young man. These twin attributes should see him able to set himself up for life by the time those distant days of his mid-thirties are upon him. Given ordinary luck, he will then be able to look back upon a long and successful career with the security of a good few million in his Post Office Savings Account. All of which means that the contract decision he is now in the process of making is unlikely to have major long-term financial implications. What Byram really needs to consider is where best to spend the next few, still formative, years of his football education. And, despite the lure of fatter contracts elsewhere, it may well be that those long-term interests will be best served by remaining at Elland Road for the immediate future at least.

The wisdom of this could be illustrated by considering the differing fates of those who have previously struck out along the path to fame, fortune and some Premier League giant’s reserve side, as opposed to the more cautious types who stuck with their club of origin until a degree of maturity grew about them. There’s no hard and fast rule here, and no real need to name names. But let’s do so anyway – take the example of our own Gary Speed, who stayed with Leeds and built a firm foundation for a lengthy career that now sees him venerated as a legend, a status that owes little if anything to his tragic early death. Speed enjoyed the fruits of success at several other top-flight clubs after putting in the years at Leeds, not incidentally picking up a Title-winner’s medal while he was here. His mark on the game was made indelibly before he secured a move to his boyhood heroes Everton. 

Consider also the case of Aaron Lennon, a teen speed machine at Leeds who was sold early to Spurs when the Ridsdale house of cards came tumbling down. It was crisis time at Leeds, and Lennon’s move to London was inevitable – but if he’d had the chance to follow Gary Speed’s example, might he not have made slightly more of an impression later on in his career? There is the air of potential not quite fulfilled about Lennon – and who knows what a few more years in his formative environment might have done for him? No matter, you might say – he’s still loaded and made for life. But, even today, football is not all about money. Byram will wind up extremely wealthy whatever path he takes, barring some unforeseen misfortune. Short term financial gain should, perhaps, take second place to his prospects of securing for himself a place in football history. 

This was really the theme of United manager Steve Evans‘ post-match remarks after United’s 3-2 success at Wolves, in which Byram returned to the starting line-up and scored twice. If the lad wants to stay and play for a club and manager that appreciates him, earning “decent money”, then he’ll have a chance of being part of whatever Evans and Leeds can achieve over the next few years. “We’re trying to build something here”, says Evans – and as we all know, if you build something at Leeds United, then the world sits up and takes notice. 

Byram’s choice is not really about money at all – it’s about how best to ensure the game will remember him after his playing days are over. Terrific prospect though he is, it’s quite possible that Leeds could be the biggest club Byram ever plays for. Where else might he end up? Norwich, like Jonny Howson? Hull, like Rob Snodgrass?

For all but the very best, the only way from Elland Road is down, whatever the league tables might temporarily say. And it will be a few years yet before we can say with any certainty whether Byram is out of that very top drawer. If he is, then he might have his choice of big clubs in his mid-twenties, at home or abroad. The sky could be the limit. And if he’s not – well, then, he might be ushered out of Leeds United anyway. Better, surely, to stay with an indisputably massive football institution while he can, buckle down and learn the rest of his trade – and see where the journey takes both himself and the club. Byram has the luxury of time and an enviable situation. He must be sure not to fritter either away.

This blog is on record as stating more than once that Sam Byram is not indispensable as far as Leeds and their battle to achieve top-flight status are concerned. I stand by that. If the club can get decent money for Sam – and reinvest it – then the loss of one precocious talent need not prevent the club returning to its natural level. And even if he were to go for a song – the club is still bigger than any one talent. Leeds will be back anyway, sooner or later.

It is probably fair to argue, as this article has set out to do, that Byram needs Leeds more than Leeds United needs Sam Byram – certainly at this point in his development. A few years on, the shoe might very well be on the other foot. Who knows? But, for the time being, Sam’s best bet could be to put pen to paper, get on with his work – and do his best to reward the fans who have supported him so well and with such pride thus far in his fledgling career. 

Do yourself a favour, Sam. Put your own best interests first. Stay at Leeds United, stay true to your roots – and help restore a true giant of the game back to its proper place. Deep down, mere considerations of pounds and pence notwithstanding, you must know it makes sense. 

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The Day We Lost Billy Bremner, a Superstar to Eclipse Any Today – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 07/12/2015 | 49 comments

The more I see of football these days, with all of its allegedly “world class” stars, the more I think of the guy who scored the first goal I ever saw Leeds United score – in the flesh, so to speak. His hair was red and fuzzy and his body black and blue, and his name was Billy Bremner. God alone knows what he’d be worth today – sadly, he hasn’t been around since that awful time, 21 years ago exactly, when football was deprived of a legend and Leeds United began to come to terms with the loss of a man who embodied everything that the Last Champions were all about, at their very, very best.

On the 7th December 1997, two days short of his 55th birthday, our greatest captain Billy Bremner died following a heart attack after a bout of pneumonia. The Leeds United world was plunged into shock and mourning at the death of a true hero, and the game’s great and good attended his funeral in Edlington. The tiny church, packed to the rafters with household names, was resounding testimony to the respect in which the wee man was held by all who knew the legend. Old comrades and old foes alike were there to say goodbye to an icon who had left us tragically young, but who had emblazoned his name across an era not wanting for stars.

Image Scoring for Leeds

Billy Bremner was quite simply a phenomenon. From the earliest days of his Leeds United career, once he had recovered from a bout of home-sickness for his native Stirling in Scotland, he was an automatic selection for the first team, unless injury or suspension ruled him out. He was a warrior, despite his diminutive size, but he was blessed with all the other attributes needed for a central midfielder on the battlegrounds of the English First Division. Skill, courage, “workrate” – as it’s known these days – were combined with sheer guts, tenacity, will to win – and that indefinable x-factor that ultimately set him apart from other gifted performers. A ball-winner, a talented user of the ball once won, a relentless harrier of the opposition for the full ninety minutes plus of each gruelling game – and a scorer of great goals too. Bremner was a big occasion man, a serial winner of semi-finals (Man U being his favourite victims), a man who unfailingly stepped up to the mark when his team-mates and fans needed him. He was utterly self-effacing in the interests of what was best for the team. “Side before self, every time“ was his motto, and he lived up to those words for as long as he was involved in football.

Some called him dirty. And he was as capable as most other combative central midfielders of a bit of feisty skullduggery – but to define him by his occasional sins would be short-sighted in the extreme and would display, moreover, a lack of awareness of exactly what his game was all about. A consummate passer of the ball – with the neat reverse pass a speciality, flummoxing and wrong-footing many an international-class opponent – Bremner was the epitome of Don Revie‘s Leeds United, a team who said “If you want to play, we’ll out-play you; if you want to battle, we’ll out-battle you.” They usually out-thought and out-psyched the opposition as well. Many a visiting player was artfully allowed a glimpse as they passed by of the sign on the home team dressing room wall at Elland Road. “Keep Fighting”, it said – which was what Leeds United, guided by Don Revie off the field and Billy Bremner on it, did – and they did it better than just about anybody else.

Image Leeds United hero

The Sunday Times perhaps summed-up Billy Bremner as well and as succinctly as anyone. “Ten stone of barbed wire” they called him – the image of a spiky, perilous bundle of energy conjured up in five telling words. I saw an old clip on YouTube recently, grainy black and white footage of some or other game back in the day, and there had been an incident that set the players en masse at each other’s throats. Bremner – unusually – must have been some way off when the flashpoint occurred, for he was nowhere to be seen with the melée already well established. And then, from the right-hand margin of the screen, came this white-clad, unmistakable figure, tiny but fierce, hurtling towards the centre of the conflict with the desire to weigh in on behalf of the team writ large in every line of his being. He was a frenetic mixture of Yosemite Sam and the Tasmanian Devil, plunging into the fray like some one-man whirlwind, wreaking his own inimitable brand of havoc. Bremner was famous, even notorious, for this – for his battle-cry of “cut one of us, and we all bleed.” Billy shed blood in the United cause – usually, it must be said, not his own. But a thug he was not, and any team, any time, anywhere in the world would break the bank to have a Billy Bremner in his prime among their number. Fortunately for Leeds United, he loved the club and served it for sixteen years, becoming synonymous with the famous Whites of Elland Road. As Leeds fans, we could nominate no better candidate for the honorific title of “Mr. Leeds United”. Only the great John Charles, operating in a much less successful era at Leeds and destined to win his medals on foreign fields, could come anywhere near.

My second match as a Leeds United supporter was the European Cup semi-final, first leg against CF Barcelona, Johann Cruyff, Johann Neeskens and all. Those two Dutch masters, with all the other glitterati of the Catalans’ world-class line-up were expected to have too much for a United side on the cusp of just dipping over the hill.  The previous Saturday, I’d made my first visit to Elland Road and had seen us lose to Liverpool. I was all agog at the atmosphere, and didn’t really care about the result – I just wanted more.

BBC Commentary, Leeds Utd v Barcelona 9.4.75

So it was that my first ever Leeds United goal came to be scored by Billy Bremner himself, the greatest player in the greatest team United ever had. A long ball from Johnny Giles, headed down by Joe Jordan, found King Billy in enough space on the edge of the area at the South Stand end. He measured the situation, took aim and rifled the ball superbly, well wide of the helpless keeper, into the top left-hand corner. The din was deafening, like nothing I’d ever heard before, and rarely since. “Elland Road erupts” intoned David Coleman for the BBC, when he could make himself heard. The image of the small, red-headed giant belting that ball home will live with me to my last day. I’ve always been proud that my first goal was scored by King Billy. I feel as though, in a funny way, I own that goal.

Image of the significance of the occasion. “Nine men and Billy….we’ve got nine men and Billy!“, they sang, loud, proud and raucous. “Billy Bremner’s barmy army” got many a refrain as well. The fans had said farewell to the Captain of the Crew in a manner hugely identifiable with the man himself and with the fighting traditions of the great side he led with such distinction. As far as these things can be, it was deeply fitting, and those who remembered Billy gave a knowing nod of appreciation.

RIP  Billy Bremner. Departed far too soon, and greatly missed still. It’s unlikely we’ll ever have another quite like you.

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Cellino’s Leeds Utd Is Not A Fair Test For ANY Manager – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 28/11/2015 | 13 comments
cellino-and-steve-evans

A clown… and a patsy?

You can’t blame these football men – one after another of them – for giving it a go at Massimo Cellino‘s Leeds United. They’re not blind and they’re not daft; they can see the awful mortality rate as manager after manager (I’ve given up on that head coach rubbish) falls victim to Cellino’s ongoing conviction that, however bad it gets, it’s always someone else’s fault. Each new Leeds United manager must come into the job with eyes wide open, knowing all too well that the odds are stacked heavily against them.

But still – it is Leeds United, a name known everywhere, a club of massive history and tradition. These football men are confident and simply crammed with self-belief, and they all want to be the game-changer. They’d be in a different caper if that were not so. Each of them earnestly believes he can be the one to turn around the fortunes of a moribund football club. That’s the dangling carrot – that tantalising chance of earning fame and immortality in the eyes of football’s most loyal, most fanatical and yet most demanding fans. Because, whoever does restore Leeds to something like its former glory will become a legend throughout the Whites-supporting universe. It’s a chance, so it seems, to make an indelible mark on football history. No – you really can’t blame these men for trying.

But the problem is that they reckon without the self-defeating craziness of Cellino, the kind of maverick unpredictability that will ensure no rational approach can be guaranteed to work. And, so it seems to many of us, they reckon without the effect of this rotten Cellino regime on the players themselves and their confidence – as well as their morale and motivation, their hopes for stability and continuity. The last few weeks have been like a snapshot of this whole problem – the Cellino roller-coaster in  microcosm. Things are bad initially, and Cellino says he’s off, he’s had enough. Results then pick up, the mood about the place improves as talk escalates of Cellino selling the club to fans, to Steve Parkin, to anybody. But then Cellino reneges, and we really shouldn’t be surprised; it’s what he does. He’s not going to sell to the fans, he decides. And then, predictably for the cynics among us, he’s not selling at all, not in the short term at any rate. Apparently, there’s “no serious interest”. Yeah, right.

And, lo and behold, there is a depression once more over Elland Road. From two successive victories and two clean sheets when il Duce said he was off, we now have two successive defeats and two failures to score a goal since he changed his mind, or stopped lying, or however you interpret his screwball narrative. Is it too simplistic to make a connection between the turnaround in fortunes, and Cellino’s wildly-varying statements of intent? Those who still find themselves able to defend Cellinocchio might very well say so.

Well, I don’t think it is too simplistic; in fact, I think the nail has been hit on the head by anyone who makes that connection. Matters at the top of the club filter down to the players and the staff – that’s the case anywhere. The prospect of a less obviously loco form of ownership can be expected to perk things up on the field; equally, the dashing of those hopes, along with the realisation that it’s going to be crazy business as usual, will inevitably have its effect in terms of matters taking a downturn. That’s how it seems to have gone, lately.

So, where is the manager in all of this? Caught like a hapless nut in the jaws of a nutcracker, that’s where. Whatever his motivational abilities, however innovative and inspiring he might be on the training ground, it all counts for very little when the very fabric of the football club is rotting away due to the corrosive influence of a man who should never be allowed anywhere near any professional club – much less one of the stature of Leeds United. Whether the manager’s name is Steve Evans, Uwe Rösler, Neil Redfearn – or even Jose Mourinho, Pepe Guardiola or the sainted and incomparable Don Revie himself – the end will remain the same when you have an unfit person autocratically running things on a whim at the summit of the whole shebang. The wheels will inevitably fall off, the fans – being fans and emotionally involved – will vent at least part of their spleen on the visible target in the dugout, the manager thus targeted will feel himself to be a dead man walking, and the downward spiral will continue – with that malign presence in the boardroom seemingly fire-proof (unless the Football League do finally cook his goose for him).

Leeds United as it currently exists is not a fair test of a manager’s ability. In fact he can have all the ability in the world, but he might as well be King Canute trying to hold back the tide, for all the good that will do him – he’ll either have to walk or get washed away eventually. Sooner or later, as surely as night follows day, Cellino will get impatient, or bored, or simply even madder than he already is – and the whole grisly process will start again, with the credibility of a great club taking yet another fearful hit on its way down.

It’s not good enough, and we all know it. The rest of football can see it too, but, with it being Leeds, they’ll just be having a sly little snigger up their collective sleeve. If we are to get through these depressing, frustrating times, it’s unlikely to be with much real help from outside. It will be a matter of those with the best interests of Leeds United at heart – the fans and those positive elements within the club itself – sticking together and exerting such pressure as we are able, in order to bring about positive change. And again, fans being fans, that will be dreadfully hard to bring about. In the wake of today’s defeat at QPR, I’ve seen at least two moans or groans about Steve Evans, Chris Wood – even new loanee Liam Bridcutt – for every one murmur of complaint about the real culprit here, Cellino himself. And that’s really worrying – as the Italian bides his time before stating he’s going to hang around (FL permitting) after all.

If we’re ever going to be united enough to apply the necessary pressure that could bring about change, then we have to act united in the first instance – and a vital part of that is knowing your enemy. So, who is Leeds United’s enemy? It’s not Steve Evans, coming to terms with the impossibility of his job under the pressure of eking out results with a disconsolate squad. It’s not even the players who, after all, just want to perform and achieve for a proper football club that is going places. We all know, those of us who can see the blindingly obvious, who our enemy is. It’s that serial liar, that crazy, maverick, mercurial clown in the boardroom. It’s Massimo Cellino, quite plainly and clearly. So let’s not become distracted and start heaping needless pressure on innocent bystanders.

I look forward to the next Leeds United manager who will be allowed to do the job he’s been engaged to do. It seems unlikely at this juncture that his name will be Steve Evans, for whom the vultures are already gathering, more’s the pity. But we should all be clear on one thing – whoever might occupy the manager’s seat at Elland Road, he’s going to be on a loser as long as that nutter owns the club. Until Cellino goes, all we have to look forward to is more of the same – whoever’s notionally picking the team. Which is a tragic thought and, believe me, I’d love to be proved wrong. I’ve been wrong many times before, not least when I championed Cellino at the start of his reign. It goes with the territory of commenting on this bizarre club we all love so much.

But even given that flawed track record of mine – I gravely doubt, to my infinite regret, that I’m wrong about this.

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Four Years On, the Late, Great Gary Speed is Still So Much Missed – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 27/11/2015 | 18 comments
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The three left behind pay tribute to the one who went before

So, here we are then. It’s been four years today since the awful day that Speedo died. Forty-eight months down the line, and where has the time gone? It seems like five minutes since, driving to my parents house after running a few errands, the bleak words came out of the car radio and fell like a hail of rocks into my unwilling mind. Gary Speed – that smiling boy, that shock of dark hair, the towering presence in attack and all over the park in the white shirt of Leeds United, our home-grown and beloved Speedo – was dead, and apparently by his own hand. It’s no exaggeration to say that this was a “JFK moment”, one where you’d forever remember where you were and what you were doing when the shocking blow fell. What about you? What were you doing when you heard that Gary Speed was dead?

We remember him in many different ways. He was an exuberant quarter of that magnificent United midfield of a quarter-century ago. It was the best around, the engine room of the early nineties United team that swaggered back into the First Division after an eight year absence, had a little look around, decided that “there were nowt to fear” – and won the League in 1992, by four clear points. Decent at the back, productive up front, that team was powered by the four guys in the middle of the park; energetic leader Gordon Strachan, robust and implacable David Batty, elegant and creative Gary MacAllister – and, of course, the late, great Gary Speed.

What can we possibly say of Speedo that will give us the remotest chance of doing his memory justice? Bursting from his own half to score that fourth, decisive, hammer-blow goal against Sheffield Utd when we were battling each other for promotion and the second division title in 1990 – “Go on, Gary lad, get one yourself, son.  And he has!” Leaping salmon-like in that favoured inside-left channel (as we old’uns used to call it) – meeting accurate long diagonal passes to head dangerously goalwards for the likes of Chappy, Shutt, Varadi, Wallace – even Cantona… Blasting home from thirty yards against Southampton at the Dell, volleying in at the South Stand against Stuttgart and Man U, powering home a header at Crystal Palace, arm raised in salute, broadly grinning as he celebrated another goal for Leeds United – and always, always doing his bit for that fabulous midfield foursome.

Ridiculously good-looking was the boy Gary, a real pin-up type with the artfully-tousled hair, the chiselled bone structure and the hundred megawatt smile – and yet the kind of down-to-earth lad you didn’t mind your girlfriend fancying, or perhaps your daughter bringing home. In fact, it gave you that warm glow of affirmation – she fancies our Speedo. None of that Giggsy rubbish. You didn’t just not mind – you were flattered, by proxy. Greater love hath no fan.

If you had told me in 1992, when we saw that great midfield play and win, going on to collect that historic last-ever Football League Championship trophy, that a mere 19 years later we’d see three of them gather again to lay a wreath for the fourth – I’d never have believed something so awful could happen. It would have seemed like a sick, horrible, unfunny joke. Back then, it was still five years before we would lose Billy Bremner, twelve before we would say goodbye to another iconic Welsh hero, Gentle Giant and fifties legend John Charles.

Three years earlier we had shed tears in isolation as Don Revie succumbed to motor neurone disease, and most of football stood by indifferently save for his glory, glory boys and a select few others. It seemed, back in 1992, that losing the Don would be enough of sorrow and grieving for a long time. The Super Leeds side were all still alive and kicking, and we had this new team of Champions to salute. They were happy days; we were all that much younger and more innocent then. It’s a good job that you can’t see what’s coming at you, just around the corner.

Gary Speed holds a place still in the hearts of football fans everywhere, but especially perhaps in his adopted West Yorkshire home. That much is evidenced by the depth and sincerity of the tributes that have been paid to him by Leeds United, the club and even more so the fans, since that tragic day four years ago. In the very next game after Gary’s death, the travelling army of Leeds fans at Nottingham Forest chanted his name from the 11th minute, for 11 minutes, for our former number 11. It was a chant broken only briefly by ear-shattering celebrations as the modern Leeds team scored the opening goal. They went on to win 4-0 with a dominant performance. It was that kind of evening; they dared do no less.

But Gary had other fans, in other clubs – he was a boyhood Evertonian and had a spell at Goodison Park from 1996. That didn’t work out too happily in the end, but he served his childhood favourites well. The reasons underlying Speed’s departure from the Toffees were never revealed. He told the Liverpool Echo: “You know why I’m leaving, but I can’t explain myself publicly because it would damage the good name of Everton Football Club and I’m not prepared to do that.” On he moved to Newcastle and found a new legion of adoring fans, appearing in two successive FA Cup Finals for the Toon. He served Bolton Wanderers with distinction as player and coach and finished up as a player and then coach at Sheffield United – almost full circle from that match-clinching goal he’d scored against the Blades in 1990.

Then of course he went on to manage Wales and, proud Welshman and distinguished international footballer that he was, he was making a fantastic success of that job, putting pride and passion back into the Red Dragon. His last game in charge was a 4-1 friendly success over a classy Norway team on 12th November 2011 – and that sadly was Gary’s final curtain. But a few weeks after his death, on 21 December 2011, the day of the final FIFA rankings of the year, Wales were awarded the title of ‘Best Movers’, having gained more ranking points than any other nation in 2011. A fitting tribute to the impact a talented young coach was having in his tragically brief spell in charge of his country’s national squad. Since then, of course, Wales have qualified for Euro ’16, their first major tournament in well over half a century. They did it by building on the solid foundations laid by Gary Speed.

Four years ago today since the tragic death of Gary Speed. Four years without one of the first of my Leeds United heroes to be younger than I was when he starred in the Whites first team. He was a novelty – I’d always looked up to men older than me in the white shirt, and worshipped them as a boy does a man. But Gary was “nobbut a lad” to me, someone I looked up to whilst realising I was beginning to get old myself. He’s a lad to me still, four years after we lost him.

We’ll never know what was in Gary Speed’s mind on that awful day in 2011. It remains shrouded in mystery, and all we can tell ourselves now is, it was so needless, so unnecessary. Someone who had helped as many people as Speedo did in the course of a long and distinguished career, must surely have known that, at need, there would have been help for him. People would have been queuing up to help him, surely. If the days of unbelieving sorrow immediately after his death showed anything – they showed that here was a man loved by his peers and by his fans in a way that very few have been, before or since. I wonder if he really knew that? We can only hope he did.

Gary Speed MBE (8 September 1969 – 27 November 2011) You remain very much still in our hearts, minds and memories, Speedo. RIP

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Who’ll Be the Next League One Club to Overtake Leeds United?   –   by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 22/11/2015 | 12 comments
Time's running out for Leeds United

Time’s running out for Leeds United

Leeds United are now in danger of becoming a perennial Championship club: just a bit too well-resourced and well-supported to repeat the disaster of relegation to League One – or so we all hope and trust – but nowhere near good or competently-run enough to make the life-saving jump into the Premier League. And believe me, the clock is ticking on that jump. It’s an elevation that will become more and more of a formidable mountain to climb over the next few seasons.

The problem is, among many other Leeds United problems, that the reward for Premier League failure is about to go through the roof. Soon, clubs relegated from the élite top flight will be able to bank ‘parachute payments’ of around £100m pounds, allowing them a clear head start on their unsubsidised second tier competitors.

The clear implication of this is that we may shortly have what amounts to a closed shop, consisting of the usual permanent Premier League members, plus a small pool of hinterland dwellers, bobbing up and down between the top two divisions. The so-call Financial Fair Play rules will make it difficult for even wealthily-owned Championship clubs of long standing to break into this yo-yo fringe group, never mind the band of true aristocrats.

For the likes of Leeds United, and even Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday and a few other genuinely sizable members of the new underclass, this could represent the start of a living death of perpetual mediocrity.

So it follows that Leeds really must get its act together, and get up there in time to be the beneficiaries of parachute payments, as opposed to being marginalised by their galvanising effect on others. Sadly, there is no real sign that our heroes are remotely well-equipped enough to move on up anytime soon. It seems more likely at this stage that we will be overtaken by lesser clubs, who will happily make hay while the sun shines everywhere except, it seems, over LS11. This is not an unnecessarily gloomy or unrealistic prediction. It’s already happened too many times. 

Look at the Premier League membership right now. It makes for worrying study. You will find five of our former League One opponents there, mostly well-established top flight members now, while we remain as strugglers one step above our historical low point. Behold the success stories of clubs Leeds United should leave gasping in their wake. Swansea City, promoted from League One in our first season at that level, have added a League Cup to their mantelpiece and have generally done well. Southampton, European qualifiers now after emerging from the third tier a year after we did, and looking to consolidate and hammer on that Champions League door. Even new arrivals Bournemouth are looking reasonably well able to hold their own among the giants, as are Norwich City. And look at Leicester City, promoted from League One in our second season at that level. As I write, they are sitting proudly at the summit of English football, Premier League leaders, for the moment at least, and looking thoroughly at home in such exalted company. 

Leeds could and should have done better than any of these clubs, each of them recent denizens of League One. All of them are far smaller than the Whites, but have benefited from positive commercial and football strategies, not shying away from the speculative investment it takes to accumulate league points. They are well run for the most part and demonstrably scornful of any perceived glass ceiling. What they have accomplished should have been far easier for a club the size of Leeds. But our five years in the Championship have been a story of abject failure and serial incompetence, all underpinned by a total lack of vision and ambition. It’s no wonder we’ve been left trailing by the likes of Southampton and Leicester, and it would sadly be no surprise to see other clubs of similar size, currently below us in the pecking order, overhauling and leaving us behind in the near future.

So, which clubs currently languishing in the murk of League One might yet beat us to the sunny lower slopes of the Premier League? Two obvious candidates are Coventry City and Sheffield United, both doing reasonably well in the league below us, both tolerably well-run now after hard times – and both the kind of club that would, you suspect, see promotion to the Championship as a signal to kick on, invest, and make the most of their upward momentum. Which is just exactly what Leeds United threatened briefly to do in that momentous first season back at second tier level, before the fire sales started and the club began to lose its heart if not quite yet its soul.

For too long, Leeds United has appeared more complacent than hungrily ambitious; more disposed to “manage” its supporters’ expectations, rather than seek to fulfill them. With clubs all around us – smaller but more beadily focused clubs – avid for success, recognition and, yes, those Premier League millions too, Leeds simply can’t afford to tread water for much longer. The Premier League is a top table positively groaning under the weight of good things, even for those forced to leave the party early. With the increasing likelihood that victims of relegation will be fortified by that generous parachute for resurrection almost immediately, it’s only going to get harder and harder for the less-privileged to gatecrash the feast.  The likes of Sheffield United and Coventry will be well aware of this, as will more immediate dangers like Forest and Wednesday at our own current level. Leeds United just seems to be drifting along, more concerned with internal crises than the need to better themselves, waiting perhaps for some divine right to assert itself and convey the club back to the Promised Land.

Well, it ain’t gonna happen, guys – as any long-suffering and knowledgeable supporter would be well able to confirm. They say the spectator sees most of the game, and it’s the Leeds United fans, as opposed to those entrusted with the running of the club, who appear most acutely worried about exactly how and when we are going to find ourselves back where we assuredly belong – and able to capitalise on the undoubted potential of the club in a much more financially conducive environment. For a true giant like Leeds – by far and away the biggest club below the Premier League (and bigger than most inside it) – the opportunity is there for the taking to re-establish itself as one of the big, swaggering kids on the block.

It will take bravery, audacity, sufficient investment, nerve and some cool heads to achieve this – all currently noticeable by their absence around Elland Road. But if we don’t sort ourselves out soon – and start making some serious steps forward – we may yet get trampled in the rush by our smaller, meaner rivals – each of whom provides in effect a blueprint for the approach we should have been taking all along.

Tick tock, Leeds United. Get your act together. Time is running short.

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So, It Was Just Another of Your Lies, Mr. Cellino – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 20/11/2015 | 26 comments
CellinoLiar

Cellinocchio

They say that “a murderer will kill you and a thief will rob you – but with a liar, you just don’t know where you stand”. That neatly sums up the quandary in which many Leeds United fans find themselves over mercurial owner Massimo Cellino – or “Cellinocchio” as he is sometimes dubbed, with a nod to the legendary lying puppet Pinocchio, whose nose grew longer with every falsehood uttered, marking him out as a liar and not to be trusted.

In Cellino’s case, the lies are as plain as the nose on his face – buying back the ground, sticking with this or that head coach, selling his interest in the club to a fans’ group – and yet that facial feature stays obstinately the same size. It is the Cellino rap sheet that grows progressively longer, not his proboscis. Still, the indictment is just as damning as Jiminy Cricket‘s of Pinocchio – more so, in fact, as what Cellino appears to lack that Jiminy provided for the wooden puppet boy, is a conscience.

It is that lack of conscience, that tendency to deceive and make false promises, that puts Cellino beyond the pale for many Leeds fans, blunt and straight-talking as they tend to be, whether from within or without the Broad Acres. Fans, who deal in the currency of loyalty and fervent support, are at a genuine disadvantage when dealing with a man who will say whatever it takes to make his own position more comfortable or to deflect mounting criticism. The Cellinos of this world – and the Bateses too – will react to hard times by making hollow promises, figuring that the sweet music of such blandishments hath charms to soothe the savage breast. By the time these empty vows – a buyback of Elland Road to follow swiftly upon a visit to the ATM on the day he purchased United, a beautiful season to develop in 2015/16, an undertaking to sell the club to LFU – are exposed as the whopping lies they are, Cellino is already moving on, as intent on survival by whatever means as ever.

When Cellino said he’d sell, I had my doubts. When it seemed his preferred buyers were the fans themselves, I politely expressed a level of cynicism. When Peter “Mouthpiece” Lorimer came out and whispered seductively that the Italian could still succeed at Leeds “given time” – I suspected the vow to sell up was no more than a bluff. Now that he has stated there are no serious people expressing an interest in the club, and that any plans to sell in the short term are shelved – well, I’m not exactly surprised. For those of us who can smell the bovine ordure stench of a liar at long range, this has been coming. Cellino is reliable only in terms of his consistent unreliability.

So, it was all just another massive fib and we are stuck with the Italian for the foreseeable. Not surprise, but more a certain anxious disquiet is the dominant feeling now. Things had settled down a bit following Cellino’s “I’m outta here” claim. These things do filter down to the players as well as to the fans, and there has been more of a relaxed atmosphere in and around the squad since manager Steve Evans moved in and the owner almost immediately said he’d be on his bike. Perhaps those players felt that they would now be representing a proper football club instead of a Latin ego-trip with il Duce Cellinocchio, the lying puppet, ironically pulling the strings – and ruling according to his increasingly capricious whims. It will be interesting to see if this welcome recent upturn in the mood of the players will survive the realisation that we are not – by a long chalk – done with Massimo yet.

Perhaps it will take another disastrous run of form to make the Italian revert to retreat mode again – perhaps it might even cost us another manager. Or two, or three. Perhaps, even, it will take our perennial foes at the Football League to legislate the crazy reign of Cellino out of existence and into the history books. Contrary to much of what I’ve written about the League over the past couple of years, I’d rather they acted decisively, free of their usual bumbling incompetence, and rid us of this turbulent owner before he can spill any more innocent blood on the manager’s office carpet. We can but wait, wish – and hope.

The main thing we should wish for at the moment though, is that Cellino might stop acting like a rattlesnake, and man up enough to tell the truth about his intentions. If it’s not too much to ask, a few copper-bottomed guarantees about the future of current managerial and coaching staff wouldn’t go amiss, either. Not that many would believe any such promises – but the path to redemption could yet be picked out by such markers as the owner might be prepared to lay down, going forward. We could actually forgive him a lot for that – but, let’s not forget, there’s a hell of a lot to forgive.

 

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If Moyes Really IS Discussing Leeds Job, LMA Should Intervene  –   by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 19/11/2015 | 16 comments
Moyes - not wanted or needed at Elland Road

Moyes – not wanted or needed at Elland Road

One real caveat to this article. The recurring “David Moyes for Leeds” stories are mainly appearing in that part of the press more suited to the facilitation of post-excretory hygiene than any real attempts to inform or even entertain. Ever since it started to look likely that Steve Evans might be the right man at the right time for Leeds United, the doggedly Whites-hating sector of the Fourth Estate have been engaging in their usual distracting habits. Talking up a replacement manager who has flopped in his last two posts is one part of that (attempting to tap up Lewis Cook on behalf of a minor manchester club would be another).

So, on the one hand, it’s quite possibly not true, falling into the “unhelpful and unsettling negative Leeds United rumours” category so beloved of our more tawdry hacks. On the other hand (like the irritating Lewis Cook thing), there just might be an element of truth hidden somewhere within the ever-present clouds of speculation and wishful thinking. And, if that’s the case, then it shouldn’t only be present incumbent Evans who might be more than a little angry.

For a start, it’s clear that the vehicle for this Moyes story is a putative takeover, or major investment, by Leeds fan and business mogul Steve Parkin. That worthy is said to have identified Moyes as his preferred head coach, regardless of the fact we have a manager in situ. Now, I’m not privy to the inner workings of Parkin’s mind – but presumably he’s got something about him to have amassed a supposed £200m personal fortune (on the other hand, look at the none-too-bright Alan Sugar). You really might expect, though, that a man and fan, who is contemplating such major changes at the club he loves, might wish to play his cards a little closer to his chest. And he might, perhaps, be looking at making a welcome difference after the craziness of the Cellino regime – rather than perpetuating il Duce’s “hire and fire” vicious downward spiral into chaos.

It’s also becoming steadily more apparent that Evans is settling in well at Elland Road, putting his stamp on the place and making that difference we all so want to see on the pitch. He’s promised winning football and, an awful lapse against Blackburn apart, he’s doing fine. The fans have, by and large, cottoned on to this, despite initial reservations arising out of Evans’ abrasive reputation – as well as that sombrero. Given all of the above, it would seem that the case for yet another change at the helm of team matters is hardly made. And yet still, this unwelcome chat goes on. It’s hardly conducive to the stability we yearn for, having so sadly lacked that vital commodity of late.

All of which leads me at last to the point of this article (yes, there was always going to be a point, sooner or later). Having established that it’s by no means certain the Moyes link is anything more than a Wapping great lie, we are nevertheless forced to consider the ramifications in the event of there being any truth in it. And, surely, if David Moyes is talking to a Leeds United-connected party about a job that is currently amply filled, then he would be open to some criticism under professional standards established within the managerial game for some time past.

Over the last couple of decades or so, there have been laudable attempts by the League Managers Association (LMA) to clean up the act of their collective members, certainly in terms of a set of standards to be applied in the matter of how club posts become vacant and are filled. Our own Howard Wilkinson was in on the ground floor of this, as he was with so much else, and a lot of the more enlightened policy-making over the recent past has carried his unmistakable brand of common sense and integrity. One of the examples of bad practice thereafter distinctly frowned upon was an unfortunate tendency for currently-filled managerial posts to be bruited about as if available, regardless of the feelings and morale of the poor sap actually doing the job, with prospective candidates for these posts encouraging – or at least not discouraging – such speculation.

Nowadays, with the LMA keeping a beady eye on things, there is a more civilised feeling about the whole thing. Managers linked with jobs currently being undertaken by some poor, under-fire soul will tend to refuse to comment on speculation surrounding those posts. As a past and prospective member of the managerial fraternity in England, Moyes will surely be aware of the current conventions. As he can’t be unaware of his name being linked in the press with a post-takeover position at Leeds United, could he not perhaps have made it known that he’s refusing to be a party to such speculation as there has been a manager recently appointed at Elland Road? A dignified silence, after all, only takes you so far – and can be interpreted in more than one way. By his failure to distance himself from the Parkin/Leeds scenario, Moyes is hardly doing Steve Evans any favours.

And, if the LMA are to have any bite or credibility at all, shouldn’t they themselves be all over this situation like a cheap suit? It’s the LMA’s responsibility to ensure fair play, professional standards and “To encourage honourable practice, conduct and courtesy in all professional activity” (LMA Major Aims #6). They too will be aware of a rising tide of speculation to the detriment of a fellow member who has been in his job only a few weeks. Why don’t they say or do something about it? The silence from all parties on this matter, while the press engage happily in their damaging and irresponsible speculation, is ominous.

I’ve blogged recently about there being no current need to do anything other than stick with the man in charge for the foreseeable future. With Massimo Cellino in yet another froth of confusion about whether he’s selling up, fighting his ban or (like some Schrödinger’s Tycoon) both simultaneously – we might expect that his attention will currently be elsewhere and Evans can perhaps be left to get on with the job he’s admirably doing. It would seem that the clearest and most present danger to Evans’ tenure is in the form of a man outside of the club, currently out of work, and with only startling failures in his last two posts to recommend him.

It remains quite possible that all of this speculation is based upon nothing more than the old press habit of adding two and two to reach a total of five. But, if there is anything in it, then it’s time somebody acted to nip it in the bud – at least until such time as there might be an actual vacancy (heaven forfend). I’m reasonably sure I speak for a majority of Leeds fans when I say that we’d prefer the historically successful Steve Evans to continue trying to repeat that success in LS11 – rather than a serial failure in Moyes. But who listens to the fans? So it would be rather reassuring if the LMA could show some minerals, or Moyes himself some trace of professional courtesy and honour – and just utter a few pointed words to end the matter, so we can all move on to the next crisis.

And worry not, “gentlemen” of the press – at Leeds United, that next crisis is never very far away. 

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For Evans Sake, Leeds Utd Have the Right Man. Now Stick With Him – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 14/11/2015 | 29 comments
Leeds United Manager Steve Evans

Leeds United Manager Steve Evans

The unseen benefit of the scattergun, hire ’em and fire ’em recruitment approach adopted by Leeds United since the takeover of il Duce Cellino, is that at some point, unwittingly, you’re probably going to stumble haphazardly upon the right man for the job. And one of the obvious drawbacks of such an amateurish policy is that you’re all too likely then to dismiss him, either in a fit of Latin pique, or because you’ve been replaced by new owners who want their own man.

The evidence of the first few weeks of the Steve Evans era at Elland Road would seem to suggest that United have, for once in a very long while, got a square peg for their square hole. Having been lucky enough to do that, Leeds must not now, under whatever ownership, retreat back into their accustomed suicidal self-destruct mode – and dispense with a man and manager who might just be the best fit our maverick club could possibly wish or hope for.

The Steve Evans track record speaks for itself in both the best and worst of times. His human fallibility is evident from a brush with the law earlier in his career – but lessons learned from negative episodes in life can be instructive in the making of a highly effective professional. And it is this image that emerges from the Evans record of achievement at his previous clubs. It is an enviable record of unprecedented success at those clubs, by virtue of what the man himself succinctly refers to as “winning football”. He has no need or desire to elaborate on that two-word summary. He simply promises the fans just that – winning football. He knows and we know that everything good will flow from that.

The complexity and effect of the man is emerging little by little as a picture Leeds United fans have been wanting to behold for many, many years. There are echoes of the early Sergeant Wilko in the way Evans has breezed into the club with no fear on his own account, and the clear intention of doing things his way. Though not afraid himself, he appears to rule partly through fear – and partly by employing the encouraging “arm around the shoulder” approach. We hear that he can hand out rollickings to those who need it, as well as boosting those in need of a boost. It’s not rocket science – just horses-for-courses man-management, the type of thing that has produced results for the enlightened since time immemorial. The proof of the pudding, though, will be in the eating – but early indications are that certain Leeds United players, who had been under-performing, are now walking about with a new spring in their step. Long may that continue.

The danger now apparent is of yet another change; this one unwanted, unnecessary and foolish, with talk in various sections of the media that any possible new owner – a prospect widely perceived among Leeds fans as A Good Thing – could bring with him a change of manager, with Pride of Devon flop David Moyes touted as a likely contender for a job that really should be flagged up as unavailable. It may of course be that this is largely the not exactly Leeds-loving media being their usual mischievous and unhelpful selves. We can but hope.

What we have here is not yet a recovery, nor yet even a definite upward swing in the fortunes of our beloved Leeds United. The general stability of the club is far too fragile to make extravagant claims like that. But what we do seem to have are tentative green shoots emerging from what has too long been an arid desert of hopelessness. Little buds of confidence are emerging that just might flourish and bloom into full-on optimism – given the chance. Everywhere I’ve looked in the virtual world of Leeds United lately, I’ve seen surprised, almost bemused comments along the lines of “this bloke is really growing on me!” about our new manager. And one of the most noticeable things about Steve Evans is that he openly lays claim to that title. Leeds United manager – there’s a ring to it which the half-baked “head coach” thing lacks. It’s as if Evans knows he has ventured into shark-infested waters, and that he’ll have to be brave, bold and confident if he’s to succeed. He’s certainly making all the right noises, so far.

In Steve Evans – a man who swiftly acknowledged that he wouldn’t have been the first choice among Leeds fans (adding that he doubted he’d have been in the top ten) – we may just have the ideal candidate for the next holder of the Mr. Leeds United accolade. Steve Evans genuinely could be Mr. Leeds United, in a manner akin to earlier greats like Wilko, or even the as yet incomparable Don Revie. He reflects the club as those legends did – unprepossessing to outsiders, with a tendency to inspire fear and dislike among enemies. But there’s a steely determination there also, an unshakeable belief in his own ability that is likewise redolent of Leeds at its very best. That extra spring in the step of some of the young stars, those early results as they start to pick up – they’re down to that brash, ebullient presence rocking around the corridors of Elland Road and Thorp Arch. There seems little doubt of that.

I had my doubts too, at the start, though I was mainly preoccupied with being dismayed at yet another abrupt change of management. I heard of Steve Evans discussing his appointment to take over with no great enthusiasm. But first impressions are rarely all that reliable,  and I’ve never been so thrilled to have it demonstrated to me that, like thousands of others with the colours of this club running through their veins, I have good cause to believe team affairs are at last in safe hands. And, having accepted that – by hook or by crook and more by luck than good judgement – a bona fide appointment has at long last been made, I’m now in the same position as so many other fans, of being desperately concerned that – this time – we should stick with our man and see it through. See what kind of Leeds United Steve Evans can build. Hope that he will be given the time and the tools to finish the job, as he’s so successfully done elsewhere.

If, in a few weeks or months time, I’m writing another blog in bitter frustration and helpless anger, bemoaning yet more self-harming short-termism on the part of this crazy club – if, in short, Leeds United have lost their nerve yet again, and prematurely sacked yet another manager – then it’ll be with a sense of baffled despair about our club’s chances of ever making it back to the level of the game where they assuredly belong. It’s for Leeds now to stick with their man, back him through whatever high-level changes may be in the offing and try to ensure that, on the playing side of things at least, there is some stability and confidence. Those two advantages will come only with the security of a man in charge being given ample opportunity to do his job and earn success. For all our sakes, let this come to pass.

And if not – why then, the fans of this club will know for sure that they are the only stable and worthwhile thing about the place. They’ll know that the club can’t be trusted or relied upon to do anything but periodically make of itself a laughing stock before lesser clubs and lesser fans. It would be the only conclusion we could possibly draw – who could really blame us? The powers that be at Leeds United (whoever they might be on any given day) had better take warning; our faith in the direction of the club can only take so many hits before it crumbles into pieces. So don’t screw this up, guys.

Steve Evans has made it clear that he regards himself as privileged to be the Leeds United manager. He’s made it clear that he regards the fans as an asset unmatched elsewhere (If we played a five-a-side in Asia at three in the morning, they’d be there). Evans “gets” Leeds. He can see what the club – and the fans – are all about. You have the impression that he can sense a kinship – that he feels at home and wants beyond anything else to restore Leeds United to greater days. This blogger could listen to him talk about Leeds all day long – it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

You just can’t put a price on that feeling, and – for the first time in such a long time – I and many others believe we might just have a real Leeds United manager on our hands. Someone who appeared as a match summariser on Sky Sports Saturday earlier today, and made a point of giving the Leeds salute when on camera. I could barely believe my eyes. Now, that’s a real candidate for the next Mr. Leeds United.

So, for Evans’ sake – and for the sake of all of us and our turbulent love affair with football’s craziest club – let’s please see it through this time and go marching on together, back towards the top, behind a man who – given an even chance – just might make it all happen for us once again.

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Happy Birthday to the Last English Champion – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 13/11/2015 | 14 comments
Howard Wilkochamperscap-300x193

Sgt Wilko – Champion

Another Leeds United birthday to mark with an appropriate tribute for all the man did for our great club. This time it’s someone who is a contemporary of those 70-somethings who have celebrated recently – the likes of Paul Madeley, Norman Hunter, Paul Reaney and Johnny Giles – but who was never, by his own acknowledgement, anything more than mediocre as a player himself. In the managerial arena though, Howard Wilkinson – 72 years old today – has outstripped virtually all of the Revie greats, winning the last ever Football League Championship, going down in history as the last Englishman to win the league in the 20th Century and masterminding the second incarnation of a winning Leeds team from a starting point remarkably similar to that which Don Revie inherited in the early sixties.

Wilko’s career after his playing days ended was an upward graph of coaching success from humble beginnings, but he went on to have two stints as caretaker-manager of England, as well as spells with Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday and Notts County. It is for his time at Leeds United, though, that he will be remembered as a football manager who walked into what had become a poisoned chalice of a job, a club with a revolving door on the manager’s office and one which had signally failed to recapture the magic of its one great period at the top of the game. Wilkinson came in with the air of a man who was going to put a stop to all the nonsense and set matters straight. Let the record show that he succeeded, beyond the wildest dreams of any Leeds fan at the time he was appointed.

In TV interviews at that time, he could be seen by the side of chairman Leslie Silver, regarding his coffee cup with little enthusiasm and mildly joking that he hoped we’d be able to afford better crockery when he got us winning. Leeds were treading deep water at the bottom end of the old Second Division, and had been looking more likely to proceed downwards from that point than up; a situation uncannily similar to the one Don Revie found in 1961. Both men would be able to count on the bounteous fruits of a productive academy, though Revie felt able to blood his precocious youths somewhat earlier than Wilko could in his reign. But where Don found his Bobby Collins, so Howard was able to persuade Gordon Strachan to step down a league and be the catalyst for a revival that may not have been as enduring as Revie’s, but was arguably even more meteoric and spectacular.

Wilko joined for the still fairly new 1988-89 season, and spent the rest of that campaign overhauling discipline at the club and bringing about his own type of working environment. The graph spiked upwards from there. In his first full season, with a batch of good, solid recruits added – and after an uncertain start – Leeds went top of the league and hardly faltered until promotion and the Championship were clinched on a sunny day in Bournemouth. A season of high achievement followed as Leeds swiftly found their feet back in the top flight after an eight year absence. United did far more than consolidate, battling away at the top end to finish an eminently respectable fourth, as well as reaching two domestic semi-finals. The following season was the last of the old-style Football League, and Wilko’s Leeds achieved immortality by winning the Title by four clear points to become the Last Champions. Less than four years after joining a club going nowhere but downhill, Howard Wilkinson had restored Leeds United to the very pinnacle of the game. It had taken Don Revie twice as long to win his first League Title.

While all this had been going on, Howard and his staff had been overseeing the development of an Academy setup which would go on to produce many stars towards the end of the century; many players who are still flourishing at the top level had their start in what was rightly famed as a world-class breeding ground for football talent.

One of the main regrets of the Wilkinson era at Leeds is that he did not survive long enough in the job to introduce these home-grown prodigies into the first team himself. But Wilko’s later years at Leeds coincided with boardroom uncertainty and financial mismanagement, both of which had their effect on sales and recruitment policy. So, we lost a Speed here and a Batty there and the likes of Carlton Palmer and Nigel Worthington came in; the club was reduced to offering pre-retirement homes to such as Ian Rush and David O’Leary. O’Leary it was, after a George Graham interregnum, who gained the most from Wilkinson’s enlightened youth development programme. Looking back, it’s clear that things could have worked out differently – quite probably the seeds of our 21st Century disaster were sown in Wilko’s 1996 sacking.

Howard Wilkinson stands alone behind Don Revie as Leeds United’s second-greatest manager, and probably as one of the more wronged men to have lost his job when so much of it had already been done to ensure the club’s own crop of major stars. As before, Leeds lacked the courage and patience to see it through; but these things are always clearer with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight.

Happy Birthday, Sergeant Wilko – you’ll always be remembered fondly at Elland Road, and your place in the history of English football is secure.

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Blatant Leeds-Bashing Exposes Amateur Face of Sky Sports   –   by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 10/11/2015 | 55 comments
Sky Sports resident has-been Don Goodman

Sky Sports resident has-been Don Goodman

No writer worth his salt – not even a humble blogger such as yours truly – rushes into print with a knee-jerk conclusion based upon sketchy evidence. So you may take it as read that I have ample justification for what I’m about to say. I can point to instance without number of the kind of thing that most recently happened in the live transmission of Huddersfield Town‘s home game against my beloved Leeds United – indeed, I’ve had occasion to mention it before in the course of this season so far.

So I am absolutely entitled to say without fear of contradiction that Sky Sports‘ coverage of Leeds is characterised by shoddy amateurism, blatant prejudice and a naked desire to cater, not to fans of the Whites, but to the large anti-Leeds constituency out there, who pay their subscriptions and want to see their most-disliked team properly hammered, on the pitch, off it, or ideally both. It’s a huge market of clueless haters – and BSkyB evidently know which side their bread is buttered.

The Huddersfield game contained all the usual ingredients; an undertone of desperate desire for United’s opposition to do well (typified by the rising cadence of anticipatory excitement if the home side managed a shot on goal or a dive for a penalty appeal); a less than sympathetic interpretation of the refereeing decisions on the day, the over-riding assumption being that Leeds got all of the breaks; last but not least, the presence of Sky Sports’ very own anti-Leeds hatchet man in Don Goodman, someone who can always be relied upon to see every facet of any game in a distinctly anti-Leeds light.

The game’s most notable early incident was a clash of heads between Leeds defenders Scott Wootton and Liam Cooper prior to a United corner. The incident was serious enough for Cooper to be knocked unconscious; Wootton fared better, but can hardly have been unaffected by such a harsh meeting of minds. Once Cooper had been replaced by Sol Bamba, with Wootton able to continue, the game proceeded. Over the remaining time in the first half, Wootton committed two challenges which were definitely late and inaccurate – not something we’re unfamiliar with, even when the lad’s head is as clear as it ever gets. Goodman was quick to criticise after the first foul, for which Wootton was booked. “Cynical”, he pronounced, making no allowances for Wootton’s legendary clumsiness or the quite probable after-effects of the Cooper incident. It was noticeable that a couple of studs over the ball challenges on Leeds by Huddersfield drew no criticism, just something bland along the lines of “no malice in that”.

Wootton’s second badly-timed challenge in quick succession had both commentators calling for a second yellow and United down to ten men. Technically, they had a point; the ref could easily have booked Wootton for a second time. But it’s just as possible that he was making allowances for the clash of heads incident, as well as the fact that, on both occasions, Wootton might be said to have been going for the ball, but simply not good enough to get anywhere near it. And the fact is that, seconds prior to Wootton’s second foul, there was a blatant push on Lewis Cook that went unremarked by the commentators and unpunished by the officials. Anyway, these things happen in football and the talking heads are extremely choosy about what they pick up on. Several agricultural Huddersfield challenges during the game passed by with no action from the ref and no adverse comment from Goodman. Late in the game, there was a blatant kick out at a Leeds player by one of the Tesco carrier bags – Goodman just mumbled something about frustration.

The biggest single example of frustration on the day, though, was Goodman himself. He was still whinging about Wootton’s presence on the pitch as the United defender played a long ball down the line, for Stuart Dallas and Chris Wood to combine before Dallas crossed brilliantly to put the first goal on a plate for Mirco Antenucci. A fine goal, which lacked any description of the build-up as Goodman was still riding his hobby-horse. When he recovered from the disappointment of seeing Leeds score, Goodman could only bemoan the fact that “Football is unfair, life is unfair.” So it is, and the very best of hard cheese. The fact is that this embittered ex-footballer only seems to see injustice when Leeds benefit from it.

For the rest of the game, the resentment about Wootton remained a theme, with the only variety provided by snide remarks about United manager Steve Evans being unable to predict his own future beyond the final whistle. Don Goodman’s contribution to a great day for Leeds and for the long-suffering United fans was to carp, moan, bitch and ultimately resort to needless speculation about the prospects of a man who seems to be relishing his task in the Elland Road hot-seat, as well as getting stuck into that task in his own inimitable style.

Ironically, there was scope for some really informed comment if the amateurs behind the microphones had only identified and acted upon it. Some robust challenges went unpunished in the game and, yes, Scott Wootton could easily have seen red before half-time. Most of the officials’ energies seemed devoted to off-field transgressions of the mildest variety. Antenucci got himself booked by taking off his shirt after the first goal, revealing a yellow undershirt with a birthday message on it. Players keep doing this, and they keep getting daft bookings for it. There’s little discretion for refs to do otherwise, and that’s a cause for concern, being ridiculous overkill on the part of the powers that be.

Similarly, the fourth official‘s  main preoccupation, so it seemed, was to stop Steve Evans celebrating after each goal. What a joyless, clueless, ignorant approach to running a game full of passion, commitment and occasional explosive joy. So what if Evans cavorts on the touchline? So what if Antenucci, or any other player, dispenses with his shirt after scoring? Nobody died, after all – and I’d rather see some of the studs-up thugs getting their rightful bookings than this pettifogging, spoilsport obsession with punishing people, simply for celebrating. These annoyingly-beige people might one day succeed in taking all the spontaneity and all the passion out of the game – and where, pray, will we be then?

This sort of arse-about-face set of priorities was and is something that commentators would do well to highlight, given their prominent public platform. But, no. They’d rather take the easy road of showing their true colours – i.e. anything but yellow blue and white when Leeds United are in town. It reflects poorly on Sky and their hatchet-men of choice; it shows them up in a distinctly amateurish and prejudiced light – and it’s happened so many times now that many Leeds fans I know have stopped even laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. They’re rightly annoyed that Leeds are singled out for such treatment – especially from a has-been nonentity like Don Goodman.

It would be wonderfully surprising and uplifting if BSkyB could eliminate this shoddy flaw in their production values, so that the commentary at Championship games might perhaps approach the quality and sheer professionalism that characterises most of their excellent football coverage. But I won’t be holding my breath. Leeds-bashing has long been a national sport, in the media and among rival fans – and Sky all too clearly have their markets to cater to, including that rather large anti-Leeds contingent I mentioned earlier. Still, it’s annoying for those of us who keep the faith and know that Leeds United is a proud and historic name still. And it’s a great pity that Sky, for all their glitz and gloss, continue to employ bitter little men with bitter little minds to sully that name where and when they can.

‘Twas ever thus though, way back to the days of the Don’s Super Leeds. It’s much more “in yer face” now, that’s the thing, with cameras at every game and Leeds-haters well infiltrated into every branch of the media. They should be aware though, that we know the bitter whys and the commercial wherefores of what goes on – and we won’t put up with it in silence. Certainly not on this blog – so think on, Goodman & Co. We’re watching you, so just mind your step.

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