Category Archives: Life

Istanbul “Front Runner” for Euro 2020 Semis and Final – are UEFA Stark, Staring Mad? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 24/09/2013 | 7 comments
Turkish Fans "Demonstrating Their Cultural Uniqueness"

Turkish Fans “Demonstrating Their Cultural Uniqueness”

As if eager to demonstrate once and for all that they are out-of-touch, irresponsible, lacking in judgement and foolhardy to the point of actual insanity – it would appear that UEFA are genuinely considering Istanbul as a host city for the semi-finals and final of the Euro 2020 Championships.  Our beloved FA, itself a body which has frequently demonstrated its own lack of fitness to run a piss-up in a brewery, stated today that it believes Istanbul is the “front runner” and main rival to Wembley’s own bid.  Istanbul lost out to Tokyo in its bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games, after all.  FA General Secretary Alex Horne said: “We’ve taken some soundings, there’s a sympathy for Turkey and it does feel like they are the front-runners.  We get the politics around Istanbul, having not got the Olympics.”

Demir

Demir

Well, forgive me, but I don’t “get” this at all.  Turkey has just about the most horrific history of football violence it’s possible to imagine.  Istanbul in particular is home to Galatasaray, whose fans’ party piece is to raise banners when “welcoming” visiting teams to the airport or to their bear-pit of a stadium, the banners bearing the warm and comforting message of “Welcome to Hell”.  Other touching signs of friendship and bonhomie include mimed throat-slitting actions performed en masse.  Sadly, these ugly manifestations of Turkish culture have been shown to be no mere gestures.  In the spring of 2000, two Leeds United fans – Chris Loftus and Kevin Speight – were brutally attacked and murdered in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Ali Umit Demir and three other men were arrested for the killings, and Demir was jailed but released for retrial after a successful appeal.  When the four men first appeared in court, they were cheered by members of the public, Demir being described as a “patriot” by residents of Istanbul.

More than 13 years on, it is still unclear whether Demir will ever face an appropriate penalty for his admitted crime of stabbing Mr Loftus and Mr Speight.  Over the time since these tragic killings, fans of Turkish clubs have continued to disgrace themselves on numerous occasions with acts of violence and displays of hostility which UEFA have consistently failed to address, despite the alacrity with which they deal with lesser offences elsewhere.  It has been reported that certain UEFA officials regard knife-carrying and its concomitant perils as “part of the culture” in Turkey, and this may partly explain their casual attitude towards what goes on there – but it certainly does not excuse it.

No Leeds United fan and, for that matter, no Manchester United fan needs any instruction about the atmosphere and the dangers of following football in Istanbul. Personal experiences of fans from both clubs leave little room for doubt that it’s a place to visit and roam around in only with extreme reticence and caution.  The idea of masses of fans from different nations adding their high-spirits and nationalistic fervour to the cocktail of hatred and overt hostility which is so much a part of the fabric of Istanbul – it’s just too horrible to contemplate.  You’d have thought that even a pea-brained UEFA pen-pusher could have accumulated enough evidence, both anecdotal and empirical, to realise this.  But no.  Self-satisfaction and pompous idiocy rules in the corridors of UEFA, and they will seemingly be willing to compound their laxity of recent years in failing to deal with what has happened there, by a whole new level of crass stupidity in contemplating taking a major Championships to a murderous pit.

It is to be hoped that wiser counsel – if any should exist in the game’s higher authorities – will prevail, and some safer place will be found.  The idea of awarding the final stages of a prestigious tournament to Istanbul is a bit like inviting an arsonists’ self-help group to organise a bonfire in a petrol dump – only more so.  If the madmen of UEFA have their way in this, the consequences could be dire; you only have to ask the Man United fans ill-treated by the local police, or the Leeds fans who, heart-sick at their bereavement of the night before, turned their backs at the start of the match against Galatasaray, because that club had failed, along with UEFA, to postpone the game, or even to order that black armbands should be worn.

It may be that one day Istanbul will be a fit place for civilised football fans to visit, and maybe even for a tournament to be held. But that day is not yet, it won’t be here by 2020 and it won’t be for many more years after that.  Most sensible football fans would confirm that.  Now we just have to find a way to persuade the fools in UEFA, and in our own FA, what their own eyes and ears should have told them long ago.

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Moyes Fluffing His Fergie-Lite Lines as the Mask Drops – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 23/09/2013 | 4 comments

Image

It sounded odd at the time. Leading up to the start of his first season at the Theatre of Hollow Myths, David Moyes chose to abandon his previous upright, downright, straightforward no-nonsense Evertonian demeanour and go for a good old-fashioned Fergie whinge with the requisite helpings of paranoia and self-righteousness. “They’re conspiring against us,” he grizzled, bitterly. “Three tough games against title contenders in the first five league outings.  It’s no’ fair.”  It was straight out of the Taggart Manual, from Chapter One: “Build a Siege Mentality”.  The thing is, however tried and trusted the lines are, you need the right kind of actor to convey them. Now that the Old Ham had gone off, could the relatively green Moyes carry on with the same old act?  Was it even such a good idea to try?

Whatever the whys and wherefores, the gambit appears to have blown up in the fledgling Man U manager’s face.  Yesterday’s humbling against Mancunian giants City was not only a salutary lesson on the field.  It also raised serious questions about the new man’s deportment off it.  On the face of it, the Moyes Whinge, as it has come to be called, looks in retrospect like a timely warning.  Of the three fixtures he was complaining about, the Pride of Devon have lost both away matches, at Liverpool and City, and gained a somewhat lucky point in a dour home struggle against Chelsea.  But the fact is that the fixtures are simply that: fixtures.  There’s a clue in the name, and while Sky may tamper slightly for TV requirements, the basic framework for the season is carved in stone.  To complain about them at the time Moyes chose to complain, and in the terms, moreover, he chose to employ in making that complaint, showed more weakness than foresight, more lack of confidence in himself and his team than lack of faith in the authorities. What message was sent out by the manager to his troops as they prepared for combat? Would they have been inspired by their leader’s belief in them?  Or would they, instead, have had a subliminal fear implanted of facing three formidable teams early in the season?  Were they, in short, afraid?

A hindsight version of the Moyes Whinge emerged this morning on the radio.  He referred again to the perceived unfairness of the fixtures arrangement.  As an exponent of psyching his team up and psyching opponents out, Fergie was tiresome, he was tedious, he was annoying and detestable in the eyes of his enemies.  But it clearly worked more often than not in the bunker that was Man U’s dressing room.  Moyes, by contrast, seemed to have waved a white flag and called for stretcher-bearers before a shot had been fired. Certain of his players, van Persie for one, are already emitting rumbles of discontent. You can imagine them asking themselves: who would we rather have as our leader as we enter the trenches?  The margins between victory and defeat are incredibly fine, one iota of backsliding by the historically dominant force, one iota of improvement in the fortunes of his enemies (the football term for “iota”, interestingly, is “Özil”) – and the tables can be well and truly turned.

It may also be that Moyes’ emergence from the comfort zone of Goodison into the fishbowl glare of the Theatre of Hollow Myths has been particularly ill-timed.  The gene-pool at the top of the Premier League appears to have expanded dramatically over the summer.  Arsenal have improved by probably more than just one Özil.  Tottenham seem to have contrived to have lost a golden nugget and replaced it with the equivalent weight in gold-dust, and to have improved in the process.  Chelsea have wound the clock back to the reign of the Special One, and you just know he will weave his magic again whilst laughing sardonically at his carping critics in the media, embittered journalists all of whose significant others are unanimous in fancying Jose.  Liverpool have looked “at it” again, despite a dip in the last two games.  Everton are unbeaten, with a new style and belief under Martinez.  The whole landscape at the top of the game has a new and, from the Man U point of view, dangerously unfamiliar look about it.

Maybe one craggy and purple-faced individual in particular foresaw this sea-change, and perhaps this explains the abruptness of his departure from the hot-seat in Salford.  There must, after all, be a significant danger that the still debt-ridden Evil Empire will finish outside of the top six this season, favourable ref decisions notwithstanding; and on that subject – what on earth happened to Howard Webb in the Derby?  He failed utterly to live up to his Man U Player of the Season form, and must now be worried about his place in the team.  Moyes has a lot on his plate, and – sallow-faced and bug-eyed compared to the smug, well-fed, puce sleekness of his tyrannical predecessor – he frankly does not look as though he has the appetite for it.

The noisy neighbours across the border in Manchester will be well aware, as they leap and cavort in celebration in the sullen faces of Manchester’s Red minority, of the problems that are stacking up for the hapless current incumbent of Salford Towers. But those happy fans will care not one jot, as is the case with thousands of other equally happy fans the country over, outside of Devon and Cornwall.  They can see golden horizons ahead, and a game reinvigorated by true competition across a well-matched group of clubs vying for the ultimate prize.  If Man U do end up outside in the cold, there will be millions who feel it’s a reckoning that’s arrived not a minute too soon.

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Aside

“We’re not famous any more” sing the fans of Leeds United FC, quite regularly and demonstrating a neat grasp of irony in a medium too often dominated by the literal and the just plain crass.  The point is, of course, … Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted on 22/09/2013

Moyes to Continue his Impersonation of “Sir” Fergie – But is he REALLY Nasty Enough? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 21/09/2013 | 5 comments
Fergie Teaching Moyes How To Be A Complete Bastard

Fergie Teaching Moyes How To Be A Complete Bastard

It still looks as though rookie Man U manager David Moyes is determined to continue with his attempts to appear as a “Fergie Lite”, a watered-down version of his tyrannical predecessor.  There may well be those who will speculate that Moyes is receiving the benefit of some tips in “How To Lose Friends And Intimidate People” from past master “Sir” Alex Ferguson.  Lesson One was evidently “How to whinge”, and resulted in an ill-advised bleat about facing Liverpool, City and Chelsea in the first five Man U league games.  This was swiftly followed by “Arrogance for Beginners”, manifesting itself in a nasty little dig at former club Everton for “holding back the careers” of their players Leighton Baines and  Maroune Fellaini.  In this context, “holding back careers” evidently meant refusing to let Man U buy them at a cut price.  Moyes claimed that, if he were still the boss at Everton, he would of course not stand in the players’ way, letting them follow their hearts’ desire which is naturally to play for Man U.  Everton fans are, understandably, less than impressed by this bold assertion and have been busily engaged in slaughtering Moyes in the Twittersphere.  Fellaini eventually made the move to The Dark Side for a less than bargain £27 million or so.

The suggestion that Moyes as Everton manager had a less than robust attitude to protecting his own club’s interests in the transfer market was hinted at previously when Moyes was telling of how he was approached to take over at the Evil Empire.  It would seem that he received a call from The Great Man himself, the one and only Alex Taggart, large as life and twice as purple.  Moyes confesses that he had no idea it was about the Man U job, and assumed that Fergie was calling him to “let me know he was taking one of my players”.  Again, this is a soundbite calculated to enrage any proud Toffeeman, and it doesn’t go down too well with fans of other clubs outside the Theatre of Hollow Myths either, the clear inference being that all Man U have to do to sign the player of their choice is to casually let that player’s current club know that a deal will be done.  If that really was the extent of the Trafford-based club’s influence over the game as a whole, then frankly they have grossly under-achieved in not winning every cup, every year, ever since Uncle Rupert bought the game for them.

Whatever the case, Moyes now finds himself on the business end of this power gradient, and he clearly seems determined to make hay while the sun shines.  If this means re-inventing himself as a sort of less puce Alex, then – seemingly – so be it.  Those of us who have spent a productive lifetime hating Man U and everything connected to them, may just have had some worries about a “nice guy” like Moyes making our task of despising them that bit harder.  It would seem that, after all, we had nothing to be concerned about, and that Man U under Moyes appear likely to continue to be as intrinsically despicable, arrogant and annoying to proper football fans as they have ever been.

This will naturally please those lost souls in Devon, Milton Keynes and Singapore who still count themselves as hardcore Man U fans (since 1993), but for the rest of us who had hoped that football would be a nicer and more wholesome place without Sir Taggart, the sad truth is that it’s probably going to be business as usual – though hopefully without all that ill-gained silverware.  Because Moyes may talk the talk, but he’s done nothing as yet to suggest that he’ll be able to walk the walk.

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Happy Birthday to Leeds Utd Legend Paul Madeley – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 20/09/2013 | 15 comments
Mr. Rolls Royce - 69 Years Young Today

Mr. Rolls Royce – 69 Years Young Today

A short but timely piece to wish one of our greatest ever players, Paul Madeley, a very happy birthday today.  To think of one of the heroes of my youth reaching the age of 69 is enough to make anyone feel old, but the memory of Paul in a Leeds shirt is vivid.

He was one of the unsung heroes of that great Revie generation, the men who bonded to become a team feared and respected the length and breadth of Europe.  He was famous for having appeared in every outfield position for Leeds and so was dubbed a “utility player” – but that hardly did justice to his towering talent, his positional sense and calmness in tight situations and his immaculate reading of the game and distribution.  I remember him scoring against Southampton in 1978, a very rare occurence – this was the same match where Tony Currie scored that legendary “banana shot”.

Paul was often also referred to as the “Rolls Royce” of footballers, which some took as a reference to his versatility; but I always thought of the nickname as a tribute to his smooth style of play, utterly unflappable, totally reliable, quietly purring along as he covered so many miles for Leeds United between 1962 and 1980.

In more recent years Paul has not always enjoyed the best of health.  He had an operation to remove a benign brain tumour in 1992, had a mild heart attack in 2002 and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2004.  So it’s welcome news to hear that he’s still getting on and that he’s celebrating his birthday today.  The best summary of his attitude to being a professional footballer at Leeds United was related by his former manager Jimmy Armfield, who recalls:

“He once actually signed a new contract on what was virtually a blank piece of paper. I called him in to discuss terms and opened discussions by saying, ‘OK, Paul, we’ll give you so much’. He replied that he had no intention of leaving Leeds so he might as well sign the contract and let me fill in the details. I said, ‘What do you want, then, two years or three years?’ He answered, ‘Either way, I’ll leave it to you. I just want to play for Leeds,’ and that was that”.

That’s some example to put before today’s money-grabbing prima donnas.

Happy Birthday, Paul.  You’re a Leeds United legend, and your thousands of fans will always think of you as such.

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Leeds United Needs Another Vinnie Jones – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 20/09/2013 | 13 comments
Sir Vincent Peter Jones

Sir Vincent Peter Jones

The men who took Leeds United back into the top-flight the last time it happened in 1990 are, of course, legends now.  They rank alongside some of the Revie boys because they rescued the club from eight years in the wilderness and restored us to the big time.  We had our own diminutive red-haired midfielder as a sort of latter-day homage to Billy Bremner – mighty atom Gordon Strachan, who played a crucial role in the renaissance of Leeds with his leadership and goals.  It was a team effort though, and it was as a team that they succeeded – Strachan apart there was no major star, but the guts and drive of the collective effort eclipsed all rivals by the end of that fantastic season, when we were crowned Second Division Champions in sun-drenched and strife-torn Bournemouth.  And nobody in the whole club at that time epitomised guts and drive, as well as sheer fist-clenched, vein-throbbing commitment and fight, better than Mr Vincent Peter “Vinnie” Jones.

I’d been aware of Vinnie, of course – who hadn’t?  His Crazy Gang antics were legendary and he’d lifted the FA Cup, but he was regarded as a bit of a maverick – still more hod-carrier than footballer, famous for a ten-second dismissal and for his promise to Kenny Dalglish before the 1988 Cup Final against Liverpool to “tear off his ear and spit in the hole”.  Still, despite these immaculate credentials, marking him out as a potential Gelderd hero, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine him as a signing for Leeds United, where stirrings had been going on ever since Sergeant Wilko marched in and started shaking the place up.  The “marquee signing” – you didn’t actually hear that phrase in those days – was Strachan, plucked from under the nose of his old Man U mentor Ron Atkinson at Sheffield Wednesday to provide the quality at the heart of the Leeds engine room. Now that was the sort of signing I’d hoped and prayed for, and with the likes of Chris Fairclough joining Gordon at Elland Road it seemed to bode well for a real challenge as the close season wore on and 1989-90 loomed closer.

I was in a caravan on the east coast when I heard on the radio that Vinnie was signing for Leeds for around £650,000.  I frankly didn’t believe it, but when the reality sank in, my initial reaction was to think – bloody hell, Wilko, what are you playing at?  The signings of John Hendrie and Mel Sterland reassured me somewhat, but I was still having trouble seeing what the Jones Boy would bring to the United table, although our lunatic-fringe fans seemed well suited.  The early signs were not encouraging.  Strachan tells of an incident in a pre-season game against Anderlecht, where he saw an opposing player go down with his nose spread halfway across his face and blood greatly in evidence.  Vinnie had casually “done” him en passant before sidling off looking innocent, and Strach recalls thinking: my God – what have we signed here?

Vinnie himself remembers his early days at the club, and being moved to violence by the negative attitudes of some of the players being edged out as Wilko’s new broom started to sweep clean.  Among this disaffected few was John Sheridan, something of a Leeds legend – but Jones stood for no nonsense, and there were punches thrown and people seized by the scruff of the neck as he explained his views on solidarity and team spirit.  Vinnie was obviously going to be a kill or cure measure – there were signs he might have much to contribute to the collective effort, but equally that he might turn out a loose cannon which could blow up in all our faces.  Yet Wilko had a magic touch in those early years, and generally it was proved that he knew what he was doing.

In the event, and despite an uncertain beginning, Vinnie played a massive part in our promotion that year.  The fans took to him from the start – the sight of him coming on as a sub in the first home game against Middlesbrough will live long in my memory.  I can see him now, in the middle of the park with the game poised at 1-1, shouting and screaming as he conveyed encouragement and instruction in equal measure, arms pumping in an ungainly, baboon-like way, team-mates and opponents alike staring at him aghast.  And then he frightened a Boro’ defender into scoring a late, fluky own-goal and we had won, setting us on our way after a disastrous opening-day defeat at Newcastle.

Vinnie just carried on making a difference.  He worked and worked, encouraged and exhorted, fought for the cause and put the fear of God up the enemy wherever he encountered them.  He scored spectacular goals, important goals.  He showed flashes of genuine ability and some of his passing was sublime.  He avoided disciplinary trouble to an amazing degree, given his lurid past.  He sold himself to no less a judge than Strachan as an honest performer who could “play a bit”.

Vinnie also created a rapport with the crowd I’ve rarely seen before or since, chilling and joking with the wheelchair-users at the front of the West Stand before games, and smoking imaginary cigars as he took the plaudits of the adoring masses after finding the net against Ipswich.  In the warm-up before the Wolves match at Elland Road, he provided one of the great moments of humour in a tense campaign, bringing down five year-old mascot Robert Kelly in the area with a signature sliding tackle, much to the delight of the Kop – and of young Robert himself.

Vinnie loved Leeds, the players and fans loved Vinnie and the partnership proved fruitful.  Up we went, and when Vincent Jones finally took his leave for the humbler surroundings of Bramall Lane and Stamford Bridge, it was with a tattoo: “LUFC Division Two Champions” proudly inked onto his expensive leg, a partner for the “Wimbledon FA Cup Winners” one on the other limb.  He was a Leeds United legend in only a little over a year at the club, a larger-than-life personality of massive ebullience and impact – and he is held in the highest of esteem in LS11 even to this day, when he mixes effortlessly in the rarefied, glitzy atmosphere of Hollywood.

So what do we need more right now than another Vinne type, as we hope to secure another long-overdue return to the top table?  Those Jonesy ingredients of passion and power, guts and gumption, are just as important in this league today as they were in those far-off times as the eighties became the nineties.  Who could possibly fulfil that role now?  Joey Barton maybe?  Even he could hardly be a greater culture shock than Vinnie was 25 years ago, but Barton is back in the QPR fold and far beyond our purse anyway – also, quite frankly, he lacks Vinnie’s essential honesty and sheer bad-boy charm.  It’s difficult to say who if anyone we might now secure to play the Vinnie part – but if it were possible, in time for the next transfer window, to distil essence of Jones, or to clone him right from his bloodstained boots and tattooed ankles up to his fearsomely-shaven head, then I’d do it, and I’d present the result gift-wrapped for Brian McDermott to deploy as he saw fit.

A man in the mould of Vinnie Jones would be just the shot in the arm our club needs right at this point in time, just the incentive for the crowd to roll up its sleeves and get behind the team for the remaining battles in this 46 game-long war of attrition.

Just imagine the fillip that our season, our whole club would receive – if only we could have our Vinnie back now.

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Wigan and Swansea Doing Well in Europe as West Ham Struggle at Home – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 19/09/2013 | 10 comments
Bobby Moore Lifts the World Cup for the 'Ammers

Bobby Moore Lifts the World Cup for the ‘Ammers

It’s the advent of a New Order we’re seeing in European competition this week – Swansea’s highly impressive performance against fallen giants Valencia being the headline, but Wigan’s solid draw in Belgium also drawing praise.  These are not names we’re used to seeing as our various clubs sally forth to uphold the good name of English football by giving Johnny Foreigner a good old punch on the boko (figuratively speaking, of course).  The fact that most domestic teams consist of Johnny Foreigners in a ratio of about 8:3 is neither here not there.  They’re British clubs and as they stomp all over some hapless bunch of continental also-rans, we feel a surge of pride – don’t we?  Even Spurs are doing OK against some unlikely collection of Norwegian lumberjacks.

So what about the old names that have been replaced by these Johnny foreigner come latelies?  Forest, Leeds, QPR and Derby all used to campaign successfully abroad, but their recent domestic record is of failure; all are currently embarked on varying programmes of recovery.   And then of course, there’s West Ham.  Whatever happened to them?

West Ham, you will recall (or possibly not) had a real European Reputation in the sixties, and even a partial one in the seventies.  In three consecutive years from 1964 to 1966, the late, great Bobby Moore hoisted silverware at the old Wembley as West Ham won the FA Cup, then the Cup-Winners Cup and then famously the World Cup.  That last one is a bit of a joke actually, although Hammers’ fans tell the tale seriously enough.  After all, their captain lifted the Jules Rimet trophy in ’66 and their players scored the goals.  But as former Irons winger of the time Harry Redknapp admits, even with Moore, Peters and Hurst, the Hammers finished an average of about 17th in that period.  “It just goes to show how crap the other eight of us were”, remarked ‘Appy ‘Arry.

Therein, perhaps, lies West Ham’s real problem.  They’ve just never quite made it as a Big Club, various shiny baubles notwithstanding.  They have this East End identity, they reek of the Krays and Leslie Grantham and other criminal types.  But as a serious football institution, they’re not quite there.  Even their most famous fan, Alf Garnett, supports Spurs in real life.  So the Hammers are left as a club with no real grasp on greatness, one whose main defining characteristics are the Bubbles Song and being generally recognised as bigger than Leyton Orient.  That mid-sixties heyday was their zenith – by the grace of Ron Greenwood, a Pope John Paul II lookalike and future England supremo – and assisted by three world-class players who were content for a spell to be big fish in a small pond, the Hammers punched above their weight like some cocky rat boy from Bethnal Green.  It couldn’t last, but while it did we became almost accustomed to the sight of a Hammers side fighting to conquer foreign fields – although in later years there would usually be an unhappy ending at the hands of Anderlecht or someone as West Ham met their Waterloo, and the Bubbles – well, burst.

So nowadays, if you want to look beyond the Big Lads at the top of the Premier League – and pending the return of fellow Euro-fighters like Leeds and Forest – it’s Wigan and Swansea we’ll be cheering on against those cross-channel types, whatever our domestic prejudices might be.  It IS good to see British clubs doing well abroad – or at least most of them.  Sadly it seems that the days of our youth when the famous claret and blue was well-known in stadia the length and breadth of UEFA – those days are probably gone forever and the best chance of the Hammers being in Europe again is if there’s a war.  Still, you never know – and they certainly have a better chance than my beloved Leeds.  For this season, at any rate.

Well done Wigan and Swansea, you did us proud.

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Turks Stuffed Good and Proper as Real Madrid Cruise in Istanbul – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 17/09/2013 | 3 comments
Galascum - Thoroughly Stuffed

Galascum – Thoroughly Stuffed

It’s a rare night indeed when a Leeds United fan can summon up even a passing regard for the pouting, strutting enigma that is Cristiano Ronaldo, late of the Scum, currently vying for top-dollar merchant with Gareth Bale at the Bernebeu, Madrid.  If ever there was such a night though, this is it.  Ronaldo ambled through the first hour of this match and then simply seized the home team by the scruff of the neck and tore them to pieces, scoring three times. With a brace from Benzema to add to Isco’s opener, it was the Winker’s hat-trick that inflicted the most agony on the hapless Turks, thereby giving any watching Leeds fan a rare treat.

Oddly, the various TV companies that cover the Champions League seem to have a fairly benevolent attitude towards the Istanbul club, despite the notorious nature of their fans in general and of course the tragic loss suffered by Leeds United – the club and the fans – back in the spring of the year 2000.  Since then, there have been other instances of crowd behaviour that would disgrace a bunch of neolithic savages, and there are of course the perpetual occurrences of throat-slitting gestures, “Welcome to Hell” banners and so on and so forth.  In short, this is a club that glories in its own tastelessness and lack of civilised behaviour – and yet we’re always hearing the commentators going on about the incredible atmosphere, the amazing fans, ad nauseam.  It’s enough to make your ears ache if you’re a Leeds fan, or indeed any decent-minded football fan – but there you go.

We’ll never know what the media attitude to them would have been if it had been a different United suffering on that awful night 13 years ago – but it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that it would have been somewhat different.  As it is, the tragedy of Istanbul 2000 seems to have been conveniently swept under the carpet, and the media appear to take delight in the progress of a club that deserve nothing but ill.  Still – we’re used to these double standards, and we take our comfort where we can.

Speaking of which, tonight was a delightful exhibition of Galascum getting well and truly thrashed by an awesome Madrid team.  The incredible, unprecedented feeling of actually enjoying a Ronaldo hat-trick – one particularly special strike in there, too – was a novelty that will possibly not be repeated.  Not unless Madrid dish this sort of treatment out again in the reverse fixture, anyway.

So for once I come not to bury Ronaldo, but to praise him; truly is it said that “mine enemy’s enemy is my friend”.  I still can’t stand the sight of Mr. Ronaldo, to be strictly honest.  He still has the kind of face you want to smack, still looks the sort of player that belongs with those other self-adoring prima donnas at the Theatre of Hollow Myths.  But he did Leeds United, Madrid and – whatever the mealy-mouthed hypocrites in the media might think – the whole of football a service tonight.  All those goals.  All that humiliation for a hopelessly-outclassed Galascum.  Even the late and meaningless home consolation scored to a nearly-empty stadium before Ronaldo administered the coup de grâce with the sixth.  All those glum fans who had started out so cocky and full of hope. Have it.

It was just one of those nights tonight.  For the past decade and more, I’ve winced every time I’ve seen that awful club with those disgusting fans getting anywhere, doing anything positive like winning a game, and hearing the British media fawning over them.  Tonight it was different.  Tonight, they copped for it, big time.  Tonight it was a case of “Hala Madrid” – or even “Hala Ronaldo” – just for tonight.  6-1 – SIX bloody one.  Well done, Real – and thank you, from a Leeds United fan.

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McDermott Seeks Re-birth of “Scary” Leeds United – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 17/09/2013 | 12 comments
Scary Leeds Salute Their Scary Fans

Scary Leeds Salute Their Scary Fans

A lot has been heard of the recent GFH mantra since the joyous ousting of Ken Bates – in an understandable effort to erase the nightmares of the Uncle Ken era from supporters’ minds, the new owners have been telling us “Forget the past – it’s all about the future”. All very well, and definitely positive in its way – but surely, a club like Leeds needs to hang on to some of its past, the grand old traditions, the glorious history?

One man certainly thinks so, and you could hardly find anyone the fans are more likely to look up to right now.  Boss Brian McDermott is setting about sorting the future out, alright – but he also has a wise and admiring eye on the past.

One manifestation of this is the restoration of a pre-match ritual that many, including myself, remember very fondly.  When I first started going to watch Leeds, you knew what to expect before kick-off at Elland Road.  The other lot would shamble out, they’d head to their allotted territory at the Elland Road end of the stadium and then kick a ball or two around between them sheepishly, aware that they had to face the Leeds United side and just about the most hostile and partisan crowd anywhere.  Then the Kop and the other United parts of the ground would start the chant “Bring on the Champions!”, before the warriors finally entered the arena.

Out they would file, United, purposeful and focused, clad all in white, muscular and determined. With not a glance to the cowering opposition, scattered in their preparatory warm-up, the Leeds United team stayed together as they arrived in the centre-circle. Here they would line up, raise their right arms in unison to salute the faithful, staying in disciplined line as each man, arm still aloft, turned to greet every section of the support to roars of approbation.

It used to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, this telling statement of intent, this confident, almost arrogant, affirmation of superiority.  It pre-dated the “We Are Leeds” terrace chant, but that message still came across, loud and clear.  It was unique, special. It was Leeds, Leeds, Leeds alone – and there was no other team like us.

But then, it just stopped.

It probably took me a few matches to fully appreciate the awful truth that the pre-match salute had indeed been abandoned.  I was absolutely gutted; it was a time of transition and we were not the force we had been – but this betrayal of tradition, as it seemed to me, was the ultimate acceptance that the Glory Days of Mighty Leeds – Super Leeds – were finally gone.  Gone for good, as far as I knew.  Fans had much less of a voice back then; there might have been some protests, but nothing was done.

But now we have Brian McDermott.  Softly-spoken but dedicated and committed Brian, fiercely determined and one with the fans Brian.  Brian who wasted no time in distancing himself from his lifelong ambition to manage the Republic of Ireland, declaring instead that he has a job to do at Leeds United, a job he’s proud and thrilled to have and one where he’s single-minded in his resolve to succeed.

Now this new idol of the Leeds support, long-suffering and battered as we’ve been over the past disastrous decade, is giving us back some of the glorious pieces of our past we’d thought lost forever.  And he’s started with the Leeds salute as practiced by King Billy & Co all those years ago.  As a symbol of not only a new era, but a new era that is intended to re-awaken past glories and return us to the top of the game, this could hardly be more potent or evocative.  Not for the first time in his short career at Leeds, Brian has hit the nail unerringly on the head.

What can you say about a man like that, who’s come into the club as a stranger and so completely fastened on to the Leeds United legend that he knows, instinctively what we all want, what Leeds United needs.  How can you express what it means to us all?  He knows what’s needed and he acts upon it.

Results-wise, achievement-wise, we’re at the beginning of a very long journey.  There will be pitfalls on the road ahead, set-backs in our progress, times when we all doubt where we’re heading.  Money is so integral to success now and Brian McDermott will rely on his board for support as he bids to succeed.  But steps like this – just the simple restoration of an iconic tradition – speak volumes for the man and his ability to feel what it is to be Leeds.  He loved that old salute, he says.  He loved seeing them walk out like soldiers, he remembers it being “a bit scary”.  McDermott knows what makes a club tick, he’s in tune with this club’s legends.

Brian McDermott is already well on the way to becoming a Leeds United Legend himself.

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Millwall “Thugs” Warm Up for Annual Leeds-Baiting Event – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 15/09/2013 | 192 comments
Members of Famous Millwall Firm "The Grinning Apes" Bravely Taunt Leeds Fans From A Distance

Members of Famous Millwall Firm “The Grinning Apes” Bravely Taunt Leeds Fans From A Distance

It was a pretty normal day yesterday at the New Den, home of the world famous heroes of sub-primates everywhere, Millwall Football Club.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  The usual crushing home defeat for the toothless Lions as they sit glumly at the bottom of the league.  The usual anthropological posturing from the pseudo-hardmen in the stands as they pelted a Derby County player with missiles while the stewards stood by and watched. The usual lone moron invading the pitch, taking a swing at Derby manager Nigel Clough and then running away, his comical waddle across the pitch and into the stand opposite unhindered by any pursuit.  All of this IS fairly usual for that blot on the football landscape Millwall FC.  But that’s not to say it’s tolerable in the civilised world outside of Bermondsey.

The fact of the matter is, it’s time something serious was done about Millwall.  Like their fans’ heroes abroad, Turkey’s Galatasaray, they seem to get away with behaviour year after year that would see certain other clubs castigated in the press, questions asked in the House, the supporters as a body branded as “vile animals” by some over-sensitive soul in Sheffield 6.  None of this happens to those cheeky rapscallions of Millwall, as they carry on blithely dispensing their own particular brand of hatred and violence – and the authorities turn a blind eye, cock a deaf ear, remain dumb in every sense of that word.

In a couple of weeks, Millwall will “welcome” Leeds United, its players, staff and fans, to the dubious delights of their Meccano-designed stadium.  As is usual every time these clubs have met since the murder of two Leeds fans in Istanbul, certain of the Millwall bright lads will seek to glory in that slaughter, posturing from a safe distance in their proudly-worn Galatasaray shirts, making throat-slitting gestures with the sincere intent of provoking as much anger, misery and disgust as they can.  To call these intellectual voids “apes” is really an insult to lower primates everywhere – waste of DNA is a more accurate term to use.  Their forthcoming exhibition of mind-numbing idiocy is as predictable as yesterday’s humbling at the hands of away-day specialists Derby County was.  These cretins are not the type to let their team’s woeful inadequacy prevent them from enjoying the day out at Millwall in their own, perverted fashion.

If anyone should feel that this is pretty rich coming from a Leeds fan – well, I’d say to you, go and listen to David Jones, he’ll sing a song more to your liking.  In the interests of strict fairness though, it should be pointed out that when our own idiot, Aaron Cawley, attacked the Wednesday keeper at Hillsborough, he was roundly condemned by the vast majority of Leeds fans, who assisted the authorities in locating the silly little boy concerned. David Jones, in branding the support “vile animals” – all of them, every single one, he emphasised – seemed much more concerned by chants directed at himself than for his traumatised goalkeeper.  Such is the precious ego of Jones.  But that shouldn’t hide the fact that the Leeds situation was about an individual, whereas when Millwall fans get going, it’s en masse – as far as their dwindling crowds permit.

The behaviour of the New Den home fans in a fortnight when Leeds are in town will be monitored and noted.  It will be a massive surprise if they fail to crow and gloat over the blood spilled in Turkey all those years ago, but it would be a very welcome surprise. Chickens will not be counted, breath will not be held.  I fully expect the Millwall boneheads to disgrace themselves and their club again, such disgrace being measured by accepted standards in football as a whole.  The standards that apply in this particular part of London, on the other hand, appear to be a good century or so behind the times.

If the Millwall fans do manage at the Leeds match to show themselves up, yet again, for the tasteless jokes that they are, and this only a fortnight after yesterday’s appalling display of violence and anarchy, then it’s time the complacent authorities actually got off their lazy backsides and did something.  If that something amounted to a final warning before the expulsion of Millwall from football upon the next repetition of such behaviour, then so be it.  Football as a whole would be a better place, a more acceptable environment, without Millwall FC.

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