Category Archives: Sport

Leeds Fans – How Much Longer Are We Going to be Made Mugs Of?

Posted on 18/08/2013 | Leave a comment

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There are some glass-half-full types who might venture to suggest that this hasn’t been a summer like any other over the past ten years or so.  After all, Bates has gone, most if not all of his cronies have departed with him, and the air around Elland Road does smell sweeter as a result.  What’s more ticket prices have gone down from the actually obscene to the merely extortionate, there has been continual talk of new investment and strategic partners, and yes – we have our first seven-figure signing since we bought Richard Cresswell back when Noah was a lad.  O Brave New World that has such smoke and mirrors in it!

Because, despite all the feel-good changes and all of the positive talk – forget the past, it’s all about the future – there are still these nagging doubts.  Leeds United football fans are canny folk.  They know their football, and they can see quite clearly when there are gaping holes in the squad, and when the club is being stifled for lack of quality.  And despite the rich promise of million-pound Wunderkind Luke Murphy, and the more gangly potential of Matt Smith, freed from his Time Lord responsibilities in darkest Oldham to provide an aerial threat for Leeds United; plus of course the elderly skills of veteran Noel Hunt – despite all this, we can all see what’s missing.  Width, that’s what. Pace, that’s what too. And a rock-like, they-shall-not-pass presence at the centre of defence, that’s very much what also. And yet with a mere two weeks until this latest transfer window slams shut, we are still short of these aforementioned essential items, and we’re being fed a steady diet of rumours about who will have to go in order to make room on the stretched-out wage bill for incomings.

Now they’re threatening our most precious possessions, and the squad’s only sparks of flair and creativity.  Dioufy?  McCormacky??  We must keep these players, or risk becoming even more pedestrian and predictable.  Surely even a Dubai-funded Tory can see that. But the situation is such that, unless we can shed some of the real deadwood – no names, no pack drill – then we’re either going to have to wave a tearful farewell to some of our major players, or make do with what we’ve got.  Brian is not happy.  The board are saying nowt.  Are we soon to hear the fateful words “Don’t forget, there’s always the loan window opening in a week or so…”?  Save it, guys.  We’ve heard it all before, year after depressing year.

The fact is that Leeds United are almost certainly doomed to get yet further into a second decade outside of the top-flight.  The longer we stay out of that billion-dollar glare, the more we will become ever more pallid for lack of limelight, the more chance of the club ending up perpetually moribund, like a bigger version of Preston or Huddersfield.  There is an acute awareness of this among the fans – that much is obvious from the most cursory perusal of the various fan-sites and message-boards.  It’s no secret, that’s for sure – and historically, there are few more militant bunches of fans anywhere.  And yet still, the powers-that-be are following the blueprint of previous regimes, and seeking to manage our expectations, to deflect our passion and desire with blarney and vague not-quite-promises, underpinned by artfully-leaked rumours.  Multi-million pound investment imminent?  Bid possible for return of Maxi Gradel?  Ker-ching.  Another few hundred tickets sold for the opening game, and then queues all the way down the West Stand car-park for the League Cup visit of tiny Chesterfield.  But you can’t fool all the people all the time, and despite carefully-scripted exhortations from Brian McDermott, the crowd for the Wednesday game was way down.  And why not?  It’s live on Sky and some of those tickets are £36.  It’s not rocket science, chaps.

It’s about time Leeds United appointed a Minister for Truth.  I’d be up for the job.  It’s not going to happen though – but can we at least ask for a little more transparency instead of the same old, same old EVERY bloody year?  We know there is no oil-rich billionaire around the corner.  We know Maxi isn’t coming back (or Snoddy, or Howson, or Becchio).  So please – whoever you are – stop feeding us this pap, and get on with what you’re supposed to be doing.  Give Brian the support he needs instead of having the cheek to set two-year deadlines for promotion.  Carry on engaging with the fans – you’ve made a start, but there’s a long way to go.  Learn the lesson that you need to speculate to accumulate, and then maybe we won’t have to watch far smaller clubs snapping up players who would love to play for Leeds United – if the money was anywhere near par for the course.  It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible.  Stop selling us a line and give us a Leeds United to be proud of again – and then we’ll be right behind you in our highly vocal thousands.  You know it makes sense.

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Is Nice-Guy Moyes Starting to “Fergify” Himself?

Posted on 15/08/2013 | 2 comments

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Many good judges are predicting that, with the Alex Ferguson era over at Man U, the club will now struggle to continue with their run of success.  By common consent, Fergie was not the greatest coach or tactician out there – his major contribution to the success down Salford way was more to do with his choleric temperament and his habitual intimidation of referees, reporters, players, other managers – just anyone who got in his way, really.  The terrifying effect of “The Fergie Factor” made the big difference in a game of fine margins, as a legion of cowed and downtrodden individuals would confirm, if they thought it was safe. But now we have ex-Everton boss David Moyes, and his track record suggests nothing of the talent Fergie had for using tantrums and hairdryer-like bollockings to get his own way. But could it be that the new gaffer is now setting out on the process of reinventing himself? Are we about to see the Fergification of David Moyes?

It wouldn’t be the first time that a youngish football manager, with illustrious predecessors inconveniently prominent in fans’ memories, has appeared as a sheep trying to don the clothing of a wolf.  Allan Clarke, after an apprenticeship at Barnsley, returned to Elland Road as manager, and immediately started trying to come over all Brian Clough.  “I’m a winner!” he would bark whenever a microphone was pointed his way.   As a player he certainly was just that, and he’d made a decent start in management too.  But as the new boss of Leeds United, following hard on the heels of the hapless Jimmy Adamson in 1979, he was suddenly operating in a goldfish-bowl environment, all eyes trained on him, all ears hanging on his every pronouncement.  His “I’m a winner” mantra swiftly made him a laughing-stock among local football writers, and he managed to fritter away the goodwill that had been built up between the club and the reporters by previous managers Don Revie and Jimmy Armfield.  Few tears were shed among the denizens of the local Fourth Estate when “the winner” turned into a loser and took Leeds down.  The moral would appear to be: Don’t reinvent yourself – just BE yourself.  Clarkey had some limited managerial success later on, so maybe he’d learned his lesson.

The early signs of similar folly are there with the Man U new boy Moyes.  Either off his own bat, or in response to a Govan Growl of advice, he’s setting forth to sound like an echo of Fergie – the accent is there to start with, but the incipient paranoia sounds familiar too. Take his comments about the Man U opening fixtures.  If you read them without knowing it’s a Moyes quote, you’d be looking for a name at the bottom and expecting to see that it was one A. Ferguson.  In a delayed response to the fact that Man U have to face Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool in the first five games, Moyes opined: “I find it hard to believe that’s the way the balls came out of the bag, that’s for sure.  I think it’s the hardest start for 20 years that Man U have had.  I hope it’s not because Man U won the league quite comfortably last year [that] the fixtures have been made much more difficult.”

It’s to be hoped that Moyes doesn’t feel he’s under any obligation to reprise his immediate predecessor’s policies of intimidation, or the tiresome “Mind Games” so beloved of a media in thrall to the grizzled and grizzling Glaswegian.  One of the many benefits of a Fergie-less football scene – apart from the very real prospect of Man U collapsing amid internal strife and external expectations – should be the chance of a rest from all of the nonsense that went with Ferguson and the way in which all and sundry used to defer to a man who really needed nothing more than a lesson or two in manners and deportment.  It seems highly unlikely that the relatively diffident Moyes could carry this tribute act off in the longer term, so surely he’d be better off setting out to stand or fall as his own man – not as some watered-down version of the tyrant he’s replaced.

The jokes have been going around along the lines of – oh dear, a nice Man U manager, how very unusual and depressing.  But in reality, Man U are in sore need of a bit of niceness at the top level of the club – they’ve had 27 years of the other thing, and have seen their image growing steadily grubbier in the process.  Good luck to Moyes – if that’s who he decides to be.  He could be instrumental in reinventing a once-great football club.  But if he chooses merely to ape Fergie in his pronouncements and his modus operandi – as suggested by his sulky comments over the opening fixtures – then he’ll deserve all he gets, which would probably amount to a needlessly sullied reputation – and a premature P45.

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Bumper Crowd for Leeds’ Opener Shows Fans are On Board

Posted on 31/07/2013 | Leave a comment
We Are Leeds

We Are Leeds

It’s been a topsy-turvy summer for Leeds United and its long-suffering fans, following hard on the heels of a grievously disappointing Championship campaign in 2012/13.  The close season has produced rays of hope aplenty though, shining a beam of optimism through the murky sullenness that has hung over the support these last few years.  Chairman Bates had held our famous old club in his talons, doing seemingly as he pleased and dismissing all attempts to make him see sense and make Leeds United competitive again.  Now Bates has finally gone and all his acolytes with him; his mouthpiece in-house radio station has gone too, the new owners are finally meeting productively with fans’ groups – we’ve even spent a few bob in the transfer market.

Not all is sweetness and light, however.  Let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be Leeds United without a few under-currents about the place.  It would appear that money is still too tight to mention, despite recurrent rumours of major investment from the likes of Red Bull, or the ever-present spectre of a loaded Arab prince about to step in and buy a controlling stake.  These dreams it appears are just that – and meanwhile we have hard financial realities to face. Unless we can unload some of Colin’s deadwood, it’s difficult to see where manager Brian McDermott’s “priority signings” are going to come from.  Normally a summer of transfer impasse will have Leeds fans in a froth of negativity, but it’s slightly different this time around, simply because that dreadful weight of Bates’ brooding presence has been lifted from our shoulders.  The place feels cleaner somehow, some of the pride has returned.  It feels as though we have our Leeds United back again.

These are good foundations to build upon, and expectations appear to have been modified accordingly.  Ever since we have returned to the Championship, each season we’ve set out with promotion to the Premier League as the be-all and end-all.  Now we have David Haigh saying that promotion is a realistic objective “within two years” – and yet some are actually wondering if this isn’t putting too much pressure on Boss Brian.  That’s quite a change from the pressure heaped upon Simon Grayson’s narrow shoulders, and even the gnarled and battle-hardened Neil Warnock found the heat in the Elland Road kitchen too hard to stand.

Given the new-era atmosphere breathing fresh air into LS11, it’s arguable that a two year timetable is quite acceptable, particularly as the owners haven’t yet been able to fund transfer recruitment on the scale of a QPR, for instance.  But we should remember also that some of the clubs who bought big this time last year suffered and struggled all season long. Blackburn bought Jordan Rhodes from ‘Uddersfield for a cool £8m, and almost went down. Wolves, with a Premier League parachute payment to fund additions, did go down. Loadsamoney is no guarantee of Championship success; the trick seems rather to be a united and happy squad under an inspirational manager.  Those ingredients may just be to hand; that’s what Brian and the lads will have to demonstrate over the coming months.

The sudden optimism and the positive feelings about the club seem real enough though. Our new owners have certainly made their mark, phrases like “engaging with the fans” have been backed up by ticket price initiatives and a more generally positive (and less obviously exploitative) approach to marketing.  If proof of this healthier club/fan relationship is needed, look out for the attendance at Elland Road on Saturday against Brighton.  It seems certain to break the 30000 mark, and all that is needed then is a good performance by the team, a positive result ushering in a solid start to the season, and the Leeds United ball will be well and truly rolling again.

That’s not too much to ask, now is it?  Brian and the lads in White – it’s over to you.

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Bates Leaves Leeds on a Typically Sour Note

Posted on 28/07/2013 | Leave a comment
Not-So-Cuddly Ken

Not-So-Cuddly Ken

It came out of the blue in a terse statement from Leeds United: Ken Bates would no longer be club president, and all his connections with the club had been severed forthwith. No reasons were initially given – and quite frankly, nobody at first cared. The main thing was, Bates was gone. He was going to be President of the club for life, then it was going to be only three years (there may not actually have been much of a difference between those first two) – but now he was gone, history, end of. Bye bye, Ken. Don’t let the door whack you in the arse on the way out.

Now, though, more details have emerged as to the reason for Bates’ abrupt departure. It appears that Ken – never a man to underestimate his own importance – had committed the club to a £500k contract for private jet flight to and from the Monaco bolt-hole of il Presidente for matchday travel. No RyanAir or EasyJet for Uncle Ken, you see, he was going to do it in style and, as ever, the club – the fans – would be the ones forking out for it. This, then, is the straw that has broken the Dubai-based camel’s back. Ken received a missive, delivered by hand, informing him that his non-services would no longer be required.

Staggeringly, Ken seems to resent this. After all the legal shenanigans that have punctuated his reign of terror in LS11, costing the club a reported £4m, he now feels that he is a wronged party, that Leeds United have treated him “despicably” and that he should be compensated. So, he intends to sally forth to pursue his favourite pastime of litigation – with Leeds United this time in the respondent’s box, as opposed to blindly funding his deluded fantasies. The irony of this is breathtaking, and it is only to be hoped that the British legal system has finally had enough of this irascible old man’s nonsense and will proceed to laugh him out of court. Football’s had its fill of Ken – honestly, hasn’t the whole country?

This, let us not forget, is the man who proposed (quite seriously) that fences enclosing fans on the terraces should be electrified to dissuade those of an eager disposition from getting at rival fans or the field of play itself. Who knows what that might have led to if the whole concept of fencing hadn’t become deeply unfashionable in the wake of Hillsborough? This is the man who declared his ambition to be the ejection of Leeds United and its “animal” followers from the Football League, following the actions of a group of freelance demolition contractors from Yorkshire in disabling the Stamford Bridge electronic scoreboard in 1984. Big Brother was watching us, and he decreed we weren’t fit to be part of the football family. He wanted us out – and he so nearly achieved his objective, didn’t he? This is the man, after all, who presided over the lowest point in Leeds United’s history. Ken Bates is a name that will forever be associated in the minds of Leeds fans with failure, corruption and despair.

Ken Bates and his megaphone mouth, unconnected to anything remotely resembling a brain, has represented everything bad about football for decades now – and it’s time we all had a well-earned rest from him. It is perhaps fitting that Bates and Ferguson – two markedly less-than-pleasant football personalities – should be heading into the sunset at the same time. Having the name of Ken Bates connected to the club I love has been a deeply horrible experience for me and thousands of my fellow Leeds United fans. The final separation looks highly unlikely to be amicable – Uncle Ken is far too self-involved and vindictive for that – but it is nonetheless a most welcome development for anyone with the best interests of Leeds United at heart. Ironically, GFH Capital are now quoting a confidentiality clause in refusing to comment on the reasons for the End of Ken, something the Bearded Gob used extensively during the endless takeover saga last year. So for the time being, Bates is wasting his bile on the desert air and getting no official response. But many thousands of happy individuals in Leeds United colours would be happy to deliver one last message to him.

Sod off, Ken, and take your legal team with you.

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Leeds Fans Pinning Hopes on Luke Varney – Are Things That Bad?

Posted on 25/07/2013 | Leave a comment
Super Luke Varney

Super Luke Varney

Leeds United’s pre-season programme hit a real low point at Walsall, the 1-0 defeat seemingly the least of the problems on a night when the team’s performance levels were a world away from what will be needed in the nitty-gritty of the Championship marathon to be run over the next nine months. It was the pallid nature of the Leeds side’s display which had the supporters tearing out their hair by the roots. As this is an option denied to our smooth-domed manager, the disappointed and frustrated Brian McDermott settled instead for dubbing the match his “worst day as Leeds manager”.

Happily, in the next outing at Stevenage, both performance and result were immeasurably better. A 3-0 stroll away from home is always a decent result, whatever the opposition. Stevenage may not be the stiffest possible test, but at home they have slain many a higher-grade opponent as Newcastle could testify. The stand-out role on the night was filled byLuke Varney, last season’s pariah-in-chief, a man who has been described as having all the popularity and appeal of a fart in a spacesuit. It could take a miracle to redeem a reputation like that, and a nine-minute second-half hat trick might just qualify considering Varney’s utter failure to pull up trees in a Leeds shirt last season, the odd flash of promise notwithstanding. Such was the vitriol aimed at the ex-Pompey hitman last time around that you might wonder if even such a lethally-effective performance might help his cause. But wonder of wonders, the Leeds fans appear to have taken note, and appear disposed to look much more favourably upon Mr Varney.

On the face of it, this is a little strange. Leeds fans are not noted for their tendency to re-appraise players once they have initially passed judgement. Dating back to the hapless Terry Yorath, it’s usually been clear that once this crowd takes against you, you need to start thinking about moving on, even if it’s to Coventry. That the fans now seem willing to give Varney the benefit of the doubt might say more about the increasing sense of pessimism out there, as the transfer window drags on with no further quality signings, than it does about any new-found tolerance on the part of the Leeds support. In short, if they’re bigging Varney up, then things must be bad – doubtless an impression confirmed in some measure by McDermott’s recent gloomy demeanour.

Perhaps, though, a new investor may be found shortly – to give us wingers? Perhaps the hangdog expression on Brian’s face is just a front as he toils behind the scenes to bring us some late but great additions to our humdrum squad? Who knows? But it seems clear enough that pinning our hopes on last year’s flop is not exactly a statement of optimism for how things might go this time around. It could just be that – if things do pick up on the transfer front, and if early results are favourable with Mr Varney confined to the bench – the vociferous United support will go back to having a go at the poor lad, and urging him to ply his trade elsewhere. It’s not a happy thought for our hat-trick hero, and it’s also possible of course that he might show himself to be true Leeds United material and bang in 15 goals before Christmas. It’s to be hoped he does. But just for the moment, this new adulation says more about the general pessimism of the fans than it does about Super Luke Varney.

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What Price the Soul of Leeds United?

Posted on 22/07/2013 | Leave a comment

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After the brief optimism of a few weeks ago, when the first post-Bates day saw welcome changes in the boardroom and welcome signings on the pitch – including one for whom we supposedly paid actual BIG money – things have gone a bit gloomy again over at LS11. The pre-season programme has now brought three successive defeats, including a woeful display at Walsall which Brian McDermott described as his “worst day as Leeds United manager”. The perceived wisdom is that we still need quality additions, including a rock of a centre-half and at least one tricky, fleet-footed winger. Brian’s “priority signing” is still unsigned, and unidentified. Clearly, more serious money is needed. Where’s it coming from?

The sequence of news items has been interesting. Once all that early-July optimism started to wane, the Red Bull story surfaced, and it refused to go away. The fans of course immediately started adding two and two to make five, and the scare stories of team rebranding circulated, along with slightly more feasible rumours of stadium naming rights. The battle lines were drawn; one camp stands firm in its traditionalism and will not tolerate the idea of the team playing at the Red Bull Arena, nor even a glimpse of that devil’s colour red on our pristine white shirts (with the fat blue stripe). On the other side there are those who feel we’ve sunk too low to be coy about appearances and naming rights – show us the money, they say, and you can basically do what you like to us. But we need to be talking massive money – we’re not, after all, some cheap trollop of a club you can buy for a song.

Once the Red Bull story had been around a little, and it had been possible to gauge fans’ reactions, Brian started to appear in the media again with his gloomy face on, bemoaning the lack of progress in the transfer market and making pessimistic noises about having to sell before he can buy. It makes me wonder whether, having realised that there would be significant fan opposition to the idea of naming rights to Elland Road being sold off, GFH might just have briefed Brian to get out there and make these dolorous pronouncements, putting the fear of God up the support that another season of under-achievement awaits and basically softening us up for whatever commercial coup they might have lined up. I’m not saying that Brian will necessarily be so ready to dance to the GFH tune, but I do smell a big, fat rat in terms of how our expectations are being managed, and how our instinctive suspicion of corporate influence over our club’s traditions is being dissipated by worry over lack of transfer money.

The fact is that the precedents are already out there for success at any price, and that we will ignore these new trends at our peril. Man City play at the Etihad, and Arsenal at the Emirates. If corporate stadium names are OK at these two grand old clubs, then why not at Leeds? It’s not as if any Leeds fan would ever call it by any other name than Elland Road anyway, so why the big fuss? We can expect to be wound up by opposition fans and the media, but what’s new about that? Surely the priority now is to give Brian McDermott the tools to finish the job.

If we remain too ignorantly proud to go with the flow, then we have to accept that the price of pride might be one we don’t wish to pay. Do we want to play at the Red Bull Arena in the Premier League, or at Elland Road in the Championship – or maybe even in League One? It might just be that the choice is as simple and stark as that.

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New Fears for Gazza After Latest “Drunken Assault” Charge

Posted on 05/07/2013 | Leave a comment
Gazza: Slippery Slope?

Gazza: Slippery Slope?

There are uncomfortable parallels between the slippery slope Paul Gascoigne now finds himself on – a slope he started to slide down at a Wembley Cup Final in 1991 – and the decline and ultimately tragic death of another flawed genius, George Best. It’s not the happiest comparison to make, but perhaps it’s a message that needs to be spoken loudly and repeatedly, directly into the ear of the legendary Gazza, in the hope that he may yet be saved from the process of self-destruction he appears to be unswervingly set on. The news today that he’s been arrested over an incident involving drink and violence is no great surprise – but it IS cause for extreme concern.

Gazza was undoubtedly the finest talent of his generation, but like so many footballers and other artists gifted with supernatural skill of one sort or another, he seems fatally lacking lacking in anything approaching a safe level of common sense. Those identical words could have been written and published in the 1970’s, substituting only the legend of Gazza for the legend of Bestie. The similarities between the two are uncanny, both in terms of raw ability and irrepressible personality when things were going well. Sadly, the tendency towards addiction to factors which are the enemies of health and well-being seems another element ominously common to both.

George Best of course ultimately fell victim to his fatal attraction to booze and died an early and tragic death following the raising of hopes after a liver transplant. George was unable to leave the drink alone even after such a very final warning, and his demise followed as night follows day. There was a time when he had it all, of course – but it’s tempting to believe he might have wished to trade some of those trappings and achievements for a few more healthy years on the planet. Famously, a hotel employee once walked in to witness George surrounded by champagne bottles in his luxury suite, happily relaxing in bed with at least two Miss Worlds and the humble functionary sighed, without any apparent sense of irony, “George, George – where did it all go wrong?” It was funny at the time, as was Best’s quote when asked what he did with his money. “I spent loads on wine, women and song – but quite easy on the song – and the rest I just squandered,” he replied. Again, it’s pithy – but the humour shrivels away to nothing when you remember how he ended up in an early grave.

Is Gazza inevitably headed for a tragically similar fate? His health has been a matter of public concern for some time now, and again he seems totally unable to leave the booze alone despite repeated warnings that he’s drinking his health and possibly his life away. It’s not too difficult to pinpoint the start of Gazza’s descent – rewind back to the FA Cup Final of 1991, Spurs v Forest. A pumped-up Gascoigne had already perpetrated an ugly, early, chest-high foul on Garry Parker of Forest – a challenge which went unpunished by referee Roger Milford, but which could so easily have been a red card. Then, still high as a kite on Cup Final adrenalin, Gazza scythed down Gary Charles to concede a free-kick on the edge of the area. Forest actuallly took the lead from the resultant free-kick as Stuart Pearce hammered home – but the price for Gascoigne was even higher. He had ruptured knee ligaments in fouling Charles, and had to leave the field on a stretcher.

To many minds, he was never quite the same player again, even though his subsequent career still hit some major heights. Who knows what difference an early red card for the first foul might have made? Gazza would have avoided that calamitous injury and perhaps come much closer to fulfilling his outstanding potential – and maybe his life post-football would have been less of a horror show. No blame attaches to Roger Milford for his evident misjudgement – referees have no insight into the future.

Since his retirement, Gazza’s life has been a catalogue of calamity, culminating in this latest arrest and charge of alcohol-fuelled misconduct. That he is still drinking is a worrying signpost to the fate suffered by George Best, and if he fails to conquer this demon, it is difficult to see a bright future for the Clown Prince of the 80’s and 90’s. Daft as a brush, Bobby Robson called him, and there’s little reason to dispute that. But surely someone needs to take Gazza in hand and steer him away from a fate that Bestie could eloquently warn him all about, if only he were alive to do so. Someone, somewhere, has to make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself. Someone has to save Gazza from himself.

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Can Olympic Champion Murray Mint Himself a Wimbledon Winner’s Medal at Last?

Posted on 05/07/2013 | Leave a comment

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Two breathtaking, heart-quaking performances in this week’s Wimbledon quarter and semi-finals have seen British No. 1 Andy Murray through to the Final on Sunday, a progression many foretold from the start of the tournament, and all the more so following the early exit of both Federer and Nadal.  That formidable pair had loomed threateningly at the start of the Wimbledon Fortnight, promising to be Murray’s nemesis as they had each been on far too many previous occasions.  Their obliging co-operation in bowing out before any such calamity could strike has kept alive the dream of so many British tennis aficionados who have been yearning for a lifetime to see a British lad lift that famous trophy aloft.

Up to last year’s Final, Murray had been regarded by many with a sort of grudging respect which rarely if ever amounted to actual affection.  His slight tendency to taciturnity and the odd throwaway remark about his non-support of the England football team apparently did not endear him to many fireside patriots.  In the pubs and front rooms nationwide, as well as on the internet, you’d see many actively hoping for an early exit for our  only hope of ultimate glory.  Whether or not any of this was fair, it changed radically in a few tear-stained moments after Murray’s Final defeat to Roger Federer last summer. Trying manfully to fulfill his after-match obligation to speak to the crowd, Murray choked up with genuine emotion and palpable distress – and the stony old heart of England melted in a trice.  That iconic moment, together with the somewhat more relaxed and natural demeanour Murray displays since his happy partnership with coach Ivan Lendl began, seems to have converted the majority of the nation into supporters of our Andy. My wife, who is usually the best example of any feminine trait you might care to name, typified this sea-change.  She was a committed disciple before Murray’s first handkerchief was properly bedewed with manly tears, a complete volte-face from her position a mere few moments before when she had been relishing the Scot’s impending defeat.  Women, eh?

The thing is though, it’s not just the women.  Many blokes of my acquaintance and further afield – really, quite blokey blokes – now display positive support for Murray, and wish him well.  Apparently a few raw emotions, wrung from a stoic by the agony of defeat, can seduce even the proud male of the species.  I was a fan before, so I can’t really comment on the phenomenon, other than to observe that it has happened, and maybe just in time to stop the nation scowling sulkily at his ultimate triumph.

After last year’s Wimbledon, and the tears, Murray returned to the same venue shortly afterwards and carried off the Olympic Gold Medal, thrashing Federer in straight sets in a Final that he had reached – interestingly – via his only grass court meeting with Djokovic, his opponent on Sunday.  This also was a straight sets triumph.  An omen there, we may hope?  A first Grand Slam triumph followed too, with victory at the US Open where he beat Djokovic in the final. Another omen?  Murray is now very much “our lad” as he heads for his second consecutive Wimbledon Final on Sunday, and the vast majority will wish him success.

Murray can certainly seal himself in the affections of the nation for good this weekend. His demeanour on-court, and in his dealings with the press, still attracts criticism in certain quarters, but those people should remember that tennis is a game played, more than many others, in the head – the mental demands of a war of attrition over the best of five sets are gruelling at the best of times.  Murray will have learned from last year’s experience, and it seems likely that after his slightly less demanding semi-final, as compared to his quarter, or indeed to the epic semi that Djokovic had to weather, he should be in prime nick, both physically and mentally.  He’ll certainly need to be in order to beat the World No 1 again, and he’ll be aware too that in order to create further history, he now simply has to win the crown.  Last year, he wrote himself a page in the annals of British tennis just by reaching the final.  Now it’s time to take that last, decisive step.

Good luck, Andy Murray – we’re almost all right behind you.

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Brian McDermott Preparing Leeds United for 46 Cup Finals

Posted on 03/07/2013 | Leave a comment

ImageHe’s a pretty downy old bird, Brian McDermott. You get the feeling that he doesn’t miss a trick in the business of getting the very best out of the resources at his disposal, and it’s a safe bet that he’ll be bang up to date with any factors that might affect his team’s chances of success. The last time he operated in this league, his Reading FC team recovered from a dodgy start to scorch through the pack and leave the rest of the division breathless in their wake as they clinched the Title.  On the face of it, there’s no reason he can’t do the same at Leeds – as long as he’s fully aware of one vital fact. Everyone raises their game against Leeds United.  We are everyone’s Cup Final.

What this means, in effect, is that – more so than most clubs – our players have to be prepared to face a very stiff challenge almost every week.  When the fixtures come out, fans of every other club in the league dive to examine the list, looking for one game: Leeds at home.  Those fans will leave their club and team in no doubt in the weeks and days leading up to their Cup Final – we must beat Leeds, or die trying.  So many times since we dropped out of the Premier League – and even before that – I’ve seen teams put in gut-busting, lung-bursting performances to pull off a great result against my hapless heroes in White.  So many times I’ve noted that this team’s next game produces a limp and pallid display as they struggle to a draw or defeat.  But, no matter – as long as they did it against Leeds United, their fans and their manager are happy.  We’re the scalp they all want, the potential feather in everyone’s cap.

This is particularly so when you look at the other teams in Yorkshire, for whom – you get the unmistakable impression – beating Leeds really is the be-all and end-all.  Your Huddersfields, your Barnsleys, your Sheffield teams.  Doncaster, even.  All those Hovis and cobblestone outfits.  They all have this chip-on-the-shoulder, urgent NEED to do it against Leeds.  Their fans demand it, motivated by a hatred for which they’re not even sure of the reason – summat to do with what their dad said about the sixties and Don bloody Revie.  But they simply must beat Leeds – do that, and avoid relegation and it’s been a good season.  Look at opposition message boards after Leeds have beaten their favourites.  The grief and bitterness are palpable, it’s something they just can’t cope with. It’s the same for the managers.  Remember the amusing sight of Darren Ferguson on the very edge of tears after defeat at Elland Road?

Brian McDermott, you feel, will be thoroughly aware of this – of the local derby factor, and of the feeling further abroad which inspires the likes of Forest and Derby, Millwall and Leicester to raise their performance levels against us.   If anyone can make this deep-seated hostility work FOR Leeds, you can bet Brian is that man.  He’s building his squad, and he’ll be building an attitude as well, the us-against-them solidarity that served him so well in this league at Reading.  Leeds is a horse of a different colour, of course, but the wily Brian will have it figured out, and he’ll want to use the other lot’s hostility against them.  We supporters will have our part to play too.  The fans just have to make Elland Road a cauldron of hostility again, somewhere that other teams and opposition players hate to play, because they know they’ll be facing 11 motivated and buzzing white shirts and 25000 12th men, screaming abuse at them the whole game through.  That’s how we handled it in 1990 under Wilko, and this guy can get the same thing going, if anyone can.

46 games is a long, long haul – the original football “marathon not a sprint”.  The advantage the other clubs will have is they’ll only face two Cup Finals in the season, maybe a couple more for those with local rivalries.  But for the other clubs, Leeds is The One, so we’re going to have to be up for it – bang up for it – each and every week.  If Brian McDermott can foster that attitude and that fighting spirit, and if we can win enough of those 46 Cup Finals as a result – then maybe, this time next year, we’ll be poised at the gates of the Promised Land.

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Norwich Fans Getting Cheekier – Time They Showed Some Respect

Posted on 03/07/2013 | 5 comments

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Over the past couple of years, Leeds fans have had to grin and bear it as little Norwich – an unfashionable club from the back of beyond – have used the fact of their temporarily higher league status to pluck such gems as Snodgrass, Howson, Becchio and, erm, Bradley Johnson from the Elland Road payroll.  In truth, only the first two of those four departures were all that painful – the odd twinge caused by Luciano’s departure has been relieved by his zero contribution to Naaaarritch since he joined them – but that hasn’t stopped those loveable Ciddy fans from gloating and grinning and taking the mick.  Every time another transfer “coup” has been completed, there they’ve been, savouring the novelty of lording it over Mighty Leeds, crowing about us being their “feeder club” (no marks for originality there, lads) and generally cavorting all over the internet like the small-time wurzels they are.

Now, just as things seem to be looking up at Leeds, there has been a mischievous little article on the Norwich  “Vital Football” site, wondering with innocent glee whether our Boy Wonder, the one and only Sam Byram, might be the next to tread the path from LS11 to the backwoods obscurity of East Anglia.  The article appears to be based on nothing more than hubris; there is no suggestion that Byram – a lad surely aware of his potential career path – would choose to make such an oddly negative, sideways-at-best move.  It appears to be a case of a lazy hack with nothing better to write, trying to cater to the schoolboy excitement of Norwich fans still grappling with the unaccustomed chance to make fun of a much bigger club.

And where, after all, is the harm you might ask?  If this internet bravado helps the currently happy Ciddy fans forget their inglorious past, then good luck to them, right?  After all, prior to their recent double promotion success, their club was mainly famous for the tired and emotional display of Delia Smith when she unwisely seized the match-day mike after lavishly sampling the vino cabinet, and treated the stunned home crowd to a slurred and cringeworthy motivational speech:  “Wheeeere aaaare yoooouu?  Let’s be ‘aaaavviiiin’ yooooouuu!!!”   It was entertaining for everyone outside Carrow Road, but hardly a siren call to tempt a future England star who already has a first team berth in a far bigger club.

Pride, they say, goeth before a fall.  I have a funny feeling that the Chris Hughton magic may be a little harder to work this time around, and that Norwich may face a long and bitter, possibly fruitless, battle to retain their top-flight status.  And if they come tumbling down, Snodgrass,Jonny Howson, Becchio and all, wouldn’t it be poetically just if a Brian-inspired and Byram-powered Leeds hurtled in the opposite, upwards direction?  Who would be laughing then?

If Byram has any sense (and all the indications are that he has), he’ll stay where he is for at least one more season unless a truly irresistible offer comes along.  This would be from a proper Premier League club, one that can offer him the chance of playing at the highest level and possibly competing in Europe.  Failing that, he would do well to continue last season’s meteoric development, if he can, at Elland Road – possibly helping to elevate Leeds United back to where they belong at the same time.  It’s not an unrealistic prospect, all of a sudden.

If, this time next year, Leeds have gone up and Norwich have been relegated – might we not be reading transfer speculation of a return to Elland Road for Snodgrass and Howson?  Maybe, after all, we’d need the cover in midfield and on the wing.  And if we did read that speculation – would that be hubris, or taking the mick?  Not really.  It’d be more like the natural order reasserting itself, as it inevitably must at some point (the Norwich fans know this, deep down.)  Perhaps then, they can be excused their current cockiness – they’re just making hay while the sun shines and trying not to worry too much about what tomorrow will bring.

Tomorrow will come though, Norwich.  And then we’ll see who’s the feeder club for real.

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