Tag Archives: fans

Time For True Leeds United Fans to Get Positive and Support the Club – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 05/01/2014 | 70 comments
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Elland Road packed with the faithful

Sometimes, a good old-fashioned cliché is the only thing to resort to, especially when things seem bleak and morale is low.  So I have a couple to offer that may help at this uneasy time when Leeds United stand on the brink of yet another new beginning and we’re all questioning what’s wrong in the club after one of the worst results in our entire history.  The two that spring to mind are “The darkest hour is the one just before the dawn” and “Let your faith keep you strong“.  There may well be others equally applicable.

The thing about clichés is that they wouldn’t be quite so hackneyed and frequently-quoted if they didn’t have that element of truth and common sense about them.  The central message of any such quotation as related to Leeds United right now must be that the club needs positive support in bad times even more than in good.  This is no time to spread despair and linger over the agony and humiliation – for such it surely is – of a defeat to an inspired but much lowlier team.  What we have to do now, as a massive collective of followers for one of the world’s most famous and fanatically-supported football clubs, is: stick with it.  Tough it out.  We’ve had bad times before, and ultimately they’ve helped make the good times even sweeter.

Rochdale was a bad experience, worst of all for the fans who made the journey and backed their men to put on a professional display for the shirts they were wearing and the badge on those shirts.  The fans that make these trips are the single most notable thing about the Leeds United of today.  They are a modern phenomenon, supporting a mediocre team with almost unfailing good humour and vociferous enthusiasm.  Fans of clubs we visit are in awe of the sheer passion these fantastic fans generate.  But clearly, any group of football followers will have a collective breaking-point.  That point was reached at Rochdale; the fans had had enough and they said so.  They expressed their anger and their pain in terms that even the most complacent and overpaid player could easily understand.  The manager was brave enough to emerge after the game and take his share.  He has expressed no disagreement, but has remained dignified and determined.  When success comes, Brian McDermott is the kind of man who will think back to yesterday at Rochdale so that he will not be carried away in the flush of achievement.  Brian is a steady man, and he will take on board the disappointment and suffering of those loyal fans.

But we’ve had our moan now.  It was a message that had to be sent out, and our representatives at Spotland duly obliged.  It’s done; let’s move on.  We stand on the brink of – quite possibly – a major upturn in the fortunes of Leeds United.  Just as efforts over the past year in team building are very much a work in progress, so the achievements behind the scenes and the changes wrought there are possibly slightly under-appreciated.  But Leeds United today as a club is a very different entity than the one labouring under the yoke of Bates’ last few months in charge.  This is something for which we should all be truly grateful.

Rochdale is gone, just as Histon disappeared into the past.  Not so long after Histon, we were winning at Man U – and this was at a time when that was quite a hard thing to do.  Rochdale will be remembered as a low point, but the highs which will follow are apt to be all the sweeter for that bitter experience.  Such are the slings and arrows of outrageous Leeds United.

Now we wait for the tangible results of all the backroom activity currently going on at the club and at the Football League.  We can justifiably wait with some excitement; the signs are good that the club is about to commence operations on a whole new level.  The FA Cup meant little to us this season, in reality.  The pride and feelings of the fans, granted.  But as a competition, it is one that we can manage without – just as long as our progress in the right direction is maintained.  That’s the cause in which we should be lending our support.  What’s about to happen might just be a massively significant time in the history of our club, and we must be seen to be behind the teams – the ones off the field as well as on it.  And we’re a team ourselves, a massive united group of fanatical supporters who all wish to be involved in the success of United.  Any team needs to pull together, and that’s just what we need to be doing, right now and going forward.

So please – put Rochdale behind you and get your chin up.  We’re Leeds and we’re proud even in those times when the team give us little reason to show that pride.  Players come and go, teams evolve.  Even management and owners aren’t forever.  But the club and the fans are bound together in perpetuity, and we must seek to go forward as a united force.

We Are Leeds, Marching on together.  We’ve had our ups and downs, but we’re going to stay with them forever – at least until the world stops going round.  Let’s remember that.

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Leeds Humbled in Cup: The “Soccer Saturday” Experience – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 04/01/2014 | 25 comments

Merse at the back, looking “fick”

So, it was FA Cup time again – a competition where we’ve actually done OK these past few years, as a bit of light relief from generally mediocre league form. This year, the Cup Magic was to be non-existent, the Cup run very short and not so sweet. Out we went, humbled by League Two Rochdale, of whom it must be said: they deserved it. 5-0 would hardly have flattered them. Leeds played like a side who felt they had only to turn up to win; the thing is, they didn’t really even turn up.

But are we downhearted? Well, yes – some of us are. But not me. I’ve grown out of disappointment at cup exits. They’ve happened every year, twice a year – sometimes more in really good seasons when we’ve qualified to be beaten by some continental team – for all of the forty-odd years that I’ve actually cared. You become immune – and that helps, especially when our league status argues that we’re never going to have a chance of winning the bloody thing anyway. Let’s worry about cups when, on form, we should beat pretty well anybody. When those days return, the cups will look a lot more likely and a lot more attractive.

Today, without a match ticket and with no live TV coverage, I gave myself over to the tender mercies of the Sky Sports “Soccer Saturday” team.  It was an enlightening experience, confirming for me that, yes, we played terribly and that, yes, they still hate us.  We’re still the Damned United.  At one point, Jeff Stelling told us that he’d been told to stop referring to us as “the Mighty Leeds”.  He didn’t say by whom – I had it narrowed down to Phil Thompson (still bitter over some ribald jibes at his Manilowesque nose from the Gelderd End back in the day) and Paul Merson who, as the token Fick Cockney, simply doesn’t know any better.

Stelling got more excited as the afternoon went on, returning frequently to Spotland for reassurances that Leeds weren’t threatening to get back into the game (we weren’t, either).  His references to our glorious Cup history, for the purpose of contrasting today’s dismal display, seemed a little forced as we’ve only won it once – 42 years ago.  But Jeff wanted this to be the Marquee Giant-Killing, and he bigged it up accordingly.

It’s not as if there weren’t other shocks.  Villa lost at home to third division Sheffield United, much to the joy of their Cup-hating manager Paul Lambert.  Donny lost to little Stevenage – and the excitement of this game was enough to bring on earache, as the reporter at the Keepmoat was one John Gwynne.  He has one of those “rich north country” voices which sound like a goose farting through a foghorn, and many were the updates he loudly bawled, with scant regard for the sensitivities of the more delicate viewer.

Soccer Saturday sets its stall out to entertain as well as inform – which is presumably why they employ clowns like Merson (How’s it going Merse?  Still free-nil, Jeff.)  One of their comedy themes lately has been the appalling record of Hyde in the Skrill Premier League.  They’ve gained only three points all season and have a goal difference of minus 51.  Today, they lost 4-0 at Gateshead – one of their better results of this campaign.  But on this FA Cup day, the chance was missed to mention that Hyde are record breakers themselves, having once lost 26-0 to Preston in the 1887-88 competition.  Surely, they could have got a bon mot or two out of that?  But no, sadly they were too ill-informed – unless I missed it in listening out for a Leeds recovery.

Back at Spotland, it was becoming ever more obvious that our beloved United were merely going through the motions and that the mighty Rochdale were having it easy.  A richly-deserved second goal arrived, and we were well and truly Out – much to the malicious satisfaction of the United-Damning hacks in the Sky studio.  The Leeds fans packed behind the goal at Rochdale’s ground took it all in good part.  “We’re shit, and we’re sick of it,” they bellowed, displaying a keen sense of observation as well as a powerful collective ability to convey angst.  Sad to report, they gave Brian McDermott a pretty frosty reception at the end of the game.  It is to be hoped that the resolve of that gentleman was stiffened, rather than shattered.  My money is on him; he’s a never-give-up type.  He’ll have to be.

Worse things happen at sea – or, indeed, at Histon.  Rochdale have done well at home this season and in Keith Hill they have a manager who’s used to slaying the Whites with a nominally inferior team – he did it all the time at Barnsley.  His side played football today that put to shame the more direct approach of Leeds, but there is a lesson to be learned and it’s to be hoped the players learn it.  No league points were lost today, as Brian McDermott, looking for scraps of consolation, ruefully remarked.  And of course it seems likely that big changes are afoot.  For all the hysterical reaction over this defeat, you’d think that people out there actually thought we might have gone on to win the Cup.  Truly, that was never going to happen.  So, what have we lost, after all?  Only the chance to be beaten in the next round or two, possibly by someone against whom we’d simply hate to lose.  What should we do, then?  Why, we should draw a line under it sharpish, and move on.

This season is not going to be a season of on-field achievement – I will confidently predict that here and now.  The progress made this season will be mainly off the field, as a hideously-neglected scouting network comes online, and investment makes possible the instigation of a more progressive transfer policy.  Plans are afoot for Elland Road too, to brush up some of the tired old fabric of the place.  It’s long overdue – and I know people will say “Get the team sorted first”.  But there’s no reason why both areas can’t be addressed at the same time, if the right levels of investment are – as rumoured – shortly to be available.

The baseline requirement for this season, football-wise, is not to go down.  Making the play-offs would be a massive bonus; actually going up, little short of a miracle.  We’re currently just too far behind the teams that have invested properly for this level – they will likely pull away as the months go by.  Going up next season, on the other hand, is a reasonable ambition; there are three transfer windows to do the necessary work.  I would happily settle for that as the immediate aim – if next season is to be the Big Push, then there’s a lot of excitement in store.

Who knows?  Perhaps in a year or two, we really will be “Mighty Leeds” again, and maybe Jeff Stelling will even be allowed to admit it.  Won’t that be a glorious day?  And as for Paul Merson – well, he can bladdy-well stick his hard-of-finking objections where the sun don’t shine, squire.

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Time to Do Away With Megabucks Ownership and Let Fans Run Clubs – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 20/12/2013 | Leave a comment
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Vincent Tan: clueless

The time is fast approaching when the people who know what the game in this country is all about, are going to have to stand up and be counted.  I mean, of course, the fans – and I write in the full awareness that too much standing up can lead to you being evicted from some of the more authoritarian clubs in the various leagues.  But this type of standing up would be symbolic.  It would send out a signal that we, the fans, have had enough of clueless owners and chairmen manking about with our game.

In the last week or so, it’s been carnage in the Premier League alone.  Steve Clarke of West Bromwich Albion has been sacked, a decision that makes lighting that extra boiler to get a few more leagues of speed out of the “Titanic” seem like a model of sober judgement.  Andre Villas-Boas has gone too, a victim of his club’s failure to hang on to their star performer from last season, Gareth Bale.  Anyone who saw the look on the face of Danial Levy during Spurs’ 5-0 demolition by Liverpool would not have given much for AVB’s chances of avoiding the pre-Christmas axe.  Meanwhile, up in Hull, battle-scarred old warhorse Steve Bruce is having to hide behind a sickly grin and pretend that it’s OK that Hull’s megalomanic owner, Assem Allam, is planning to trample all over the finer feelings of City’s support by forcing through a name change to Hull Tigers whilst inviting those who vociferously object to “die as soon as they like”. Tigers, Tigers, rah, rah, rah!

And now we have the news that Cardiff City’s clueless owner Vincent Tan has told his successful manager Malky Mackay – a hero to the Cardiff fans, and rightly so – to either resign, or be sacked.  Presumably Mr Tan feels that Mackay has been interfering too much in team affairs, and not listening to the vast wisdom of one V. Tan Esquire.  Who does this jumped-up little pro think he is, after all? Doesn’t he know whose toy Cardiff City is??

In truth, it’s beyond a joke already.  Good, honest pros are at the mercy of clueless amateurs whose only qualifications to be where they are in the football hierarchy are a stuffed wallet and a fool’s ego.  It’s way past time that somebody, somewhere, got a few people of common sense and influence together – or failing that, the likes of Bobby Charlton and Trevor Brooking would do – and set to discussing an alternative model for the game in England – before these spoiled, rich-kid charlatans ruin it beyond repair.

You wouldn’t have to look far to find that alternative model.  Go East, young man – cast your eye and focus your thoughts across the North Sea and look how things are run in the Bundesliga of good old Deutschland. Wonderful stadia with safe standing, reasonable ticket prices, a fantastic league nurturing a successful national team – and the fans involved at every level, helping make the decisions that ultimately affect them, for the good of all – not just some bloated plutocrat with a brain full of damp rot and the arrogant belief that wealth justifies autocracy.

Football in this country has a long history of being in thrall to a clutch of well-to-do local businessmen, but at least there was a hint of democracy in the old-style board of directors.  Now it’s CEO’s here and Directors of Football there, and all frantically knuckling their brows to whichever barmy billionaire sits on top of the whole creaky edifice.  They say with power comes responsibility, but not in English football.  No, sir.  These people delegate the responsibility whilst hanging on to the power.  They hire and they fire and then they do it all over again.  As the process goes on, so the credibility of the game diminishes – what’s the reaction of the fan in the street when he hears that an excellent coach like Steve Clarke has been sacked before the season is half-over?  Why, they laugh derisively, clearly unaware of the respect due to some stockbroker and investment banker who happens to own most of West Brom – despite being unburdened by any knowledge of the game.

Sadly, it looks nigh-on impossible to transform our game into anything resembling its efficiently-successful German counterpart.  Too many vested interests, too much money involved – and far too many tender, fat, sleek egos which demand to be stroked and adored whilst being party to amateurish decisions that would shame a Tory minister.  So it looks as though we’ll have to put up with what we’re reluctantly witnessing happen – and resign ourselves to the game here become ever more like the franchise system of American Football.  Yay.

When’s the next home Ashes series, anyone?

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Leeds United Fans – Why do Some Appear to Revel in Negativity? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 28/11/2013 | 27 comments
Leeds, Leeds, Leeds!

Leeds, Leeds, Leeds!

I’ve read a couple of articles lately, both decently-written and making some good points – but both leaving me despairing over the massively negative attitude current among a certain section of Leeds “support”.  The tendency, in fact is not only massively negative, it’s eagerly, loudly, brassily negative.  It embraces negativity and holds it close like it never wants to let it go.  It’s the very antithesis of what support should be all about. It’s defeatism in its most depressing and demoralising form; if these articles had been written in wartime, they may very well have been taken out and shot.

The common theme of course, hammered home with relish and supportive statistics, is that We Are Not A Big Club Anymore.  The people saying this say it passionately and with conviction.  Not only do they wish to believe that Leeds aren’t a big club, the very idea that some fans may not believe this – may, in fact be holding dear the belief that United are still big – clearly upsets and offends them.  They crop up everywhere, these pallid little people, spreading their message of gloom and churning out invidious comparisons by the bucketload.  They’re becoming an effective voice wherever fans gather together to discuss matters Leeds.  In fact there’s only one real problem with their whole campaign. It’s utter, unmitigated bollocks.

The fact of the matter is, no club is bigger or smaller than its fanbase, its potential for support.  A very reliable gauge of this is freely available in these tech-savvy days we live in. It’s what is nattily called “online presence”.  Give your mouse some exercise and find out for yourself – if you don’t already know.  In cyberworld, second division, under-achieving, out-spent and unregarded Leeds United are absolutely HUGE.  This is the best barometer you could wish for of the measure of passion out there, the incredible hunger and thirst for any morsel of news, any topic of debate about the Mighty Whites of LS11. They’re out there, right now, all over the globe.  They’re clicking away at their computer terminals reading and digesting, or they’re writing in dozens of languages about Leeds past, present and future.  Our great days on the field are an increasingly distant memory, and a large proportion of the match-day support of a decade ago are marginalised and still priced out of actual engagement with the match-going experience, despite a return to relative sanity in the pricing structure.  But around the globe, in the ether, over the airwaves and most importantly inside the heads of millions of fanatics, Leeds United are top four, a phenomenon.

So, why this overweening eagerness to paint us as a small club?  Is it the tiresome need of social writers to dress themselves up as that bit different?  You know – slightly windswept and interesting, with that world-weary air of cynicism etching attractive lines into their fashionably-troubled yet intellectual brows.  It’s odd.  Any real pretensions to “cool” tend to be dissipated by the unseemly scramble to out-do each other in the negativity stakes, and they’re usually followed by eager-beaver starry-eyed acolytes who wish to attach themselves to any view that doesn’t qualify as mainstream.  Perhaps that’s the answer – are we dealing with an online football-flavoured brand of snob obscurantism?

I’m not advocating the other pole of this issue, by the way.  That worryingly Freudian habit of a certain Franchise’s fans to shout from the virtual rooftops about how they’re the biggest, the best and totally huge and wonderful throughout the world and all four dimensions of spacetime. I’ll mention no names here, but the initials are man u.  I’d be even more concerned if our collective attitude was as deluded as that, not least because – in the case of our acquaintances from over the hills – their Devon and Cornwall-based support have made of themselves a laughing-stock with such wishful thinking.  Certainly in Barcelona and Madrid, and in various other centres of realism too, not excluding Beeston.

No, all I want is for certain people to remember the basic meaning of the word “support”. It does not include the peddling of negative thinking, nor does it encompass unhelpful and misleading assertions regarding comparisons with such giants as Norwich and Dull City.  All of this is willful and groundless cant, calculated to spread misery and crush hope.

Support is about identifying yourself with the club you love, and spreading the word to those less fortunate who have not seen the light.  It’s about getting the shoulder behind the momentum of recent promising form – and being prepared to back it all the way, in the face of the withering carpings of naysayers as and when necessary.  Support is an overwhelmingly positive thing, and it needs to espouse and reflect positivity in everything it does.

Criticism is part of this, we are not simply a massive band of yes-men.  But criticism can be couched in positive terms too – this will not do for Leeds United, we said of Bates, and behold, he is gone.  The same applies to ticket prices, or transfer policy, or anything else we’ve been unhappy with from time to time.  We say “this will not do because We Are Leeds, and we demand better”.  So we can be critical – and that can be effective – but it’s still our overriding duty to be biased, and to talk the club up – because we’re supporters. Criticism that amounts to a wholesale belittling of the club relative to other clubs who may be enjoying some temporary success – that’s just ridiculous, and so counter-productive as to be a sin. Spreading alarm and despondency is not needed, not helpful, not to be embraced.  There are idiots enough in the media eager as all hell to do that, without people who are supposedly fans getting in on the act.

So please, those who peddle pessimism or deal in negativity, think again.  Think not only of whatever you’re getting out of venting these frustrations of yours, but also of your obligations towards the club you’re supposed to be supporting.  Let’s not give our enemies, among rival clubs’ support and within the media, such a cheap advantage.  If you’re a fan, then act and speak as one.  Support your club as a supporter should.  After all – We Are Leeds United, and we are the best.

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International Break is as Important for Leeds as it is for England – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 05/10/2013 | 16 comments
....or divided we fall

….or divided we shall most certainly fall

It’s no exaggeration to say that the next couple of weeks might very well make or break Leeds United’s season.  It’s as serious as that.  Not for any reasons of points or league placings, but to nip in the bud the deadly, creeping disease of apathy that can seize hold of a club’s supporter base and throttle all hope out of it.  Don’t get me wrong; the international break is clearly important for England too.  But all they have to do is win a couple of games at Wembley, with everything going for them and the cream of the country’s talent (such as it is) at their disposal.  Easy peasy.  Leeds United have no such simple task.  Leeds United must somehow conjure up a whole new philosophy, advance further down the road of securing significant investment and cheer up a moribund fan-base to the point where they can inspire the team again, instead of reducing it to nervy inefficiency.  No pressure, then.

Conflicting noises have come out of Elland Road this last week or so.  First we’re told that new players are on their way, but the existing squad should have won in the most hostile of Lions’ Dens.  Then there were glad tidings of “investment to take us to the next level”, but with the same breath we were told it was hard to secure such investment and that promotion was “a harsh target”.  Neither was the tantalising concept of “the next level” defined.  The next level of what?  Angry Birds?  Surely, they couldn’t have meant the next level up the league ladders, better known as the Premier League.  That is, after all, a harsh target. None of these pronouncements have come from the football side of the club, though you might be forgiven for thinking they had, what with learned opinions being offered about the capabilities of the existing squad vis-a-vis Millwall.  So confusion reigns, and the sickly stench of discouragement and resignation begins to drift among the fans in their expensive seats.  If promotion is a harsh target, they muse, aren’t these seat prices slightly harsh then?  What are we being invited to hope for, and at premium prices too?

Maybe, a mere two weeks hence, things will look better.  Perhaps, after we’ve sat and watched England cruise to qualification for Brazil 2014, we can turn our attentions back to Leeds United in a more positive frame of mind.  Will we have new faces to slot into our supporters’ team formations and post on Twitter? (Do I go traditional 4-4-2 or should I stick with the diamond? What about wing backs either side of a three in defence, eh? Hmmmm. Complicated, ain’t it.)  A couple of new faces could do a lot for morale out here, among all the armchair coaches and strategists, not to mention the galvanising effect on the team and its performances under the man who matters, Mr McDermott. And maybe there’ll be rumours of money coming into the club. There certainly should be, we’ve rarely been without them this past two years.  Rumours we have aplenty; pounds sterling, dollars or even shekels have been in somewhat shorter supply.  But you never know.  There’s no football for Leeds United for two long weeks. Surely something will happen in that time.  Perhaps even … something wonderful??

It’s to be hoped so.  The present mood out here is not positive, and the people responsible for those conflicting statements – and for what amounts to defeatist talk, dammit all – must hold their hands up for that.  If nothing else happens in the next fortnight while England’s millionaire playboys are poncing about at Wembley, it would at least be nice to see a more unified Leeds United emerge at the end of that time, singing the same song, or at least avoiding such excruciating discords.  A couple of high-class loans would do us all the power of good and maybe – just maybe – we could then go Marching On Together into the January market with a bit more hope than seems likely right now.  After all, we’re all Leeds, aren’t we?  Of course we bloody are. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

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Leeds United Chairman Nooruddin Explains “The Nature of Football” – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 02/10/2013 | 11 comments

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The Chairman of Leeds United, Salah Nooruddin, is a man much occupied by weighty matters. Quite apart from his duties in the world of high finance, Mr Nooruddin now obviously has to attend to the day-to-day running of a still huge football club, though some might argue that he is approaching that task with the pragmatic aim of making of it a smaller one.

Mr Nooruddin took the time out of his busy schedule yesterday to grant an interview to the media, presumably prompted by rumblings of discontent among the supporters of a club that has consistently under-achieved in the past decade and which has seen last year’s takeover completed on a scale dwarfed by the likes of those at Manchester City or even Nottingham Forest.  Indeed, little Sheffield United down the M1 appear to have shown Leeds up by getting themselves a rich billionaire. So what’s going on at Leeds? Salah was kind enough to explain, in the simplest of terms, for the benefit of the uninitiated.

Firstly, on the manager Brian McDermott: “He’s the right man to take this club forward.” Hmmmm.  Well, we already knew that one, Salah.  Tell us something new.  The chairman then drew on his extensive knowledge of the professional game as he went on to cover the perilous ground of the club’s progress this season, explaining that we’d had a good start, but that it had turned around a little bit and that this was “the nature of football”. Again, all very illuminating – but is it the nitty-gritty we need to hear?  Those of us who have watched United for the past few decades are all too painfully aware of the nature of football as it applies to Leeds.  It may be summed up as constant depression with peaks of hope and short spells of achievement, but doomed to ultimate disappointment. There’s really no need for an investment banker lecturing us about the nature of football in order for even us bone-headed and unsophisticated fans to realise that.

Mr Nooruddin then proceeded to describe how manager and players are all still settling in and testing each other, a process that some will have noticed has been going on at clubs much higher up the league who have had the bad taste to invest heavily in players and wages.  “When we brought (Brian McDermott) in we were very happy about that. I think it’s been proven on and off the field here”, the chairman confirmed. “He’s done a good job and he’s trying to rebalance the squad. He takes account of the owners’ interests, the club’s interests and the players’ interests. So far we are very happy.” So far. Well, that’s good then.

After the defeat at Millwall, Mr Nooruddin had taken to the Twittersphere to provide a more immediate summary of his feelings as to that performance.  Stating that the club were trying to bring in a striker and a winger, he went on to aver that “the current squad should have won today”.  Again, this apparently profound knowledge of the world of professional football is not backed up by any body of evidence concerning Salah’s experience in anything but banking – but what is Twitter for if not for knee-jerk reactions to events beyond your control?

After yesterday’s interview, Mr Nooruddin may well be feeling quite content that he has acted decisively to mollify United’s notoriously touchy support.  On the other hand, there is the argument that some may find his less-than-qualified statements a little worrying. Bland and glib assertions about the “nature of football” will butter no parsnips, Mr Nooruddin should understand.  Neither will his less than forensic assessment of the current squad, leading to the slightly shaky conclusion that they should have beaten Millwall, impress those match-going fans who have seen it all before, who have heard hollow promises and lame excuses without number and who just want our manager to be provided with the tools he needs to carve himself a level playing field and have some chance of competing with the Leicesters, QPR’s and Burnleys of this world.  That doesn’t seem a lot to ask.

I’d be far more impressed with Mr Nooruddin if he avoided all attempts to speak learnedly, as one handing down knowledge from on high, about the matter of football. He should instead be reassuring the Leeds public that he and his fellow directors are listening to the football wisdom of Mr McDermott, taking on board his recommendations based on a lifetime of experience in the game – and then applying their own specialised financial knowledge and business acumen to the task of sorting out some wonga in order to realise Brian’s wishes for his squad.

Now that would be reassuring.

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After the Lord Mayor’s X-Rated Show as Exhausted Millwall Capitulate to Birmingham – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 02/10/2013 | 14 comments
Those Cheeky, Chirpy Millwall Chaps Amuse Themselves at Wembley

Those Cheeky, Chirpy Millwall Chaps Amuse Themselves at Wembley

We’ve seen it all before of course.  Some daft little chavvy club from the back of beyond get all worked up, bless ’em, about the prospect of playing Yorkshire giants Leeds United – all that history of achievement, all that tradition and global support – and they bust a gut, strain every sinew and try their little hearts out.  Backed by a flaky bunch of tribesmen from whatever godawful hole they represent, they raise themselves to twice-a-season heights.  Thus charged with fervent and passionate determination, they do it – they beat Leeds United, aided by our favourites’ occasional ineptitude when it comes to facing determined yet tiny opposition.  All very embarrassing.  But we know we’ll be wryly amused by what invariably comes next.

The little club relish the glory of their hard-won victory.  They can think of little else, and the praise of their manager and coaches, their fans and their big game hangers-on, washes over them like a warm ocean in which to bask under the sunshine of achievement.  We beat Leeds, we did it – but God, we’re knackered.  And there’s another game a few days down the line…

Reality bites.  The little club’s little players and their greatly-reduced band of supporters – unwelcome anywhere outside of their own early 20th century ghetto – head off for the next fixture.  There, wiped out, exhausted, nothing in the tank because they’ve given it all, they abjectly fail, surrendering meekly before the opposition they have no power to resist. They lose, heavily.  The manager is disappointed, the fans have fallen heavily back to earth.  They half-expected it anyway.  But what the hell – they beat Leeds and what a performance THAT was.  No wonder they’d nothing left.

I’ve seen it happen time and time again.  This is what the name of Leeds United means. This is what the history behind the badge says to the teams we face nowadays.  We’re a scalp, and they’ll give it all, 110 percent, Brian, anything so that they can beat us.  It’s got to the stage now whereby, every time we lose to one of these comical yonner teams – and it happens far too often – I look for their next result.  It’s amazing how often I can predict it: they’ll be knackered, they’ll get nothing there.  It’s funny how often I’m right. Normally I’ll just shrug and think that we have to learn to deal with these adrenalin junkies when we play them instead of just softening them up for the next lot.  But this time, there’s a thrill of satisfaction.

Because this time it’s poxy bloody Millwall.  Horrible, repellent, disgusting Millwall, late of Cold Blow Lane and that smelly slagheap of a ground where the bricks used to fly and the home crowd rioted among themselves behind netting because their own fellow fans were all they could find to fight.  Unpleasant, racist, evil Millwall, who moved from an old Den to a New one, made of Meccano, resplendent in tacky placky blue seats – and improved not a jot in the process.  Sick, gloating, shameful Millwall who won’t let go of their pastime of celebrating violent death and taunting the bereaved extended family at every opportunity.  Millwall, the stain on the game.  They beat Leeds last Saturday and partied hearty.  Then they went to Birmingham on Tuesday evening and got well and truly stuffed 4-0, having left all their blood sweat and tears in the mud and grass of the field where they played The Whites.  I could have warned them it would happen.  They possibly feel it was worth it, to beat Leeds United.  It’s the price of fame, though of course, we’re “not famous any more”.  Yeah, right. Anyhow, it’s back to reality for Millwall and their nauseating, cowardly fans.  Suck it up.

The aftermath of the Leeds game in South Bermondsey has been predictable too.  I published a blog on the morning of the match, alerted by the bile and gut-wrenching hatred on Twitter that the morons and the cretins were up for a party during the game. Very swiftly, I was inundated with threatening messages of hate and imbecility, mostly unfit to print.  Some – a few – were from clearly educated people and even they reduced the issue to “well you lot have sung about Munich for years”.  The more I argued that a minority did that, years ago and that it has now largely stopped, the more I kept getting the same refrain, in amongst all the vicious threats of retribution and violence: “Pot, kettle, black”.  And these were the intelligent ones.  Some posed as Leeds fans, pretending to condemn from within the offended support.  Some tried to trick my address out of me. I had to change my blog settings, such was the tsunami of filth.   All for complaining about the number of appalling tweets that morning and for predicting that the afternoon’s fixture would be infected by the usual, awful, gloating references to the murders in Istanbul.

And, lo – it came to pass.  The police had promised to take action if, as in previous years, there was offensive chanting. They failed to keep that promise.  The stewards stood idly by, bovine and uncaring, just as they had at Wembley last April when these animals fought each other during an FA Cup semi-final, heedless of crying children, drunk on bloodlust, savage and ignorant, reckless of consequences or what the civilised world might think.  It happened against Leeds as we knew it would, the sick chanting, the salivating over violent death.  But now Leeds supporters organised under a unifying banner are demanding some action.

The Leeds United Supporters Trust (LUST) have issued a statement summarising the events of the day at Millwall, and asking for witnesses as to the nature and extent of any offensive chanting, with any video captures particularly welcomed.  LUST also intend to make representations to Millwall FC and to the Metropolitan Police.  The message to those who behave in this appalling manner is: we will not stand idly by and let you get away with it.  Pressure will be exerted on the relevant authorities to identify offenders and to deal with them to the full extent of the law.  Clicking on this link will present a variety of options for responding to LUST’s call for help.

Naturally, I hope that LUST are successful in obtaining some action against the lowlife scum who perpetrate these obscenities on such a regular basis.  But I shall not be living in hope, nor holding my breath.  The casually indifferent attitude of police and matchday security staff alike speaks of an acceptance that this is just the way things are in the cesspool that houses these people.  It’s not good enough – but it seems to be the case. Millwall FC and its fans evidently inhabit a grubby little bubble of the past, where the improvements in behaviour and in the attitudes of rival fans towards each other have failed to penetrate.  It is tempting to say that I hope this will not remain the case, but I’m not entirely sure I mean it.  It would be better, perhaps, for such a very backward lot to remain separated from proper football fans.  Maybe the best thing of all would be just to get rid of Millwall FC altogether.  After all, if you cut the head off the snake, you render it harmless.  It seems to me that that’s the best way to go.

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It’s a Twitter Bad Taste Jamboree for Millwall Fans as Leeds are in Town – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 28/09/2013 | 78 comments
Millwall Beauty Queens Parade for Police Five

Millwall Beauty Queens Parade for Police Five

Twitter is a good place to avoid today for Leeds fans – or indeed for anyone whose idea of good taste precludes taunting rival supporters over two bloody murders thirteen years ago. Millwall fans are generally the exception to the rules of taste though, as they are to most rules – not excluding those governing grammar, basic hygiene and indeed evolution.

It’s not hard to find Millwall fans on Twitter today. Those of this dismal fraternity who are able to find their way around a computer are there in the ether, in force, to celebrate the first of Millwall’s two cup finals this season.  Their team face Leeds United, the cause of all those chips on rival fans’ shoulders everywhere.  The effect is accentuated with Millwall fans, for whom the chip on the shoulder invariably possesses a higher IQ than the diseased organ inside the skull.

It’s pointless to regale you here with the output of the South Bermondsey twitterati.  It’s all there, for those who might want to source it.  Hashtag #sickeningbile might be a useful route to go.  Strong stomachs are required; this is no place for the queasy. Youngsters who weren’t even born when Chris Loftus and Kevin Speight met their awful fate in Taksim Square Istanbul, are gleefully evident, aping their elders, glorying in the blood spilled by two lads who went overseas to watch a football match – and never came home.

Most football clubs suffer from a minority of this sort, people who genuinely seek approval for dragging their very souls through the gutter as they seek to out-do each other in aiming jibes at the misfortunes of others.  It’s been a blight on football for over 50 years, certainly since the time of the Munich Air Disaster.  Man U fans are only too well aware of the fashion down the years for tasteless chants and songs on that sad subject.  My own Leeds United have shameful form for it; Liverpool too and various other clubs.  Man U fans will climb on their high horse a few times every year over this, but they are not without sin, reveling in their own sick celebration over Hillsborough and Istanbul, plumbing the depths over the Heysel tragedy.  It’s hard to find a club that doesn’t attract a lunatic fringe of this kind of “support” – but it’s usually a minority and it’s been greatly reduced in recent years.  Only Millwall buck this trend.  There it’s most of them, most of the time.  There, civilised behaviour and rules of taste and respect seemingly don’t apply.

Millwall fans, rather than condemning the examples of pond-life in their midst, tend to glory in them.  “No-one likes us, we don’t care” they sing defiantly, happy with their grisly reputation, proud of a record that would sicken a psychopath.  They’re more famous of course for their tendency towards violence, usually in gangs of herd-instinct cowards seeking small groups of rival fans to attack.  When none such are available, they will be content to fight among themselves and disgrace the game in this country that way. They had a set-to at Wembley last April in the FA Cup semi-final.  Bewildered Wigan fans looked on as their team cruised to victory and the Millwall animals tore into each other like sharks drunk on blood.  Images of crying children caught up between bloodied “adults” lacing into their own kind shocked and revolted the nation.  As usual, nothing effective was done.

It’s about time, though, that something was done.  Millwall is the land that time forgot, a throwback to an uglier era that the rest of the game is doing reasonably well in leaving behind.  Only at Millwall does this anti-culture still flourish, by word and by deed.  In Leeds, the old men of the sixties and seventies Service Crew sit around swapping stories on internet forums these days, their boots hung up for good.  Even West Ham fans are emerging from their own savage past.  Man U fans are too busy travelling up and down between Devon and the Theatre of Hollow Myths to engage in fisticuffs – they’re an aging population too.

The modern football fan is a relatively peaceful person, obsessed with the media fishbowl of the Premier League, horrified by the price of everything, as likely as not to be a student, or a female; a far cry from the working man’s army of previous decades.  Not so at Millwall.  Millwall defies evolution, laughs at progress, dismisses a family atmosphere as “soft”, spouts poison on the internet, looks for easy targets down scary back-alleys. Millwall is the past in defiance of the present and the future.  Millwall should be consigned to that past, to the dustbin of football history – and their shrinking legion of “fans” left to lob half-bricks at each other.

It’s high time to get rid of Millwall.

PS – see below for the evidence of one Millwall cretin glorying in his following the Twitter account of Turkish murderer Ali Umit Demir. Disgusting – but we shouldn’t apply normal human standards to some Millwall apes.

20130929-210755.jpg

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Arsenal Celebrate a Century of North London Domination – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 22/09/2013 | 17 comments

Arse Spuds

It was one hundred years ago today that Arsenal FC, kings of North London for as long as anyone can remember, made that historic move from Woolwich to Islington.  Life in North London would never be the same again – certainly not for Tottenham Hotspur, the Gunners’ long-suffering rivals.  For that day 100 years ago was the day that Spurs stopped being the Cockerels crowing from Tottenham right across North London, and became instead permanent residents within Arsenal’s shadow.

An aggregation of Arsenal’s league record across the 20th Century – the only complete century of League football – shows that they are not only top dogs in the Capital, but arguably across the country as a whole.  The aggregated League table 1900 – 1999 puts the Gunners firmly in top place.  The whole point of a league system is a club’s placing over time, so this decisively ends the argument as to who were the top club of the last century.

Spurs had their moments in the league during the 20th century as well – but not in colour. Their last title triumph was in 1961, an age of flickering monochrome TV when JFK succeeded Eisenhower for his ill-fated US presidential term, Harold MacMillan was Prime Minister in the UK and – most notably of all – I was born.  In short, it was a bloody long time ago.  If I ever wish to emphasise what an old fogey I am, I simply mention that my eyes first opened on a world where Spurs were Champions.  People tend to get the message.

Since those far-off days of temporary Spurs supremacy, Arsenal have been Champions six times.  Even my own beloved Leeds United have won it three times for heavens sake.  To hear Tottenham described as a major club in the light of such damning statistics always seems a little bizarre.  In London and beyond, the world of colour TV, the transistor era, the space age, the digital revolution, all the many different ways that the modern era can be encapsulated – it’s all been dominated by Arsenal.  And as befits a club with a full century of ruling their own North London roost, Arsenal have done it with class.  Class and prestige are integral to the club.  The marble halls of Highbury were legendary and now Arsenal have a new world-class super-stadium, the finest in the land.

The pre-eminence of Arsenal on their own patch, and in their own 20th century, is beyond doubt.  This Centenary day then is worthy of being celebrated – and Arsenal celebrated it in typical style with a comprehensive victory over Stoke City to go top of the league again. You don’t have to be an Arsenal fan to admire them and to appreciate what they’ve done for the game as a whole.  My fondness for them is down to their class, their history, their style and the sumptuously gorgeous football they play under M. Wenger.  And perhaps also for being the only club we can beat in domestic Cup Finals…

Congratulations, Arsenal, on your hundred years in North London.  May there be another hundred to come – and much more success.  Arsenal FC are what football is all about.

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Time to Push the Panic Button for Leeds United? – by Rob Atkinson

Posted on 22/09/2013 | 12 comments

Image

In a word, no.

True, the home defeat to Burnley – United’s second reverse at one-time fortress Elland Road already this season – was depressing, dispiriting, deeply disappointing.  Brian McDermott had no complaints about the merits of the visitors’ win, simply stating “They were the better side.”  What evidently stuck in the manager’s craw was sending out a side designed to get at their opponents from the off and seeing them getting, in his words, “beaten up” by a Burnley side that could have been ahead already by the time Scott Arfield rifled home an acute finish to give Leeds that sinking feeling again.

As at Reading in midweek though, the blow of going behind came hard on the heels of an excellent chance for Leeds to take the lead, Luke Varney fluffing his lines in front of goal. And Leeds continued to press and to make and spurn chances for the remainder of the first half, before shoddy defending left one-time Whites loanee Sam Vokes in ample space eventually to force the ball past Paddy Kenny.  0-2 and the damage was done. Things improved in the second period, but sub Matt Smith’s header with ten minutes to go allowed only a brief flicker of hope, extinguished by the lack of any real chance to secure a second that might have denied a deserving Burnley outfit.

The Elland Road faithful had not been pleased by the performance of referee Probert who had denied the home side a penalty after Sam Byram appeared to have been brought down in the box before the interval, but McDermott chose to focus on the lack of cutting edge that is costing Leeds a realistic return on chances created.  “We have to score more goals here”, said the United boss.  Indeed.

This campaign is starting to define itself now, and it’s a veritable model of the truism that speculation is usually the father of accumulation.  The rich are starting to pull clear at the top of the table while Leeds are roughly where they might be expected to be, with a patchy squad, an excellent manager, plenty of progress off the field and woefully inadequate investment on it.  Much was made of the signing of Luke Murphy in the window, for that magical million-pound figure, a bar that hadn’t been cleared by Leeds United since 2005. But the Championship is a big time division nowadays, and the clubs at the top end are investing big money to try to ensure their parachute payments don’t fade away before they’ve hoisted themselves back up into the League of Milk and Honey. Leeds, for the time being, are just not on the same financial plane as those eager sprinters QPR and the others who have shelled out on the potential to take the Championship by the scruff of its neck.

Some of the comparisons are yet more sobering. Yesterday, even penniless, potless Birmingham benefited from an enlightened recruitment policy, their loan signing Lingard from Man U blitzing the startled Sheffield Wednesday with four goals on his Blues debut. The story behind that performance is of a virtually unplayable Chris Burke – the winger deemed “too expensive” for Leeds at £600,000 – torturing Wednesday as he supplied the new forward with his chances.  So why weren’t Leeds in for either or both of these players who so ruthlessly put the Owls to the sword? The apparent short-sightedness of this policy, whereby Leeds will not shell out a chunk of money to give themselves a chance of reaping many times that with promotion, is a glaring flaw in the overall strategy.  That said, it’s a sign of the times that we must necessarily be talking about promotion in terms of financial reward anyway, in a game that – remember? – used to be about glory.

What is certain is that, the way things currently are at Leeds, there is no real expectation of promotion this year – the powers that be have said as much in so many words.  It follows that there is no need for actual panic in terms of results and that steady progress towards a more realistic challenge next time around would be acceptable – though whether such a pragmatic view will be forthcoming for the fans, who regularly empty their bank accounts into the Elland Road coffers, is another question.

For the time being, we have to glumly chew on the bitter pill of mediocrity that results from the paucity of playing resources in crucial areas of United’s squad.  We know we have a manager of the necessary pedigree and one moreover who has endeared himself to the notoriously hard-to-please home crowd.  McDermott is a diamond worthy of polishing and treasuring, but he’s being asked to rebuild a fortress with tools that are more suited to fashioning a sandcastle.  We have to understand that – keep the faith – and leave that panic button alone.

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