Even before I knew who Leeds United really were, I knew I was a Leeds fan. I even knew this when I once told the other kids at school I was a Bolton Wanderers fan; the odd jibe about my surname had obviously gotten the better of me that day. It's dog eat dog when you're five years old. I vaguely remember a match between Leeds and our best friends from Salford on TV at my Grandma's sometime in the early 90s, but my first solid memory of watching Leeds was the 1996 League Cup final against Villa. Decked out in a Thistle Hotels shirt, a scarf and clutching a Corinthian figure of Gary Speed, I watched in horror as we went down 3-0,which ultimately led to the resignation of Howard Wilkinson and the end of an era for a Leeds United that had won the last old First Division before the Premier League just four years before - an event that I'd never even heard of.
The feeling of disappointment, dashed hopes and embarrassment
which has been experienced countless times by Leeds fans before that day and,
well, plenty of times after, set me up for an often unenvied role of Leeds
United supporter for the rest of my life. I wasn't exactly sure why it felt
right at that time, but after all, being born at the LGI, living in Leeds and having
all known family based in the city was bound to tie me to it's only football
club. My parents and their parents had followed Leeds in our glory years; I'm
in possession of a myriad of their programmes, rosettes and scrapbooks full of paper
cuttings and tacky bits of shit from the time Leeds were the best around.
Probably the unluckiest, the eternal runners-up and the most controversial, but
no doubt the best for a good period of the mid-60s to the mid-70s.
I've always felt that when my Dad started taking me to Leeds
games the season after the League Cup final defeat, he was doing so with the expectations
of the Leeds of his youth. I wasn't really aware that Leeds had won a title
four years before and to be honest, the team showed little signs of knowing
this either. I got the feeling my Dad had lost interest for a good chunk of the
20 years since their major successes and it was only due to having a son that
he had an excuse to return to Elland Road.
The first game he chose for me was (the now defunct)
Wimbledon. I'd been fed Leeds merchandise for a couple of years, clothing,
novelty clocks, CD-Roms (lol),sticker books and I even went on a stadium tour,
but a Tuesday night at the end of August was chosen as my first Elland Road
experience because "night matches have a better atmosphere,"according
to my Dad. In 1996-97 Leeds had turned into a mid-table team and their main
concern was staying up. I really wasn't aware of the team at that time either -
Yeboah was on his way out, Speed and McAllister had left and Strachan, Cantona and Vinnie Jones were
a distant memory. Except for this night, when Vinnie Jones was playing for
Wimbledon. The game itself was a totally dull 1-0 win played out by mostly
dull players; the most exciting thing I can remember happening, other than a baggy-shirted Lee Sharpe goal, was some bloke
in the kop heading the ball back onto the pitch after a mis-hit shot and
getting a massive cheer. I also remember thinking Carlton Palmer was the
tallest man I'd ever seen. It was a game bad enough to put me off football for
life.
Wilkinson left soon after and George Graham's
"exciting" "brand" of "football" took "excitement" at Elland Road to a "new level". I went
to more matches that season including a 1-0 defeat to Newcastle (where I asked my
Dad why the Leeds fans were singing, and I quote, "Shearer is a
twanky"), a 3-0 win over Sunderland where Leeds somehow managed three goals
in a game (they still finished lowest scorers in the division that season) and
a 2-0 defeat to Liverpool. I still vividly remember Nigel Martyn floundering in
no-man's land as the last chance for an equaliser broke down and Steve McMananam
slotted in the death knell on 90 minutes.
By this time, I had started to become obsessed. I would feel
extremely sick before games. When Leeds scored, the excitement would be so much
that I'd start crying. I still feel like this today, but I hold it back better
because I'm y'know, grown up and shit. These emotions came to a head on Boxing
Day 1996, when Leeds found themselves 3-0 down at half-time to Coventry goddamn City. I started crying at half-time. I'd seen enough and I wanted out.
Begrudgingly, he took us home, concealing a fury both for me for wasting his
money and the team for wasting his money. It took a long time for my Dad to
take me back; in fact I'm not sure if we even went back to another game that
season.
But 1997-1998 rolled around and my Dad must have seen some
signs of recovery after the absolute boring shambles of the previous season. He
took me to the first game of that season, against Arsenal, where a fiery
centre-forward by the name of Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink scored his first goal to
draw with the eventual winners of the league. George Graham eventually sured up
the defence and the team remembered how to score goals, with the help of rising
stars such as Kewell and Bowyer.
This became apparent to me in possibly the best Leeds match
I've ever attended; the 4-3 win over Derby. Leeds went 3-0 down in about 20
minutes, but ran out 4-3 winners with a Lee Bowyer goal in injury time to seal
it. An old man lifted me up on his shoulders and jumped around with me at this
point, surely a bad idea to inflict on a kid whose favourite hobby was throwing
up. But I didn't. And I'd just seen a game that showed me what a rollercoaster
ride football (or being Leeds fan) could be. Ups and downs and all that jazz. I
think I lost my tendency to puke from that day. On a rollercoaster. HA!
From then on, I don't remember how many games we went to
that season or the next, but it wasn't a great deal. The team was coming on leaps
and bounds, but something was obviously preventing my Dad from taking me. It
was more than likely down to ticket prices - he still maintains to this day
that you can have a better time at the races with £40 than you can at Elland
Road. It was somewhat cruel to introduce a kid to this experience and then
snatch it away, but I'm sure he had his reasons. Maybe he just hated new
manager David O'Leary's stupid voice and face and words. When we did go though,
there was great positivity around the place, but most of the time I was
subjected to "watching" the games on Ceefax page 303 as we had no Sky
in those days. I remember nearly killing my Grandad by jumping around and screaming
after an unknown "Smith" scored against Liverpool.
Leeds finished 5th in 99 and were in Europe the next year,
sitting on top of the Premiership at the turn of the millennium. It may have
been a great time to be a Leeds fan, but the number of games I was going to per
season were dropping. By 2000-01, our greatest year in my living memory, I think
I attended one League Cup game, whilst we swashbuckled our way through the
Champions' League. Everyone was wearing Leeds shirts then at school, in the
park, people were proud to be Leeds fans. I watched the European
games on TV thinking success was the norm and despite the anguish of the semi-final
defeat, surely more was on the cards in the upcoming seasons. I was still
avidly following Leeds at this time as an exiled armchair fan (despite living
about 12 miles away from the ground). My Dad was suffering from depression
around this time, so I'll let him off for not taking me to the bigger games,
but I was sorely missing witnessing live history.
And then slowly, everything began to slip. 01-02 fell short
of expectations and we missed out on the Champions League places as Petey
Risdale's debts racked up. Bowyer and Woodgate were silly boys, meaning my Dad
thought it would be a good idea for me to never wear the shirt again that he
bought me a few weeks earlier. O'Leary left and we stayed up in 02-03 mainly
thanks to Mark Viduka as the rot set in and a succession of laughable loanee
signings cluelessy paraded around Elland Road mixed with talented youth who were just about to be sold. And Seth Johnson.
The season after we got booted out of the league. I had
feared Leeds getting relegated every season since 96-97 (even when we were good),
but by this time, I was resigned to the fact that we couldn't sustain our
status any longer. Maybe it was because I was older, but most likely it was
because we had been a crock of old shite for a long time. I remember hearing
that Everton defender Steve Watson had scored a hat-trick against us whilst I
was over at my mate's house playing a manager game, a much more comforting way
to spend Saturday afternoon at the time. I still loved Leeds, I just couldn't
bring myself to watch us fall apart and my Dad sure as hell wasn't going to be
taking me anytime soon. Leicester 0-4, Everton 0-4, Portsmouth 1-6, Birmingham
1-4, Arsenal 0-5 and goodnight ma'am. At the same time, there were financial
takeovers and threats of administration floating around and things that I
didn't really understand, I just knew that we were really, really fucked.
The first season in the newly formed Championship, I went
with my friend and his Dad to the first game, the first time I'd been for quite
a while. We watched a new, ragtag bunch of rejects win their first game against
Derby and wondered if we'd bounce straight back. I didn't go to another game. A
mid-table settling season, followed by a poor defeat to Watford in the play-off
final at the end of the second surely meant that the third season would be our
year. I remember people at the time saying that we needed a few season to get
our shit together and then we'd be back to continue our quest for glory in our
rightful place amongst the nation's footballing elite. Well it didn't really
work did it. You can blame it on me if you want, before the relegation season
began, I interviewed Kevin Blackwell on some BBC young reporters scheme and he
seemed VERY positive INDEED.
I went to university in Preston as Leeds tumbled into League
One, making horrible history in the process. I'd tell people I was a
Leeds fan at uni, but I didn't really like talking about it. At the same time,
my interest in football began to decline as heavy metal became the major
passion in my life, something that's not particularly compatible with liking
football. I'd like to say that girls was one of the reasons too, but it turns
out heavy metal isn't particularly compatible with girls either. I began to
feel a bit lost when the few friends I had that liked football would talk about
it, bar from occasionally letting them know that that player who just scored a
hat-trick at the weekend played for Leeds seven years ago.
The uphill task of the -15 point penalty in 07-08 passed me
by but I remember watching the Carlisle play off games and witnessing a chant
of "Jesus! Jesus!" aimed at me in the pub because of my long hair and
slight (read: no) resemblance to David Prutton. The play-off final defeat to
Doncaster made me wonder where all the positivity that season had come from.
During my final year at university, I kept following the results but was still
a million miles away from going to a game. I didn't know any Leeds fans in
Preston. I remember us going to
the races quite a bit when I came home to visit though. Bastard.
That season we missed out on promotion again, losing humiliatingly
to Milwall in the playoffs. I remember watching the second leg in the pub and
some guy going apeshit when Milwall scored. He was a Wycombe fan. My old pride
began to stir up after that moment. It was the same when I'd occasionally watch Champions League games - the Man U fans were still singing "We All Hate Leeds Scum". It took me back to a time when Leeds lost to a then lowly Reading in a cup game and some Bradford fans make jokes about reading books or some shit. I realised for a long time, everyone has hated us but... we're still Leeds.
I am Leeds. I was still proud, despite my connection being weaker.
Before I had the chance to rekindle my love for the Mighty Whites, I was off to Canada for year on a working visa after university. I was still following the results and I even took a Leeds scarf with me which I wore during the bitterly cold Canadian winter in Toronto. I watched cup ties against Liverpool and Spurs in a bar with a few other Leeds fans, but missed the famous Beckford goal at Old Trafford due to being asleep (time difference) and his goal to put us up against Bristol Rovers (due to being on a coach to Montreal).
Before I had the chance to rekindle my love for the Mighty Whites, I was off to Canada for year on a working visa after university. I was still following the results and I even took a Leeds scarf with me which I wore during the bitterly cold Canadian winter in Toronto. I watched cup ties against Liverpool and Spurs in a bar with a few other Leeds fans, but missed the famous Beckford goal at Old Trafford due to being asleep (time difference) and his goal to put us up against Bristol Rovers (due to being on a coach to Montreal).
After fannying about in North America, I returned home in
time for the 2010-11 season, to a Championship Leeds side with hot prospects.
Becchio, Snodgrass, Howson, Gradel were making Leeds exciting, but slightly
suprising contenders for promotion. My interest flooded back. I took my Dad for
my first live game in about 5 years and his in about 10 that Christmas, a game
where we drew 2-2 with Portsmouth after letting slip a lead, which happened a
lot that season. But towards the end of it, I managed to attract a few of my
mates to watch the last couple of home games. We missed out on the play-offs,
but the level of love I felt for Leeds had been promoted. D'aw.
The next season was pretty much entirely horrible, as the extent
of Uncle Ken's lack of investment in the playing squad became apparent, we lost
our big players mostly to Norwich and Simon Grayson was slung on the scrapheap
(Huddersfield). I attended more matches than I had done since about 1998,
including probably the worst match I've ever seen, the Paul Rachubka show; a 5-0 home defeat to Blackpool. This was always one of the main fears as a kid,
that Leeds would let in a goal and then the floodgates would never stop, but it
never happened to me live until this moment. But the world didn't end, the fans
were waving scarves around their heads and singing. It may have been another
low point in Leeds's recent history, but I felt more a part of the club than
ever.
Last season wasn't much better, but I did manage to take my Dad
for the second consecutive season, sadly it was one of the drabbest games I've
ever seen (Bolton 1-0) and it possibly has put him off all over again. But the green shoots of positivity sprung up this summer as Ken departed and I
bought my first club membership. This positivity was compounded by the best atmosphere
at Elland Road I'd seen for at least 10 years, against Brighton on the first
day of the season.
As I type this, I'm in Argentina with my girlfriend,
but I'm due to return to the UK next week. I am proud to say I support Leeds
United, despite having to tell people that we're not very good anymore but were
once in The Champions League and we beat AC Milan and got to the semi-finals mate
and oh we also had a good Argentinian for a bit but you haven't heard of him?
Oh. A Chilean border guard recognised my Leeds shirt earlier this year which was a particularly
great day and made me realise we are still known around the world. Everyone has
heard of us here, they are just slightly confused as to where we've gone.
And so I've come full circle, from excited youngster to
jaded teenager to mid-20s optimist. Soon, it's time for Leeds to come full circle
and put themselves back at the top table. I can feel it. And despite my waning
support at times, I still feel like I've been through it all together. I've
never turned my back on Leeds, I've just sort of turned to the side to avoid
full exposure to the negative vibes. After a full dose of negativity since I've
been back on the horse over the last 3 or so years of Batesonomics, I feel
fully ready to embrace success. Or familiar failure. Maybe my Dad will even come with me.
