Sorry Leeds scrape to victory
Outside a corner of the football ground where giants used to stride, there stands a statue of one of them, Billy Bremner. Children born long after he played the game posed to have their photographs taken with a figure with fists raised in triumph.
They went inside to watch today's shadows of yesterday's legends scrape a win in their forlorn attempt to avoid relegation to football's third tier.
Bremner was a 5ft 6in giant who drove his team with a passion that never dimmed and on the plinth beneath the bronze were the words "Inspiration of the Revie team."
Fathers were telling their sons about him with a series of eulogies and wide-eyed children listened to tales of Jack Charlton, Norman Hunter, Eddie Gray, Johnny Giles and the rest in stories of championships, European football and international caps.
They called it the Revie Era, that rise to the pinnacle of English football in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Manager Don Revie, who created a spirit of comradeship within the club that lifted Leeds from perennial misery to two championships, two Fairs Cup wins and the FA and League Cups. Every night was party night at Elland Road.
You should see them now. A win over Luton threw a thin coat of varnish over a club locked in misery worthy of a statue to fecklessness. Mismanagement on a lamentable scale is the story of a club now back examining the depths of failure under the stewardship of one Ken Bates, a tax exile living in Monaco and author of the specious programme notes, and manager Dennis Wise, who has overseen Leeds take a measly 24 points from 21 games and has had a public fall-out with one of his players, Kevin Nicholls.
There is a sale going on in the club shop. Something symbolic there.
All that has remained constant has been the support of the fans who have continued their march to the ground where memories reside. Revie's old-timers care as much as anybody. Charlton, for instance, spoke in saddened terms when I rang him the other night, but he was reluctant to criticise. He joined Leeds as a boy and left them as a veteran international. Their results are the first he wants to know.
Who is to blame for the current state of the club? Some point fingers at the chairmanship of Peter Ridsdale, a man as peripatetic as Bates. Ridsdale left for Barnsley and can now be found at Cardiff City.
Bates will tell you he saved Oldham Athletic, Wigan Athletic, Partick Thistle, Chelsea and Leeds. 'Saved' is a big word. With the wealth he gained from selling Chelsea to the Russian Roman Abramovich he helped Leeds to side-step the bailiffs, but they are still looking at trips to the likes of Port Vale and Gillingham next season. Six years ago Leeds were playing in the Champions League against Real Madrid in the Bernabeu.
Ridsdale's supporters will say he had the right ideas, though borrowing £60 million in the belief that Leeds would qualify for European football two years in succession was not one of them. Leeds were £103 million in debt when he left.
In his time he referred to the Revie team as "nearly men". He gave David 0'Leary a £6 million deal for five years, said he had a "job for life," sacked him, players came and went - especially went. Over a short period Leeds supporters saw the departure of Rio Ferdinand, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell, Paul Robinson and Jonathan Woodgate among many. Ridsdale went and Professor John McKenzie, an economics expert, came in. He famously stopped paying the rent on the fish tank, cut a few corners and left nine months later with a reported £300,000. Economy was the word.
Enter Bates. He loves a headline and has been having such a spat with former director Melvyn Levi that the latter asked for police protection fearing assaults after Bates gave his address in his programme notes.
yesterday's programme was only distributed after a sentence on the Levi issue was blacked out. Unfortunately, it was easy to read the words: "Thanks, Melvyn. By the way, you do know that your number is in the phone book, don't you."
It is just another tawdry sideshow in the malodorous mess that is Leeds United.
They battled yesterday. Nobody could argue with their desire and commitment and when Richard Cresswell scored early in the second half a kind of delirium broke out in the stands, where 27,138 made it the second highest attendance of the season. Prices had been reduced.
Earlier, Lubomir Michalik and Jonathan Douglas had headed against the bar and Robbie Blake had the same misfortune with a free kick as Leeds controlled the match against Luton, a team with their own relegation anxieties.
With four minutes left, Luton were awarded a penalty. It was poorly taken by substitute Dean Morgan, comfortably saved by Casper Ankergren and the crowd erupted again.
Leeds are sponsored by a gambling firm. Will they stay up? Don't Bet24 on it.
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