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« på: August 11, 2007, 18:13:27 »
Fant ikke igjen denne artikkelen på nett-utgaven, og limer den derfor direkte inn. Interessant lesning, bl.a. om hvordan man behanler presse og supportere utenfor Elland Road. Ikke akkurat god Leeds-reklame...
The man pouring my Guinness might be grey-haired and beer-bellied, but he is still unmistakably Peter Lorimer - known in his heyday as the man with the hardest shot in the game. In his beaten-up pub in a beaten-up part of Leeds, he is a throwback to an age when retired football greats got to run their own public house - if they were lucky. He's been here 20 years, and it's no doddle. If the Scottish international had retired today, he'd be worth millions - probably tens of millions.
Yet while today's top players are milking it, the game itself verges on bankruptcy. (Forty-one clubs are estimated to have been in administration or receivership since 1992.) Nowhere has the lunacy of football finance been more dramatically exemplified than at Leeds United, who start life in English football's third tier today for the first time.
Lorimer, now a director at Leeds, is looking on the bright side. "Course I'm optimistic. Course I am. It's a new team, a new era, a rebuilding process. The fans are entitled to be angry. But we've got a chance now to rebuild the club, and get the fans smiling again." He breaks off to shout back to the kitchen. "That's one sausage, egg and chips, love." Everything about the pub is dark brown - floor, walls, tables. At the far end is an unplayed piano with two arrows stuck to the music stand - left for the Gents, right for the Ladies.
I ask Lorimer who his favourite Leeds player is. "The most knowledgeable player in the side was Johnny Giles. He was our cog in the wheel if you like." His accent is pure Leeds these days.
And his favourite in the current team? "I don't think of favourite players now at my age," he says diplomatically.
Don Revie's Leeds of the late 60s and early 70s is one of the great British sides. Even today, many football fans recite the team like a litany - Harvey, Reaney, Madeley, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles, Gray. Leeds United were famous worldwide, equally admired and despised. Admired because they could play the beautiful game (Revie created the all-white kit as a homage to Real Madrid, and the first cry of Olé was heard at Elland Road when Leeds passed, flicked and taunted Southampton into submission), despised because they could be dirty as sin - both on and off the pitch. There have been good Leeds sides since the great side. In 1992, they won the final First Division under Howard Wilkinson, and only six years ago reached the semi-finals of the European Champions League. But in recent years, they have been more despised than admired. In 1998, Leeds fans chanted racist abuse at Leicester's Asian community. Things reached a nadir in 2000 when Jonathan Woodgate was convicted of affray after a nightclub incident left Sarfraz Najeib with a broken leg, nose and cheekbone (Lee Bowyer was charged but subsequently cleared of assault).
It was around then that Leeds went into decline. The club spent money it didn't have, bought players on loan for a fortune and were forced to flog them, often at a fraction of their real value. In 2003 the chairman Peter Ridsdale resigned after revealing the club was £79m in debt. A couple of years ago, the former Chelsea chairman Ken Bates, one of the most controversial figures in football, emerged as an unlikely saviour when he paid £10m for a 50% stake in the club. Just as it looked like they were on the up, they finally went into freefall. Last year, Leeds were a shoo-in to return to the Premier League, but Watford beat them in the play-off final. Now, astonishingly, the club finds itself fighting off relegation to the old fourth.
On the other side of Lorimer's bar, Paul Savery has just heard that the 15-point deduction will stand, and he's ready to weep into his pint glass. "I honestly can't believe it. I can't. It's gutting to see us down there." He is aware that Leeds are not the most popular club in the land.
"We are hated by a lot of other fans," Savery says. But a weird thing has been happening in recent weeks. "I went to the Wigan friendly on Saturday, and there was a Manchester United flag around the Billy Bremner statue." He looks embarrassed. "'Keep your head up,' it said. Not directed at the club, but the fans. I were really shocked - it were nice. Other clubs don't think we deserve to be down there. Maybe they miss playing us, I don't know."
Gordon McQueen, who went on to play for United, still has a soft spot for Leeds. "My wife's from Leeds, and she was so proud of her team. They are the proudest fans in the country, but now they are just embarrassed." He believes Risdale is largely to blame for the fiasco. "That's where it all started, getting themselves into debt like that. Don Revie would be turning in his grave. He ran the club from top to bottom absolutely brilliantly. He was a far better businessman-manager than all the businessmen running the club when they got into trouble."
Not all the former players share his affection. "I don't know anything about Leeds. Not been there for years," bellows Jack Charlton down the phone. " I couldn't name one player. Nobody ever expected that to happen to a big club. That's all I'm saying, thanks." That was another of the club's mistakes - while Bremner, Eddie Gray and Allan Clarke took over at various points, the two really able managers, Charton and Giles, never got to run the club. Gray, who played on the opposite wing to Lorimer, tells me that the 15-point penalty is just too much to make up. "They won't go up with that deduction. If they started level, they'd have a good chance."
Elland Road is empty but for a handful of fans at the ticket office. Tony Doran is Leeds from top to bottom - Bremner shirt, Leeds tattoo on arm and shoulder, Leeds wallet, Leeds glasses case, Leeds earring. He wants to know what's happening with his season ticket. "I paid by credit card and the card's not gone through yet." At the club pub, Billy's Bar, and the souvenir shop only cash is accepted. The credit card companies are refusing to accept credit from Leeds.
What's the feeling like in the city? "Not good," he says. "We've never been this low before. We'll be lucky to get 15,000 next season."
Doran is with his niece. I ask her if she has noticed a change in him. "Yeah. He's not had a smile on his face for a year."
As the photographer takes his picture, a security man emerges and asks what we are doing here. I'm talking to fans, I say. He makes a call to the press officer, and says I have to leave.
"Can I speak to the press officer?"
"No, he won't talk to you. You have to leave. This is private property."
I feel angry, as Doran does. He has spent tens of thousands of pounds on his club over the years, and he would like to have his photograph taken inside Elland Road, but the club won't allow it. "Disgusting. They treat us like scum," he says.
We head off for the Billy Bremner statue, outside the ground, which has become a shrine to Leeds United. Bremner stands proud, head in the sky, surrounded by shirts and poignant messages. "Don't let Leeds United Die." "Retract the 15 points! LUFC Ultras forever." "Pride and passion will keep us alive! Bates won't!"
Seven miles from the ground, in Kippax, Gary Edwards' van is parked in his drive - "decorator and gynaecologist, no job too small" is painted on the side. Edwards, who hasn't missed a match for 39 years since he was 11, has a sense of humour. But he's not smiling today. Can he believe what has happened to Leeds? "Oh yeah, I don't disbelieve owt in football now."
He has brought down a tiny fraction of his memorabilia. The house looks like a ransacked museum. On the wall, alongside the Leeds photos, are portraits of the Queen and Churchill.
In 1978, Edwards got married. But things didn't work out - his wife, who was a football fan, thought he'd miss a match for the wedding. "The marriage lasted two weeks. I were married and divorced before the Argentina World Cup had finished, to be honest. I know it sounds daft." He refuses to paint red (Manchester United) and will paint the first layer of white over red for free. The back of his shirt says "FCUK 'em all. We are Leeds."
The thing that riles him most is that Leeds are to be sponsored by a company called Red Kite this season, and a splash of red has been introduced into the shirt. "They are taking the piss."
Edwards is a conspiracy theorist. He is convinced that Bates actually hates the club, and is out to destroy Leeds "Years ago, after Leeds fans rioted at Chelsea, he said I'll see Leeds out of the league. But I can't for the life of me find the cutting in all these boxes," he says pointing to his endless albums. Is there not a tiny part of him that wished Leeds had gone out of business, and he could have started his life all over again? He smiles. "Funnily enough it did cross my mind. Someone asked what I'd do and I said I'd be in Key West within a fortnight. You wouldn't see me again. "
Edwards is in the Leeds camp that chants "Shirts off, if you want Bates out." "Now ," he says, it's got to 'Shoes off, if you want Bates out!'" Where will it all end? "If it's a nice day on Saturday, the whole lot might come off."
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