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BRING IN THE YOUTH
FEBRUARY 13, 2015
BRING IN THE YOUTH
Bring in the youth is something I’ve often heard when it comes to talking about a football team, usually when they’re failing. This makes reference to our international side as well as Leeds United. It always seems an easy shot for a pundit to use and then when they fail in the next game it’s said that “He wasn’t ready†and “Give him time, let him growâ€. I have taken this all on-board and tried my best to introduce our three girls to football at the appropriate time so when they go they get hooked with passion, enthusiasm and ebullience with acceleration that even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
It’s said that most parents working a 40 hour week will spend that away from their families and when they’re at home only 15 hours in a week will be spent with their children. I’m the first to admit that even that might be generous and I’ve always felt that I needed to change and make the time spent together as good as it possibly could be. That’s when I asked Olivia, at the age of 5 if she would like to come to Leeds with us to see a game. Olivia was far more excited than I expected and that actually lasted all day (and night!).
I’ve always been an advocate for getting the children to football regardless of your club. It’s something that I always bring up in conversation in the local pub on a ‘Super Sunday’ with my mates around me. There’s two reasons for this really, one mentioned above already; to spend that quality time at the weekend marching on together to your respective ground and secondly for the longevity of the football club. I feel that if we do not take the next generation to football then there will not be a next generation. That might sound very elementary but these are the facts, plain and simple. Also, to explain a little more, we are Leeds fans who reside in the south of England and it would be very easy for my girls to get wrapped up in the glory of satellite television, the progress of the heavily financed clubs and the pull of the international superstars that play on British soil.
So that’s what we do and have done with Olivia since 2010 and she loves it! I honestly thought that she maybe worried or intimidated even by some of our own fans. We can be very boisterous, clamorous and a bit keen to say the least so imagine my wives horror when I announced that I got the tickets for Olivia’s first game and it’s against… MIllwall. Some might say a baptism of fire.
In actual fact it wasn’t a baptism of fire at all, it was glorious and Olivia got to see it all first hand rather than through hearsay from myself or an official account from the Football League Shows, Manish Bhasin. I always wanted it to be that way; I always wanted to be able to drip feed Olivia the information about a football game on the terraces, albeit in the East family stand rather than the Kop, You can’t have it all?!
Often football fans will ask or be asked “What was your first game?†and most of us remember it, some dearly and others will cringe and a tear will come to their eye but that’s what happens with our club in West Yorkshire, if you’re in then you’re in for life and whether you think it’s fortunate or indeed unfortunate. Luckily for me Olivia is Leeds and she knows it.
So the fond memories for Olivia will go a little like this… Early on in the season and Leeds host Millwall on August 21st 2010, Millwall took the lead through a Richard Naylor own goal in the first half and I have one very unhappy little girl on my hands giving me the filthiest of looks, these looks could kill a man at 20 paces. It didn’t stay that way for long and this made me, my wife and a very new Leeds fan extremely happy. We hit back through Lloyd Sam and it was 1-1, phew! Halftime and now it’s time to introduce our very own ‘youth’ to the refinements and luxury of half time dining at a football ground. Apparently Bovril and pies are “disgustingâ€, I beg to differ but our new supporter insisted on this and would try nothing else but a chocolate bar and squash.
Olivia with a proud Leeds salute
Second half under way and I’m very nervous, I know through experience and tales heard from friends that this first result and the influence it could have on the one you’re trying to persuade could mould and shape them for life. It was on that day and in the second half that I made one of my best friends in the football world. Davide Somma was introduced as a sub and he scored for the first time for Leeds United (78mins), not just once but a brace!(90+4mins) 3-2 Leeds and its official, Olivia is a supporter from here on in.
We’ve not looked back and just last week at Elland Road, against Brentford, I had a very vocal 9 year old telling an official what she thought of him, she offered up some fake glasses and made that all important statement from the terraces “You don’t know what you’re doing!?â€, hands outstretched from her sides.
I mentioned earlier about the excitement and how it surprised me that it would go on all day and night, well it did, that Saturday in 2010, all the way down the M1 to junction 14. Did I get fed up hearing ‘Marching on Together’ or a very hoarse and weary version of ‘Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!’? Not really, no, I bloody loved it!
So if you get the opportunity and finances allow then take my advice just once and see if it works out, Bring in the youth. You might just find yourself one of the best comrades that you never knew you had.