​It feels great to wake up and know, with certainty, that Leeds United are back in the Premier League, doesn’t it? Playing with the ‘big boys’ from Brentford and Bournemouth; finally redeveloping Elland Road to make it fit (and full) for future generations, and watching Match of the Day again, albeit without Gary.

Even after teaching Oxford how to manage a football match on Friday, it was with some trepidation that I welcomed Stoke City to my television screen on Bank Holiday Monday. The sight of Michael Brown looking as though he wanted to slide tackle the cameraman each time the spotlight fell upon him reminded me of the robust games we’ve had against The Potters in the past. Could a wet Tuesday evening in Stoke translate successfully via a wet afternoon in Leeds?

Our early encounters with Stoke were not encouraging. Originally formed as Stoke Ramblers in 1863 (presumably wandering endlessly and aimlessly across the endless clay deposits of Staffordshire), they changed their name to the far more progressive ‘Stoke’ in 1878, and we first met them more than 40 years later, in 1920. We waited for seven matches until they achieved City status before beating them in the league – a Division Two game on Christmas Eve, 1927, which we won 5.1.

I suspect the fans streaming out of Elland Road that day were, as for those lucky enough to get tickets on Monday, dreaming of a bright and shiny future. We lost the return game in Stoke in May 28 by the same scoreline: 5.1. In fact, until Monday, we hadn’t beaten them home and away in the league since 1988/89. In Howard’s day; in Howard’s way.

When people mention Stoke, my mind is inevitably taken back to the old Victoria Ground on 23 February 1974 when Tony Waddington’s men ended our 29-match unbeaten run in the league, 3.2. It’s more than 50 years ago, but it still hurts, especially as we were in total control of that match.

I also have my own pre-Christmas memory – almost 60 years on from that first league win – on 21 December 1986. I was being driven home for Christmas by a friend (not Chris Rea, just for clarification) in a Reliant Robin three-wheeler, which was missing a door on the passenger side. I still shiver at the memory, not helped by our 7.2 defeat in Stoke.

That game was also in the second tier, as was Marcelo Bielsa’s introduction to the Leeds fans in an unforgettable 3.1 win on 5 August 2018. That was the beginning of our last great adventure, which was as exhilarating as it was disappointing when Jesse Marsch showed us that he had the tactical nous of a baked bean.

After achieving 90 points last season and 94 already in this one – after two summers of discontent and disruption – I still do not understand why some of the LUFC fans are so sceptical of Daniel Farke’s abilities. He has hit the target three times now (only Joël Piroe beat this on Monday) in achieving promotion to the Premier League. This season was especially impressive when, having lost key players to greed in the summer, we promptly lost our midfield to injury in the space of a couple of matches in the autumn.

He isn’t Bielsa, and we don’t know how he will manage in the top tier – even if he does (should) get proper financial backing this time. The football may not be as exciting as it was five years ago, but after watching the game on Monday, are we falling so far short?

Leeds fans are entitled to their opinions as all football fans are. It cannot always be beautiful, but I don’t expect us to be losing 5.2 at Brentford or 4.1 at Bournemouth next season either.

Yes, there will need to be investment in the squad, and, yes, we’ll be linked to every player from the football heartlands of Andorra to Zimbabwe over the summer. Isn’t that what we all wanted, though? To be part of the bigger picture again?

Next season we’re not going back to throwing clay in the Potteries. We can leave the Prestons and the Blackburns behind to welcome the mighty Ipswich Town to their little Lancashire fiefdoms…

When Leeds United aren’t in the Premier League, almost every sensible fan, club chairman and washed-up football pundit would have to admit that there’s a piece of the jigsaw missing. Now we have to solve the puzzle of how to establish ourselves again and stay there. Revenge over those cheats from Italy and Germany can wait for a bit longer.

This post first appeared on ​No Place I'd Radebe

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.​

When I used to watch Leeds United in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was easy to imagine that they were an invincible team. This was especially true when that golden forward line had put us 1.0 up. Jack Charlton and Norman Hunter would normally then lock the game out from that point onwards, making sure that it was a painful experience for any opposition player trying to find that elusive key.

Sometimes, the lock was picked – either by our own Gary Sprake, showing that he was human, after all - or by officials who were more open to corruption than Leeds winning. I thought of this sorry part of our history this week when ‘assistant referee’ Darren Williams yet again ruled out a perfectly good Leeds goal against Middlesbrough for offside. His colleague thought it would be good to level things up in the second half, so he ruled a Leeds goal out too. Generally, though, against odds seemingly stacked against us, we used to close games out and win.

We weren’t invincible, of course. Only two teams have managed unbeaten league seasons – Arsenal in 2003-04, and our opponents on Saturday: Preston North End. They managed it in the very first Football League season of 1888-89, also winning the FA Cup that year to become the first Double winners. It’s crazy to think back to the nineteenth century, isn’t it? Professionalism had only been officially accepted in 1885; handlebar moustaches were still de rigueur, and Neil Warnock started primary school…

We first played Preston in the league on 13 September 1924, winning 4.0 at Elland Road and then 4.1 in our first visit to Deepdale four months later. Preston were also our opponents in our first post-war league match on 31 August 1946. We lost that away match 3.2, notable also for the debut of young winger Tom Finney, surely one of Preston’s finest players.
Things didn’t improve that season as we came bottom of the First Division, relegated with just 18 points - a record which stood for nearly forty years until Stoke City ‘beat it’ in 1985 with 17.

Preston have never come close to being invincible again. They retained their league title the following season, but apart from another FA Cup win in 1938, there hasn’t been much for them to shout about in the lower leagues. Which is where Paul Heckingbottom comes in, I suppose: recognising his limitations and apparently more interested in his own image than that of his team.

Barnsley-born, his approach when replacing Thomas Christiansen as Leeds United manager was attritional and equally ineffective. Under his management, Leeds won only four more games that season, falling from 10th place when he arrived, to another mid-table disappointment of 13th. Heckingbottom was sacked on 1 June 2018 after just four months in charge of a big club.

If Heckingbottom subtly invites us to wipe that wry smile off his face, then one of his predecessors as Preston boss positively asked for his to be punched, hard. Preston North End were our opponents in the play-off semi-final first leg match at Elland Road on 5 May 2006. The match was an abrasive, bad-tempered affair. Preston scored first, only to have their goal cancelled out by an Eddie Lewis free kick. Preston’s then manager, the acerbic Scotsman, Billy Davies, declared smugly that: “It is tremendous to come here in front of their biggest crowd of the season and get what is a fantastic result. It is a case of job done.”

Except that it wasn’t. In the second leg at Deepdale, three days later on 8 May 2006, the tie was still all square with another very physical match being poised at 0.0 at half-time. After the second-half kick-off was delayed by 25 minutes due to a floodlight failure, Leeds scored two goals through Rob Hulse and defender Frazer Richardson. However, in a feisty, almost brutal finale, Leeds players Richard Cresswell and defender Stephen Crainey - who had been a stalwart of the Leeds defence - were sent off. 11 yellow cards were shown in total (one for Preston and 10 for Leeds). The nine men of Leeds held out though for a 2.0 win and went through to the final, 3.1 on aggregate. We obviously don’t talk about the final, Cardiff or the many hours stuck on the M4…

So, I’m expecting a nasty, niggly game on Saturday and a hostile atmosphere, with the Preston fans driving over the hills in their Mini and hoping that they, in tandem with the referee (who also thought it would be fun to play the beautiful game unfairly in this season’s away game) can breach the Elland Road fortress as their Lancashire neighbours did. Thankfully, Burnley are now more obsessed with not conceding goals than scoring them.
​
Whatever they can collectively throw at us, this season is far from ‘job done.’

This post first appeared on ​No Place I'd Radebe

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.​

​It’s probably appropriate that Leeds United’s first match after the international break (twists, sprains and other injury niggles also expected) should be against Swansea City. The first person to come into my head whenever that team’s name comes up is, of course, John Charles: one of LUFC’s greatest players.

Manager Major Frank Buckley’s scout discovered Charles at what was then Swansea Town when he was just sixteen years’ old. The club changed their name to Swansea City in 1969 after Swansea was given city status, and the M4 about ten years later, although most people have given up the will to live by the time they eventually get there. Disillusioned with lack of game time in South Wales, Charles was persuaded to have a trial for Leeds and joined the West Yorkshire club. His mother had initially thought this impossible as he didn’t have a passport!

John Charles made his league debut for Leeds United as a 17-year-old centre-half on 23 April 1949 in a 0.0 draw at Blackburn Rovers. He was particularly effective in the air after Buckley had made him leap up and head the crossbar, as though it was the ball, causing him persistent headaches - which he was happy to pass on to any other player who got in his way.

We don’t have such a colossus as him at the moment, do we? However, our more balanced team this season does have goals in it all over the pitch and the same determination not to be beaten, as witnessed last time out at QPR after the sun (and the moon and the stars) had conspired against us yet again.

I suppose it’s better to be going for promotion than worrying about relegation, although, in anticipation of the next eight matches, the nerve endings are already tangled up in my head. Perhaps heading a crossbar would have been more satisfying?
The match against them that I remember most was actually our worst ever defeat to Swansea. It came at the Vetch Field. Vetch is also known as Poor Man’s Peas - one of the first domesticated crops grown by neolithic people. I did say that it was a long way from anywhere and that time moves slowly out west… We lost 5.1 on 29 August 1981 in our first league match of that terrible season, at the end of which we were relegated.

John Toshack’s Swansea had won three promotions in four seasons climbing from the fourth tier to the First Division in 1981. They were out to make a statement; and did, finishing in a club-record sixth place that season. However, as with our own ups and downs (though not quite so bad), they then went all the way back again: relegated to the Fourth Division in 1986 – much like the rise and fall of Northampton Town in the 1960s.

Formed as Swansea Town in 1912, they played in the Southern League before joining the new Third Division of the Football League in 1920 (as did Portsmouth and QPR – subject of my two previous posts). We first played them on 8 October 1927, winning 5.0 at Elland Road, and didn’t lose to them until 1949 - although that was only four matches further on and more to do with us being in different leagues and a World War than any great defensive record.

We’ve won twice as many games against them as we’ve lost, and Don Revie’s Leeds secured promotion back to the First Division at Swansea Town on 11 April 1964 with a 3.0 win. Leeds scorers that day were Johnny Giles and two from Alan Peacock.

I also remember a third-round FA Cup win against Swansea Town on 3 January 1970, 2.1, on our way to the final when Giles also scored, as well as Mick Jones.

Naturally, we’re all remembering that amazing game against them at the Liberty Stadium back in November when we got out of jail at 4.3; not to mention the four goals we also put past them down there last season.

Pablo Hernández - who had also played for Swansea City – secured immortality among Whites supporters with his goal in a 1.0 win in our promotion season under Bielsa, but let’s not forget that we lost the home league fixture against them that season – also 1.0 at Elland Road.

For all the Joël Piroe doubters ever since Daniel Farke brought him to Leeds from Swansea, let’s also be mindful that in 1978 Jimmy Adamson brought striker Alan Curtis to the club – also from Swansea – in a real statement signing at that time. Apart from a stunning solo goal at Southampton in October 1979, it’s very hard to remember much else.

So, we need to march on together as we have always done. We go again. This particular match may not end 7.0, as happened last time against a club from South Wales, but just a 1.0 win could again be priceless! Whatever happens, it won’t be a swan song.

This post first appeared on ​No Place I'd Radebe

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.​

​Having survived the traditional, attritional approach to football that is Millwall, Leeds United now move on to a different part of the capital.

We don’t often win in London these days, do we? Queens Park Rangers (QPR if we want to give them less credit) – our opponents on Saturday – are symptomatic of this malaise. We’ve lost our last four consecutive matches there in league or cup.

Formed originally in 1882 as Christchurch Rangers, they merged with St Jude’s Institute from the Queen’s Park area of West London in 1886, emerging from this piece of Victorian football alchemy as QPR.

From 1917 – apart from a couple of brief stints at White City in the early 1930s and early 1960s – QPR have played their home matches at Loftus Road in Shepherd’s Bush. Akin to playing in a cardboard box, it is a particularly unpleasant and claustrophobic destination for LUFC, having lost almost half of the games we have played there to date.

Known at the moment as the MATRADE Loftus Road Stadium - after its sponsor, which seeks inward investment for Malaysian suppliers - its 18,439 capacity is rarely tested, apart from when they import Leeds United fans for the day. And, yes, we’ll be taking more than the transit van load of Millwall fans at Elland Road this week.

As in our previous piece on Portsmouth, QPR joined the Football League in 1920 – the same year as us, but in the new Third Division as opposed to the Second from where we quite rightly looked down upon them, structurally and geographically.
We first came across them in a third-round FA Cup tie in London on 9 January 1932 which we lost 3.1. We faced them next in the late 1940s, losing both of our first two league games against them. In fact, it wasn’t until 3 November 1951 that we beat them anywhere (at the eighth attempt): 3.0 in a Second Division match at Elland Road. QPR were relegated at the end of that season, and we have often been playing in different leagues throughout our respective football histories.

Our first victory at Loftus Road didn’t come until 24 January 1969 in the First Division. Mick Jones scored the only goal of the game as we added that 1.0 win to an amazing unbeaten sequence of league matches. After losing at, er, Burnley on 19 October 1968 we didn’t lose in the league again in that glorious season as we stormed to our first league title.

On 27 April 1974 Jones’s strike partner Allan Clarke scored the winner in a 1.0 victory there to celebrate our second title. We’d already been assured of it after Arsenal’s win at Anfield three days earlier. A Guard of Honour welcomed the Leeds players on to the pitch for their rightful crowning as champions, and there was little blue and white to be seen, only white. The capacity was larger, then, with 35,353 crammed in – at least three of them playing with their hoops.

More recently I remember well the 2.0 away victory in the League Cup on 7 November 1978 when Ray Hankin and John Hawley scored in a 2,0 win as we got all the way to a two-legged semi-final defeat to Southampton. Yes, Southampton: who’d have thought…

The 4.0 aberration down there last season effectively killed our automatic promotion chances almost exactly 50 years to the day after Sniffer’s winning contribution to this particular North-South rivalry.

It’s time to go again; and bring home the points again. On On On.

This post first appeared on ​No Place I'd Radebe

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.

​





​For some reason, I had thought that Portsmouth FC were an older club than they actually are, perhaps along with the likes of Aston Villa and Everton who were among the 12 clubs to form the world’s first Football League in 1888.
In fact, Portsmouth were formed ten years after this, on 5 April 1898. Admittedly this is 21 years earlier than Leeds United’s emergence, and six years before Leeds City were founded. However, Pompey joined that Football League in 1920 – the same year that we did.

While we joined the Second Division, they were founding members (perhaps that’s where I’d got the notion from!) of the new third tier. Known as the Third Division for just the one season, it was then split into Third Division (South) and Third Division (North) as more teams joined, making it more logistically feasible to play games regularly without having to travel such long distances. Remember that on May 3rd when we pop down to Plymouth…

I can’t see that Leeds City ever played Portsmouth in a competitive match so the first Leeds team to play them would have been Leeds United in the first round of the FA Cup on 13 January 1923 – a 0.0 draw at Fratton Park. We won the replay four days later, 3.1, at Elland Road.

Don Revie’s first match in charge of Leeds ended in a 3.1 defeat on 18 March 1961, also at Fratton Park, but after our promotion in 1964 we didn’t play them again for almost 20 years.

It is back in the FA Cup that my personal memories of Portsmouth – other than as a naval base – really begin. On 15 February 1997, the sides met at Elland Road in the fifth round of the competition. Having lost to mighty Darlington in that season’s League Cup we’d managed to get past Crystal Palace after a replay and Arsenal at Highbury (at the first attempt) before drawing second-tier Portsmouth at home. Unfortunately, two Lee Bowyer goals weren’t enough as we lost 3.2.
Two years later – on 23 January 1999, in the fourth round – we repaid the compliment with a comprehensive 5.1 win on the south coast, before deciding to opt out of the competition in the fifth round at Tottenham (after a replay) to concentrate on the league. We finished fourth that year, also destroying Arsenal’s hopes of the title (remember that late Hasselbaink goal at Elland Road?)

However, the match against Portsmouth that stands out above all others for me came in the Premier League, at Fratton Park on 8 November 2003. In the previous match, we’d been destroyed by, er, Arsenal as the ‘Invincibles’ beat us 4.1 at Elland Road. We proved at Portsmouth that we were anything but. The loyal crowd in Leeds had shown tremendous support for manager Peter Reid but, after a long day’s journey into the known, it was washed away with the torrential rain.

In a truly hapless display, we lost 6.1. Alan Smith had quickly equalized their opening goal from two minutes earlier before the rest of the sky simply fell in. Two of Pompey’s goals that day came from Gary O’Neil. I often wonder what happened to him…
 
Seth Johnson and Roque Junior were in our team that day. Johnson surely couldn’t have believed his good fortune at how much he was being paid to play for Leeds United before everyone realised that he couldn’t actually play that well, and we could no longer afford to pay into his retirement fund. Junior never grew up to become the defender Reid had promised he would when making him his pre-season marquee loan signing from Milan. In the seven matches he turned out for us - in which he preferred to play the role of a statue rather than a defender - we conceded 25 goals.

It was a terrible time for our club, wasn’t it? Off the pitch, there could be no defence for the financial mess we had been led into, while pitchside we were all wondering whether our defence was already on the beach.

Reid was sacked two days later (and, thankfully, we never saw Junior again either) as Eddie did his best to save us for a second, consecutive season. As we all know, it didn’t work. We lost four of our final five league games - including Portsmouth completing a league double over us in a 2.1 win.
​
Let’s hope it’s a fine day on Sunday.
​

This post also appeared on ​No Place I'd Radebe 

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.

​It seems a very long while since that 0.0 draw at the Hawthorns back in August, doesn’t it? Obviously, we were in disarray following player transfers, fuelled by a media desperate for us to fail. In ‘normal’ circumstances, a draw there would have been a pretty good away result.

I live fairly close to West Bromwich and two of our neighbours are Baggies fans. So starved of meaningful success, they continue to remind me of the 4.1 aberration in November 2018, while I smile nicely before talking of great Leeds players of recent times such as Pablo Hernández who scored that great goal in the opening minute of our 4.0 win at Elland Road in March 2019, and Patrick Bamford who got two.

While scratching their heads trying to remember ‘great’ players of their own, I further remind them that the biggest margin of victory between our two clubs came as a Christmas treat on 29 December 2020 when they presented us with five goals without reply – 4.0 up at half-time – topped by a Raphinha curler reminiscent of one of Tony Currie’s finest…

That was Leeds United's biggest win against West Bromwich Albion since a 5-0 victory at Elland Road in the fourth round of the FA Cup on 18 February 1967.

Back in the 1920s we lost our first four league games to Albion, but even I am not old enough to remember those. What I do remember, whenever anyone mentions West Bromwich Albion, is the events that took place on 17 April 1971.

I was 11 years old at the time and my sister – a mighty and moody 15 – ‘allowed’ me to join her and a few of her friends on a walk to the ‘hills and holes’ at nearby Barnack. The ups and downs terrain was formed as a result of it being a former quarry, out of which Barnack stone was used to build many of the local buildings in the villages around Stamford, and the cathedrals at nearby Peterborough and Ely.

I was told reluctantly by Bridget the Elder that I could go provided that I ‘kept up.’ That was also the case for those teams at the top of the First Division: Arsenal and Leeds United. Our Dad came to pick us up in the car later that afternoon (no doubt worried about my dodgy hamstrings) and I asked him if Leeds had won. There were no mobile phones in those days and a transistor radio would have required a mule to transport it (there weren’t many of those on the flatlands of the Cambridgeshire/Lincolnshire border at that time).

He shook his head and replied that no, they hadn’t, adding that ‘there’s been a lot of trouble!’

Meeting at Elland Road, Leeds needed a win to stay ahead of Arsenal in a very tight title race, especially as Arsenal had two games in hand. The Baggies were already leading by a single goal, while a 'goal' from Leeds was dubiously disallowed for offside.

A frustrated and increasingly hostile home crowd then saw a Norman Hunter pass rebound off Albion striker Tony Brown and ricochet over the halfway line towards Colin Suggett who was clearly some 15 yards offside as indicated by linesman Bill Troupe raising his flag and the game coming to a stop. Inexplicably referee Ray Tinkler not only failed to blow his whistle but waved play on. Brown squared the ball to Jeff Astle who scored. A late Allan Clarke goal was not enough to prevent Leeds losing the match 2.1 and almost certainly the league title.

On BBC’s Match of the Day TV highlights that evening commentator Barry Davies claimed that: "Leeds will go mad! And they have every justification for going mad." while Richard Ulyatt, writing in the Yorkshire Post declared: "In the 45 years I have reported football I have never seen a worse decision by a referee than the one Mr Ray Tinkler gave at Elland Road on Saturday."

A pitch invasion, including the other linesman being hit by a missile thrown from the Lowfields, and a riot in the city followed. The FA delighted in punishing Leeds by closing Elland Road for the first four games of the following season.

Now in second place for the first time that season we won each of our last three league matches - including a 1.0 home win against Arsenal (thanks to a Jack Charlton goal one minute from time) - without conceding a goal, but it wasn't enough. Arsenal would win the title by just one point.

So, West Brom cost us the title, aided and abetted by a referee whose name is remembered by all Leeds United supporters from that time for all the wrong reasons. A lot of people were jealous of us at that time, as they no doubt are now. Let’s hope we aren’t driven to distraction this Saturday… and don’t leave it too late!

This post was first published on ​No Place I'd Radebe on 27 February 2025.

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.

​So, one of the biggest remaining hurdles to promotion is up next!

​We first faced Sheffield United on 8 November 1924 – a 1.1 draw at Bramall Lane. They won the FA Cup that season – for the fourth time – but haven’t won a major trophy since then. Perhaps they’ll have a centenary celebration of that fact, regardless of what happens on Monday.

One of the founding members of the Football League’s new Second Division in 1892, they were promoted in their first season, finishing second behind Small Heath, and became First Division champions five years later. That’s pretty much it… although they are one of only five sides to have won all four professional divisions of English football. Not sure quite how best to interpret that statistic!

Having lived in Sheffield for a while I did know that Bramall Lane is one of only two grounds (the other being the Oval in London) which has hosted England football internationals, an England Test cricket match, and an FA Cup Final (the 1912 replay, in which Blades fans must have been thrilled to see local rivals Barnsley beat West Bromwich Albion 1–0 in the final minute of extra time).

They weren’t always known as The Blades either. No, I’m not talking about blunt instruments. They were originally known as The Cutlers. Snappy eh! Sheffield Wednesday had enjoyed being called Blades until they got wise to the event and became The Owls in 1907 (actually a reference to their new ground in the Owlerton suburb of Sheffield). The Blades nickname sort of trickled to the south of the city after that…

When researching my book, I found that we were actually responsible for the record attendance at Bramall Lane - 68,287 – which came about on 15 February 1936 during a fifth-round FA Cup tie. We filled their ground then and doubtless will do so again on Monday.

In more recent times we’ve had some tediously close promotion battles with Sheffield United – particularly in 1989-90 when we took four points off them, and almost 30 years later, in 2018-19, when we didn’t. Remember Chris Basham’s goal at Elland Road, and Liam Cooper’s late miss?

The matches in this West v South Yorkshire derby which I remember best occurred over a single weekend in 1974. Again, a championship was at stake but this time the First Division itself. We’d had a bit of a blip after our 29-match unbeaten run came to an end at Stoke (also perceived as the end of the known world). After three consecutive defeats we’d beaten Derby (obviously) but then could only draw 0.0 at Coventry on 13 April, which was also Easter Saturday. Liverpool were scoring very late goals all season (not much really changes there) and hot on our heels.

On the Bank Holiday Monday (15 April) 41,140 of us warmly welcomed Sheffield United to Elland Road, hoping to get back on track against a mid-table team, but, again, the match finished 0.0. The day after that (yes, this was in football’s Dark Ages when three games in four days was considered totally acceptable by the nice blazers with matching silk ties ‘running’ the game) we played the return match at Bramall Lane. My favourite all-time player Peter Lorimer scored twice – one from the penalty spot – as we won 2.0 and didn’t look back (certainly not towards Sheffield). Victories against Ipswich and away at QPR secured a trophy that, for once, officious and self-serving football officials could not take away from us.

So, I kind of always think of Sheffield United in a good way as I recall that balmy Tuesday when, dressed in my all-white kit, I would thrash my football into a make-believe goal at the bottom of the garden, thinking I might one day be as famous as Lash. It wasn’t to be of course although, following Leeds United, the dream never really ends either.

This post was first published on ​No Place I'd Radebe on 20 February 2025.

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.

​I still struggle with it. The expectation of victory in a place far from Leeds. A club that wanted to assure the rest of the world that it really was a slumbering giant about to take the biggest football stages by storm. The outpouring of joy at the final whistle from those who had lived without hope for so long.

I’m not talking about the nonsense that took place at Sunderland back in October. Like most clubs a visit from Leeds United did represent their cup final and their fans celebrated a draw in the same way as Burnley’s celebrate their goalkeeper watching Netflix during their matches.

This was an actual cup final – the FA Cup Final on 5 May 1973. Leeds were again favourites to beat their lower-league opposition. Sunderland won the match 1.0 with a goal by Ian Porterfield, but we were all convinced that Peter Lorimer had equalised in the second half. Referee Ken Burns waived both this and a penalty away after Sunderland defender Dave Watson had appeared to foul Billy Bremner in the area.

I genuinely do find it hard to talk about that match, even though more than 50 years have now passed. I suppose it cemented my contempt for corrupt officials – both referees and their sponsoring authorities – which had simmered since 1967, become toxic in 1971 and was reinforced 11 days later in Cyprus. Two years later in Paris it was even worse…

Ken Burns had also presided over the 1967 FA Cup semi-final against the team we’re all still waiting for father to arm us with his loaded weapon. Burns ruled out Terry Cooper’s second-half goal for offside before, in the final minute of the match, Leeds were awarded a free kick, just outside the penalty area. Johnny Giles tapped the ball sideways to Peter Lorimer who crashed the ball into the net. However, Burns ruled it out as Chelsea’s players had not retreated the regulation 10 yards and he hadn’t blown his whistle for the free kick to be taken.

I was seven and I was appalled. That was the day I became a Leeds United fan.

During that same cup run we had met Sunderland in the fifth round. After a 1.1 draw in the original tie at Roker Park, four days earlier, the replay took place at Elland Road on 15 March 1967.

Because of the short turnaround in the matches, the replay could not be made all-ticket and, despite Elland Road's official capacity at the time being 52,000, the attendance that evening was recorded as 57,892 - still Leeds United's record attendance at Elland Road. Many thousands were locked outside and, with the turnstiles being closed some 23 minutes before kick-off, others tried to scale walls and climb onto the roofs of both the Scratching Shed and the Old Peacock to get a glimpse of the action.

Amid this mayhem, a crush barrier on Lowfields Road collapsed causing over 1,000 fans to spill onto the pitch. The game was halted by the referee for 17 minutes while 32 injured people were picked out of the crush and taken away in ambulances to Leeds General Infirmary. The match itself finished 1.1 again. Leeds won a second replay at Hull City's Boothferry Park, 2.1, five days later.

Whilst we wouldn’t want anyone to be hurt on Monday, it is an absolute certainty that Elland Road will be alive and kicking - something we rarely see at Sunderland’s home ground, apart from when receiving gifts. Not that much changes does it?
I suspect quite a lot of you visited Roker Park. ‘The most comfortable place in the world’ it certainly wasn’t – especially with those ferocious gales blowing in from the North Sea – but, even with the delusion of the Stadium of Light, ‘slumberland’ does seem more a more appropriate label for Sunderland than a ‘superpower’ anytime soon.

Our first ever match in the First Division took place on 30 August 1924 against…Sunderland. It too ended in a draw. Sunderland were one of the top teams in the country at that time. Hopefully, after Monday, they will remember where they are now, and we won’t be playing them again for a very long time.

This post was first published on ​No Place I'd Radebe on 13 February 2025.

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.

​So, the potential Cardiff banana skin turned into a skinful after all! Remembering the previous 7.0 win in 1972 and Barrie Davies’s commentary on Match of the Day, I was taken back to the best attacking team I have ever seen play for Leeds United. Could this line-up go on to match it? Some way to go!
 
However, Wednesday’s trip to Coventry showed that there should be no lifting off the accelerator in the league, even if we weren’t as incisive in terms of goals. (At least we’re scoring goals though, unlike Burnley who are so intent on keeping their back door closed that they’ve forgotten how to unlock the front one, and so are stuck in a remarkably quiet place, unsure of what to do next).
 
And so, we move on to Saturday and Millwall at home in the FA Cup. It seems remarkable somehow that we’ve never met Millwall in the FA Cup before – especially when you consider that the competition began more than 150 years ago, in 1872 (and, yes, I remember the Centenary Cup Final very well indeed!).
 
It isn’t as if either club is new (i.e. less than 100 years old) either. Millwall Rovers were formed in 1885, the current incarnation retaining the name even though they haven’t played in that part of London’s Isle of Dogs since 1910.
 
We’ve never met Millwall in the League Cup either – and that competition is in its 65th season now, although I still somehow think of it as a ‘new’ development. Maybe it’s my age, as the League Cup began in the year I was born.
 
I’m sure that statisticians can prove that the probability of one team meeting any other is actually not that high, but then, equally, the clusters of results that seem to come up against certain of the same teams must be even more unlikely.
 
Either way we’ve only faced Millwall in cup competitions on two occasions. Both were in the Full Members Cup – an additional tournament introduced in 1985 and running until 1992 - for clubs in the top two English divisions after the Heysel disaster, after which English clubs were banned from playing in Europe. Obviously, it was another money-making exercise which was hijacked by corporate sponsors. It was known as the Simod Cup by the time we played Millwall in it at the Old Den on 8 December 1987. We lost 2.0 but, honestly, after Billy Bremner had taken Leeds to within minutes of both promotion and Wembley in the spring of that year, did anyone really care? Just 5,034 turned up for the match…
 
Almost a year later, on 29 November 1988 even fewer – 4,242 – braved the elements to see Leeds lose in the same cup, at the same venue, and by the same score of 2.0.
 
They beat us at The Den again this season of course – we’ve lost nine of the last 12 away games against them in the league – but at least this tie is at Elland Road. I’m not entirely sure why a ‘rivalry’ has built up between us; after all, they are just a small, underperforming club from south-east London… The worst memory for me dates back to 2009 when, having lost the first leg of the League One Play-Off semi-final at The Den, 1.0 (obviously), to a late goal from Neil Harris, the second leg took place on 14 May 2009 at Elland Road. The crowd of 37,036 was the highest attendance outside of the Premier League that season.
 
After Jermaine Beckford had missed a penalty for Leeds, Luciano Becchio put us in front after 53 minutes – making the score in the tie all-square – but Jimmy Abdou equalized for Millwall 19 minutes later. Leeds could not find a way through the packed Millwall defence again and the match finished 1.1 leaving Leeds in League One for a third, consecutive season.
 
Ah! The play-offs…
 
When considering Millwall – and, thankfully, we don’t need to very often – we might often use the word ‘mindless.’ Although Daniel Farke wants to ‘keep the momentum up’ of our team, I hope he rotates the players more than usual, as this cup game is really not in our mind’s eyes, any more than Millwall deserve to be. It might be the FA Cup rather than some Mickey Mouse trophy (Chelsea won the Full Members Cup twice; what more can I say?) but a temporary derailment on Saturday would be far better than us failing again to reach the mainline station at all.

This post was first published on ​No Place I'd Radebe on 8 February 2025.

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.

​I was lucky enough to witness Largie Ramazani’s first goal for Leeds United – a well taken, curling shot to put us ahead at the Cardiff City Stadium. Although they were down to 10 men, we were only really able to breathe after Joel Piroe scored a second, three minutes from time. Some teams have that effect on you, don’t they? It is as if there is an inevitability that bad news is just around the corner. Millwall at The Den are similar (there’s bad news around every corner there, and would be even if Bermondsey was located in a circle!) and I’d argue that Preston and Stoke are in the same, uncompromising mould, making it even more satisfying that we converted last season’s defeats there into a draw and a win this season.

Of course, we play the return match against The Bluebirds this weekend. After the struggles against Burnley on Monday – a small team whose ambition extended to playing for a home draw right from kick-off – many are expecting us to overrun Cardiff. Well, we’ll certainly outrun them, but they are a far better team now than the one we saw in South Wales - unbeaten in their last eight matches (seven of them in the league).

We have history with Cardiff: quite a lot of it, going right back to our origins. Leeds United were first elected to the newly expanded Second Division of the Football League on 31 May 1920 along with… Cardiff City.

Don Revie’s team never lost to them in league or cup competitions, although, naturally, they were in different leagues once we got promoted in 1964. Just before that golden period, though, they certainly had the evil eye over us. On 7 January 1956, we met them at Elland Road in the third round of the FA Cup. 40,000 fans saw Cardiff win 2.1. It ended an unbeaten home run of 32 games at Elland Road. Leeds had wanted to turn on their floodlights, but Cardiff refused, considering it an unfair advantage as they had never played under floodlights before. Incredibly this was the first of three consecutive FA Cup wins for The Bluebirds against Leeds at Elland Road – each in the third round, and each by the same score: 2.1.

The two teams met in Cardiff on 6 January 2002, again in the third round of that year’s FA Cup. Leeds, top of the Premier League at the time, went ahead through Mark Viduka after just 12 minutes. However, there was an ugly, hostile atmosphere at Ninian Park that day - and, yes, we did visit the plaque back in September commemorating the old centre circle of that ground, to make sure it hadn’t come back to life again! Alan Smith - merely acting as peacemaker - was sent off just before half-time and Cardiff came back to win 2.1 (again) with a winner just three minutes from time. I think that defeat represented not just the turning point in our season but also in our history. Doom and gloom quickly followed and blocked out the light in West Yorkshire for far too many football seasons. Between 2004 and 2015, in second tier matches, we failed to win one of the 14 fixtures against them: losing ten of them.

The most gut-wrenching match against Cardiff that I remember from recent times took place at Elland Road on 14 December 2019 in the Championship. We were two-nil up after eight minutes, and three-nil up after 51. We were beginning to wonder why we’d been so apprehensive beforehand. Football history? Bah humbug! Cardiff promptly pulled a goal back on the hour before, in the 82nd minute, Sean Morrison scored another to make it 3.2. The excitement was much too much for him though, as he got sent off four minutes later. Surely, against 10 men and with just four minutes remaining, we would see it out now... Of course not. We are Leeds and this is Cardiff we’re talking about. They scored an equaliser two minutes before the end and that was that.

And they are that: a bogey team that could well come back to bite us again on Saturday. At least we’ll be prepared…

This post was first published on ​No Place I'd Radebe on 29 January 2025.

Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.