​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.
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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.​