Blue Monday?

​We all knew that being back in the Premier League would put Leeds United back in the spotlight, having bossed the Championship in terms of goals, points and media interest.

Not only are the first and second tiers of English football the toughest in the world, but they also provide the most excitement. And by excitement, I don’t mean (literally) throwing in the towel when a penalty decision goes against your team, or taking a penalty when all you can see is your own, individual name in lights instead of the possible ending of fifty years of heartbreak for your team. The con in AFCON was there for the rest of the world to see.

Like many LUFC fans, I was really concerned after the Villa game when we had so many players running on empty in the second half, accumulating injuries and seemingly trapped in an inflexible downward spiral. I have always supported Daniel Farke – goodness knows, he deserves it after all the terrible cards he’s been dealt – but I did worry about his/our capacity to change and show our true footballing value.

I liken what happened at the Etihad to Conte discovering at Arsenal that his Chelsea team were far more suited to a back three, a formation he then largely stuck with, changing it tactically when required. We’ll never know how accidental our shift in tactics was, or whether it had been one of the plans already being considered in the background. Regardless, we now look so much more fluid and far more confident going into matches against any opposition, don’t we? I do believe that Daniel’s obviously increased confidence in allowing himself to make changes is wonderful to see, especially after all of those nonsensical doomsayers swarmed out of the Norfolk woodwork. Remind me, where are Norwich in their league again?

And so to Everton. We have a lot of history with them, don’t we, having first played them just over 100 years ago, on 17 September 1924? We won that first Division One meeting 1.0 at Elland Road, but lost our first three league meetings at Goodison Park. If you look up Hill Dickinson, they describe themselves as ‘Your progressive-thinking legal partner.’ I’m not sure whether I’d have described Everton as a progressive team since those heady days of the mid-1980s. In terms of partners, they’ve made some pretty poor choices off the pitch in recent years, haven’t they? Money talks, of course, but it’s hardly exciting, is it?

Either lazy or bored journalists (or both) are this week making much of Don Revie’s discussions with the Everton board, back in 1973 (and possibly before that, too). The unsigned contract isn’t news. We’re not in Washington Post territory here. Don had been born and brought up in poverty in Middlesbrough and was understandably anxious about financial security all of his life. The promise of more money on a longer contract for a manager who thought he had taken his team as far as he could pales into significance compared with the self-important shenanigans of ‘managers’ today, doesn’t it? Please do not ever show me the way to Amorimo…

Discussions did take place with Everton, with some saying it unsettled the players as they flew out to Salonika for the European Cup Winners’ Cup Final that May. Let’s be clear, yet again: we were cheated out of that trophy. Not by Milan’s players, as might sometimes have been the case, but by a referee in cahoots with who knows which organised crime unit at the time. Revie’s fears over money were not the same as those who sought to gain it through corruption. All of it smacks of an ongoing smear campaign, all these years later, and long after the FA’s despicable behaviour towards both him and his family.

Oh, and the manager and players promptly swept all aside the following season in winning the League, again. How that must have upset so many in Lytham St. Anne's, Lancaster Gate and Fleet Street.

My own enduring image of Goodison is of Neville Southall sitting in his own goalmouth at half-time in August 1990 as we announced our return to the top flight with a fine 3.2 victory. However, when researching my book, The Leeds United Story, I am guessing that some Leeds United fans will remember ‘The Battle of Goodison,’ which took place on 7 November 1964 (two and a half years before I started following the Mighty Whites!).

Again, we had just re-joined the top flight under Don and were sitting in fourth place as Bobby Collins led us back to his old stomping ground with a point to prove. We won it 1.0 with a goal from Albert Johanneson, but that doesn’t really tell the story of an ill-tempered and extremely physical match, with Everton full-back Sandy Brown sent off after just five minutes for punching Johnny Giles, crunching tackles, including Willie Bell being knocked unconscious, and missiles being hurled onto the pitch.

After 36 minutes, the referee took the players off to calm them down for 10 minutes. This was the first time in a Football League match that play had to be suspended for a cooling-off period. Colin Harvey of Everton declared that: “an air of menace pervaded the ground,” while Jack Charlton – yes, Big Jack - described the Goodison Park crowd as: “the worst before which I have ever played.”

The nature of the match was publicly condemned, framed very much in terms of the aggressive upstarts from Leeds taking on the schooled professionals of Everton. The tag of 'Dirty Leeds,' mooted before, would stick to our team after this infamous battle on Merseyside.

Let them say it. Let them carry on thinking it. Just let them also remember, grudgingly, that we also played some of the finest attacking football this country has ever seen. Our team goal away at Sunderland will probably remain as the goal of the season, and it’s as exciting to be a Leeds fan now as it has been at any time in the last sixty years.

Safe journey for all of those making the trip into the unknown for the first time.

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

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