WE WILL BE READY - BLACKWELL
By Mark Walker, PA Sport
Sporting Life
Manager Kevin Blackwell has assured Leeds fans the club will be ready for the Barclays Premiership if they overcome Watford in the Coca-Cola Championship play-off final on Sunday.
The fallen Yorkshire giants appeared destined for years in the wilderness when they spectacularly dropped out of the top flight at the end of the 2003/4 season with unprecedented debts that were to rise to over £100million.
When Blackwell, assistant to Eddie Gray at the time, was appointed manager the following summer he set about building a team from scratch with the very real threat of liquidation still hanging over him.
But two seasons later Leeds stand on the brink of a return to the big time, one game away from completing one of the most unlikely of turnarounds at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff given the legacy of former chairman Peter Ridsdale's boom-and-bust era.
"From Christmas we've been looking at two possible scenarios," said Blackwell.
"The frustrating thing is we can't do anything - we don't know where we're going to be and can't talk to anyone yet.
"We'll start after the final, that will be the best time when we'll obviously be planning for either the Championship or the Premiership."
When asked if his current side was good enough to mix it in the top flight, the 47-year-old replied: "That will be handled. Believe me. And in the proper manner.
"If the club had been run properly before we would not be where we are.
"We went through four or five managers in two or three years. That did not help.
"They gambled. A lot of money was put on red and it came up black."
One of the first men Blackwell turned to when asked to pick up the pieces at Elland Road was Watford manager Adrian Boothroyd and the irony is not lost on either of them.
Blackwell gave Bradford-born Boothroyd, now 35, his big break in the summer of 2004, appointing him as head coach at Leeds where he stayed for eight months before Watford came calling.
"When this club came out of the Premiership it was as low as any club could be, it was not just that we had been relegated, but also the number of people leaving," said Blackwell.
"I could not say from day to day who would be in training and who wouldn't. It was a case of saying: 'You are needed in the office, you are going'.
"The atmosphere was awful. I needed to bring in people who had that little something extra - they had to handle being at a club the size of Leeds United, but also bring a little bit of laughter and joviality to the place.
"In his interview Adrian came across as bubbly. I was at a club where everything was so flat and there was nothing to look forward to. We had no money and I couldn't buy players.
"But Adrian was full of beans and it was that element I needed.
"Every person who came to this club, even the players who only lasted six weeks, did their bit in getting us to where we are."
One who has arguably done more than most is chairman Ken Bates, bought out at Chelsea by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and now throwing his full weight behind the Leeds renaissance.
"He's coming to the game," Blackwell added. "It's important he's there.
"Even the chairman himself, when there was just short of 40,000 for the Preston game at Elland Road, he knew he'd got a great club.
"When Eddie Lewis' goal went in that sound was unbelievable. It really cemented it for me and I think it did with him - to see what the club and the fans are really all about."
By Mark Walker, PA Sport
Sporting Life
Manager Kevin Blackwell has assured Leeds fans the club will be ready for the Barclays Premiership if they overcome Watford in the Coca-Cola Championship play-off final on Sunday.
The fallen Yorkshire giants appeared destined for years in the wilderness when they spectacularly dropped out of the top flight at the end of the 2003/4 season with unprecedented debts that were to rise to over £100million.
When Blackwell, assistant to Eddie Gray at the time, was appointed manager the following summer he set about building a team from scratch with the very real threat of liquidation still hanging over him.
But two seasons later Leeds stand on the brink of a return to the big time, one game away from completing one of the most unlikely of turnarounds at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff given the legacy of former chairman Peter Ridsdale's boom-and-bust era.
"From Christmas we've been looking at two possible scenarios," said Blackwell.
"The frustrating thing is we can't do anything - we don't know where we're going to be and can't talk to anyone yet.
"We'll start after the final, that will be the best time when we'll obviously be planning for either the Championship or the Premiership."
When asked if his current side was good enough to mix it in the top flight, the 47-year-old replied: "That will be handled. Believe me. And in the proper manner.
"If the club had been run properly before we would not be where we are.
"We went through four or five managers in two or three years. That did not help.
"They gambled. A lot of money was put on red and it came up black."
One of the first men Blackwell turned to when asked to pick up the pieces at Elland Road was Watford manager Adrian Boothroyd and the irony is not lost on either of them.
Blackwell gave Bradford-born Boothroyd, now 35, his big break in the summer of 2004, appointing him as head coach at Leeds where he stayed for eight months before Watford came calling.
"When this club came out of the Premiership it was as low as any club could be, it was not just that we had been relegated, but also the number of people leaving," said Blackwell.
"I could not say from day to day who would be in training and who wouldn't. It was a case of saying: 'You are needed in the office, you are going'.
"The atmosphere was awful. I needed to bring in people who had that little something extra - they had to handle being at a club the size of Leeds United, but also bring a little bit of laughter and joviality to the place.
"In his interview Adrian came across as bubbly. I was at a club where everything was so flat and there was nothing to look forward to. We had no money and I couldn't buy players.
"But Adrian was full of beans and it was that element I needed.
"Every person who came to this club, even the players who only lasted six weeks, did their bit in getting us to where we are."
One who has arguably done more than most is chairman Ken Bates, bought out at Chelsea by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and now throwing his full weight behind the Leeds renaissance.
"He's coming to the game," Blackwell added. "It's important he's there.
"Even the chairman himself, when there was just short of 40,000 for the Preston game at Elland Road, he knew he'd got a great club.
"When Eddie Lewis' goal went in that sound was unbelievable. It really cemented it for me and I think it did with him - to see what the club and the fans are really all about."
