Leeds United are haunted by play-off ghosts – and the fear has set in — The Athletic 27/4/24
By Phil Hay There’s a compilation to be made — and presumably one exists somewhere — of Leeds United’s play-off ghosts; a video nasty for brave souls only. Start with Peter Shirtliff in 1987, negating the most delicious goal John Sheridan ever scored. Move onto Kevin Blackwell’s team in 2006, dying with fright as fireworks blew up behind them; shortly before they did likewise. James Hayter, Jimmy Abdou, Liam Cooper and Kiko Casilla crossing wires, sending the Ming Vase of Marcelo Bielsa’s football across black ice. Those are the bits you see. Sometimes the worst of it is what happens when the cameras aren’t looking. Few events in Leeds’ history better demonstrate the emptiness of play-off defeat than Angus Kinnear, their CEO, hauling tickets for the 2019 Championship final out of his boot and into the car of a waiting Derby County official, an hour or so after Derby turned the semi-final between the clubs into The Wild Bunch. Kinnear had possession of the tickets because Leeds