Sky 30/3/07
Healy heroics boost Leeds
By Peter ORourke
David Healy's last-gasp goal gave Leeds a dramatic 2-1 win over Preston at Elland Road.
The Northern Ireland international continued his recent rich vein of form in front of goal with the winner in the final minute against his former club.
Brett Ormerod gave Preston an early lead, but Robbie Blake cancelled out the opener early in the second half before Healy struck the winner for Leeds in the dying seconds.
Preston started brightly and could have taken the lead after just two minutes, but England new boy David Nugent drove his volley wide.
The visitors broke the deadlock on five minutes when Danny Pugh sent Ormerod clear on goal past and the former Leeds loanee clipped his shot past Casper Ankergren.
Leeds tried to rally after the goal and Lubomir Michalik saw a goal-bound deflected wide before Blake drove just side from the edge of the box.
Ormerod was denied his second goal of the night on 23 minutes when he again sprung the Leeds offside trap, but his shot was kept out by the legs of Ankergren .
Healy fashioned an opening for himself on the half hour mark when he worked a neat corner routine with Blake only to drive his shot well wide of the target.
Leeds threw everything into attack at the end of the first half and Matt Heath and Healy both went close to scoring before the break.
The home side levelled matters six minutes after the break when Richard Cresswell crossed to the back post and Blake was on hand to slide the ball home from close-range.
Nugent should have restored Preston's lead five minutes later when he latched onto a mistake by Matt Heath to go clear on goal, but with only Ankergren to beat the normally deadly striker hit his shot straight at the keeper.
Former Leeds misfit Michael Ricketts missed a golden opportunity to fire Preston in front on 77 minutes when he saw his close-range shot come off the top of the crossbar and over the top.
The game looked set to end all-square until Healy capitalised on a mix-up in the Preston defence to bundle the ball home with his head from close-range to send Elland Road into raptures.
The win moves Leeds off the bottom of the table, while Preston remain in fourth spot.
Times 29/3/07
Marching on together into obscurity – where it all went wrong for Leeds United
As away trips to Gillingham beckon, our correspondent begins his two-part series on the fall of a former power
Rick Broadbent
Who killed Leeds United? It is a question that involves murder, excess and rented goldfish, with the answer lying somewhere in the detritus between Taksim Square, the Majestyk nightclub and a room above the Miss World office in Soho. Now football’s biggest fall is nearing the nadir of another relegation. It is the end of a brave new world.
The transformation from a club who reached the Champions League semi-final in 2001 to the present cadaver seemingly doomed to drop into Coca-Cola League One while still paying off Paul Okon, a bit-part player who left the club four years ago on the back of 15 league appearances, is a morality tale.
It began on January 11, 2000, when Sarfraz Najeib was beaten and bitten in an assault off Boar Lane in the city centre. Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer were among those arrested, whereupon Leeds’s new-found popularity evaporated. A stench of suspicion lingered over the club, not helped by the fanatic who threatened to fire-bomb Leeds Metropolitan University, where Najeib was a student, if the players were jailed.
Initially, Leeds prospered and the remainder of that season was wildly successful on the pitch. David Wetherall’s goal for Bradford City against Liverpool on the last day of the season ensured that Leeds qualified for the Champions League and sparked an unprecedented spending spree.
Peter Ridsdale, then the Leeds chairman, was a hugely popular figure at the time. His dignity after the murders of two Leeds fans before that season’s Uefa Cup semi-final against Galatasaray had endeared him to all. Ridsdale had seen the stab wounds and sent his driver to pick up more blood from a neighbouring hospital in Istanbul. He was with Philip Loftus when he identified his brother’s body.
Nobody doubted that he cared. This was the man who had become chairman of the local education authority when it was falling foul of Ofsted, a fan who saw his first Leeds game in 1959 and who idolised Gary Sprake. Two years later, he would meet Sue Speight, one of the widows of the murdered, at a preseason match against Farsley Celtic.
"Her children are doing well and she is looking like her old self," he said in his part-time office above the Miss World headquarters in London, but by then David O’Leary had been dismissed, the club were out of control and Sprake was no longer the Leeds fall guy.
O’Leary’s first buy was David Batty and the rookie manager went on to spend £94 million, recouping £28 million. In 16 heady months up to the arrival of Robbie Fowler in November, 2001, he parted with a net £50 million. To fund this huge increase in ambition — George Graham, the previous manager, had taken Leeds to fifth in 1998 after spending a net £500,000 that season — Ridsdale struck a deal with Ray Ranson, head of Registered European Football Finance, to borrow money up front and pay it back with interest over the course of a player’s contract.
The board also recruited Stephen Schechter, a Wall Street finance guru, to get them £50 million. He managed £60 million as Leeds mortgaged their future against future season-ticket sales. "The importance of the debt has been overstated," one of the directors from that time said.
"The thing you have to do is service the debt. We were unlucky in that the transfer market collapsed and we missed out on the Champions League by one point in 2001 and one place in 2002. Even so, that squad should never have gone down."
Peter Lorimer, the Leeds legend, local pub landlord and later a director himself, sees it differently. "Give me £100 million and there’s a fair chance I would do OK in the Premiership," he said. "Peter got carried away with a bit of glory." Ridsdale’s public utterances made little sense as he paved the road to ruin. "Robbie Fowler is a unique talent and we bought Robbie Keane because we never thought Fowler would become available," he mused. It left Leeds with six strikers.
"When I went, we had £12 million in the bank and we were planning for a 50,000 capacity," Bill Fotherby, Ridsdale’s predecessor, said. "It stems from the top and you don’t need 24 O levels to realise that anybody will give you money if they know they’re going to get much more back.
"It all changed with the onset of plcs — you get people who are in it for the ego. As a chairman, you just can’t go around trying to please all the supporters when they’re screaming for signings."
However, Leeds’s problems were not a one-man show. On December 14, 2001, Woodgate was convicted of affray and sentenced to 100 hours’ community service. The next Friday, Leeds played Everton at Elland Road. Bowyer sat in the stands after being transfer-listed for refusing to pay a £100,000 club fine. Bowyer said the punishment was wrong, given that he had been found not guilty.
He ultimately paid up, but the club were sinking. O’Leary’s diary, Leeds United On Trial, was serialised in a Sunday tabloid just days after the trial concluded, with the author claiming that he had nothing to do with the title or timing. But he could not deny that he had written that he was ashamed and that "their conduct was an utter disgrace." Bowyer, who had given O’Leary his signed shirt at the end of the previous season, was never the same again. "The book lost David his job," Lorimer said.
The fallout from the trial was huge. In court, Michael Duberry, Woodgate’s defensive partner, denied implicating his teammate, but received death threats. O’Leary also received letters stating that his wife would be killed if he played the Leeds Two. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, another letter dropped through his door declaring a jihad against him. On January 1, 2002, Leeds beat West Ham United 3-0 and Woodgate was the man of the match. Top of the Premiership and staring into the abyss.
The Elland Road to nowhere
- Peter Ridsdale - Carried the can for gambling the club’s future and turning a £6 million profit into a £100 million debt
- David O’Leary His book was crass, naive and badly timed. Having spent more than £90 million, he twice missed out on the Champions League
- Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate Their trial was ultimately responsible for Woodgate’s loss of form and Bowyer agitating for a move to Liverpool
- Terry Venables Undermined by the sale of Rio Ferdinand, but his Leeds team were sliding long before anyone else of note left the club
- Professor John McKenzie Saved the club £20 million but invited mockery by his handling of Harry Kewell’s departure and Peter Reid’s dismissal
- Gerald Krasner Terrible PR skills highlighted by using Geoffrey Richmond as a consultant, but his board did wipe away £80 million of debt
Leeds still hold place in heart of their most jilted lover
Our correspondent, in the final part of his series, gets the opinion of Eddie Gray on the club’s decline
Rick Broadbent
Eddie Gray has done it all at Elland Road. He was a wing wizard for two decades, the manager when there was no money for tracksuits and the scorer of a fabled goal against Burnley that features in a sex scene in a cult film. It sums up Leeds United’s capacity for self-harm that they have dismissed him three times.
The last occasion came when Leeds were relegated in 2004, but no one blamed Gray. It merely fell to him to administer the last rites after a funeral march started by Peter Ridsdale, who stepped down as chairman four years ago today. "We still had players like Mark Viduka and Alan Smith, but they knew that, regardless of whether we survived, they were through the door," Gray said. "It made it very hard."
Leeds had been top of the Premiership in January 2002, but they failed to win in their next ten matches and were nine points off a Champions League place by the end of February. The money had been spent, players had been given huge wages, even surprising their own sense of worth, and rifts appeared. David O’Leary, the manager at the time, maintains that he was the victim of a smear campaign and that, when he was dismissed that summer, all the players phoned to wish him well.
However, Danny Mills claimed that he had been victim of a character assassination by the manager, Lee Bowyer refused to sign a new contract and another player declined to sign a book at a function because it had the manager’s face on it. Ridsdale, the chairman at the time, said that O’Leary’s book, Leeds United On Trial, had a huge impact on the squad. "We had an appalling two months when the attitude and motivation of the players wasn’t what it should have been," he said.
There were other self-inflicted wounds. Leeds fans felt that the arrival and promo-tion of Brian Kidd to head coach was a snub to Gray and vented their feelings at a match away to Everton. Meanwhile, others wondered why Stephen McPhail, once rated as the best of the club’s fledgeling players, had started one match in 17 months.
With the club having made themselves a hostage to fortune, O’Leary was dismissed when Leeds failed to make the top four in May 2002. Dominic Matteo, the defender who is now at Stoke City, takes his share of the blame. "To not get in the Champions League was a nightmare," he said. "But although we were top at Christmas, we weren’t playing to the best of our ability."
Terry Venables, the new manager, found the rug pulled from under his feet with the sale of Rio Ferdinand to Manchester United. "We have money to reinvest in the squad and we will be stronger for it," a deluded Ridsdale said. "There is no need to sell anyone else."
Later he would contradict himself, saying that Leeds lost £35 million in the summer of 2002 because deals to offload Bowyer, Robbie Keane, Olivier Dacourt and Gary Kelly fell through. The net debt was £82 million and the wage bill spiralled to more than £50 million. The £60 million loan had gone on Keane, Robbie Fowler and Seth Johnson, debts and improving the training facilities and youth academy.
The irony of that is Leeds offloaded an entire youth team. "Imagine what situation we would have been in if we hadn’t been able to sell players who cost nothing," Gray said before rattling off the list. "Paul Robinson, Alan Smith, Harry Kewell, Jonathan Woodgate, James Milner, Aaron Lennon, Stephen McPhail, Scott Carson."
Leeds’s only hope was to return to Europe, but Venables’s permatan was fading. The fans barracked him early in his reign and he fell out with Dacourt and David Batty, the latter threatening to sue Ridsdale when he told the club’s annual meeting that Venables believed he would not play in the Premiership because of injuries. Venables called Dacourt a "disgrace" and overlooked the midfield duo’s importance. When Venables sat alongside Ridsdale at a press conference after Woodgate’s exit in January 2003, the body language was industrial. The manager was dismissed in March.
Ridsdale stepped down ten days later. Leeds continued to shed points, players and managers, Peter Reid’s reign being most notable for the farce when Professor John McKenzie said he would sleep on it before letting him know if he was dismissed. And so it fell to Gray, dismissed as assistant manager by Reid, to oversee the fall.
Trevor Birch, the chief executive, deftly negotiated a series of standstill agreements to save the club from going to the wall and Leeds limped to a takeover by Gerald Krasner’s consortium. The new board slashed the debt, but at a cost.
The ground was sold twice and by the time Kevin Blackwell pitched up in the summer of 2004, he had two established first-team players on the books. One was Kelly, who was never likely to leave, given he was on £46,000 a week.
Most of those involved in the decline moved on long ago, but last night a familiar figure travelled to Elland Road to watch the latest battle for survival. As Gray took his seat, it was clear someone still cares that they killed Leeds United.
The rise and fall of Leeds United
Jan 1, 2002 Beat West Ham United 3-0 to go top of the Premiership
June 27 David O’Leary is dismissed and starts bitter compensation battle
July 8 Terry Venables is appointed manager
July 22 Rio Ferdinand joins Manchester United for £30 million
Jan 8, 2003 Lee Bowyer, the player of the year in 2001, joins West Ham for £100,000
Jan 31 Jonathan Woodgate is sold to Newcastle United for £9 million.
March 21 Venables is dismissed and Peter Reid takes over on a pounds-per-point basis
March 31 Peter Ridsdale steps down as chairman
May 4 Leeds win 3-2 away to Arsenal to stay up
Nov 10 Reid is dismissed and Eddie Gray becomes manager
May 8, 2004 Leeds are relegated after a 3-3 draw against Charlton Athletic
June 1 Kevin Blackwell becomes the club’s fifth manager in less than two years
Jan 21, 2005 Ken Bates completes his takeover of the club
May 20, 2006 Leeds lose Coca-Cola Championship play-offs final 3-0 to Watford
