Sunday Times 29/4/07
Leeds fall into abyss
Leeds 1 Ipswich 1
Paul Forsyth at Elland Road
Anticipating the fall of a footballing institution is one thing. Watching it disappear into the abyss, with scarcely a shred of dignity, quite another. The scare stories that have multiplied with Leeds’ every step closer to the trap door became horrible reality at Elland Road yesterday when the club were all but relegated to the country’s third tier, and the behaviour of some of their supporters compounded the humiliation.
During a dramatic finale, in which Ipswich’s late equaliser combined with Hull’s win at Cardiff to effectively seal the club’s fate, thousands of Leeds fans spilled on to the pitch in stoppage time, forcing officials to consider an abandonment. While the majority of home fans chanted "scum" and "you’re not fit to wear the shirt," it was at least 15 minutes before the pitch was cleared. Eventually, the players returned to complete the match, but it made no difference.
It all means that Leeds have 46 points and Hull 49, but the latter’s far superior goal difference makes a turnaround in next weekend’s final fixtures all but impossible. Agonisingly, the goal that did for Leeds came in the 89th minute, when Gary Roberts’ curling corner was glanced into the net by Alan Lee.
The pity was that this was not the last of Leeds’ worries on what had become a black day for the club, on and off the pitch. A huge crowd crammed into Elland Road with a mixture of alarm and sympathy that resembled nothing so much as a state of emergency. While the club have been delivered from European glory to humiliation in the space of six harrowing years, their supporters were not so demoralised that they couldn’t rally themselves for one last home game in an effort to prevent the worst.
The match doubled as a farewell to Gary Kelly, who has made 531 appearances in 16 years at the club. Fans were asked not to invade the pitch at full-time, or his retirement ceremony would be abandoned, but they were on it long before that.
After just 11 minutes, in fact, a handful of them had hurdled the perimeter fencing. That was how long it had taken Leeds to relieve the tension with a goal. Alan Thompson collected the ball deep in his own half, turned his man, and sent a long, searching ball beyond the full-back. David Healy dashed on to the opportunity, drove a low shot that the goalkeeper could only parry, and was rewarded when Richard Cresswell stooped to nod it over the line.
While the reaction bordered on hysteria in the stands, Leeds haven’t fallen this far without acquiring a keen sense of their own fragility. Despite Cresswell’s continued threat there were nerves in the home defence as Ipswich attacked with growing frequency. Rui Marques was required to make a sliding clearance, and Francis Jeffers also tested the goalkeeper from 12 yards.
Ipswich were quick and kept possession to ensure that their opponents’ willpower increasingly manifested itself only in late tackles.
Leeds still had the lead but nobody was more anxious than the home support. They exhaled in collective relief when Roberts’ volley rose over the top, and screamed with dread when substitute Jonathan Walters cut a perfect ball across the six-yard area. Had Lee been a fraction earlier in arriving, the equaliser would have been a formality.
As the Leeds fans grew ever more tense, lifted only by Cresswell’s diving header over the top, suddenly their counterparts could be heard down by the corner flag. Hull, it seemed, had taken the lead in Wales, and the travelling support was in no mood to withhold the news. "Going down," was the chant.
Nightmare at Elland Road
Mismanagement has sent a once great club from the Champions League towards third-tier oblivion in six years
Joe Lovejoy
LEEDS United are not the first former Premiership club to crash and burn, nor the biggest, but their meltdown has been the most spectacular. Six years ago, David O’Leary’s Leeds were Champions League semi-final-ists and as recently as 2002-03, under Terry Venables, they were Premiership leaders and beating Manchester United at the bear pit that was Elland Road.
How the mighty are fallen. Results yesterday mean Dennis Wise’s motley crew are effectively doomed to the backwaters of English football’s third tier for the first time. The club that rubbed shoulders with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Milan in 2000-01 is likely to visit Hartle-pool, Walsall and Crewe next season.
It is a cautionary tale of overweening ambition and financial mismanagement. Most observers point the finger at Peter Ridsdale, the chairman who behaved more like a fan than a businessman, and in his own words "chased the dream", but he is by no means the sole culprit. That said, Ridsdale’s dream had the rudest of awakenings, with the club £100m in debt and forced to sell their ground and any player who would fetch a price in a fire sale that averted bankruptcy off the field, but not on it.
The erstwhile chairman’s catastrophic misjudgment was to budget, or rather gamble, on Leeds qualifying for the Champions League on a regular basis. It happened only once, in the annus mirabilis of 2000-01, and when they missed out on the European cash cow thereafter their finances collapsed, bringing on a crisis from which they have never recovered.
Ridsdale’s ambition, first exercised through investment in players such as Danny Mills, Michael Duberry, Michael Bridges, Jason Wilcox and Darren Huckerby, was seen to be paying off, with Leeds reaching the semi-finals of the Uefa Cup in 1999-2000 and finishing third in the Premiership that season.
But once into the big time, the Champions League, the boat was pushed out so far there were icebergs on the horizon, for anybody prepared to look. Olivier Dacourt, Mark Viduka, Dominic Matteo and finally Rio Ferdinand (the latter for an eyewatering £18m) were signed on mortgage against the new income stream, and nobody was complaining as O’Leary’s adventurous team barnstormed their way to the semi-finals, where they were beaten by Valencia.
It was now that the speculate-to-accumulate approach started to become reckless. Fourth in the Premiership, Leeds had not qualified for another ride on the Champions League gravy train, yet it was spend, spend, spend. In came Robbie Keane (£12m), Robbie Fowler (£11m) and Seth Johnson (£7m), while nobody of financial consequence was sold. Yet if Ridsdale was to blame for sanctioning it all, questions must also be asked of O’Leary. Such as why, with Viduka, Keane, Bridges, Alan Smith and Harry Kewell to play up front, did he feel the need to acquire Fowler?
Top of the table at the turn of the year, Leeds fell away badly to trail in fifth and, with the club £77m in the red, O’Leary was sacked in a summer of discontent that bordered on panic. Venables was appointed to replace him in July 2002 but before a match was played he had to sell Ferdinand. Keane went at the end of August, followed by Jonathan Woodgate and Fowler, and Venables gave way to Peter Reid before the season was out.
Ridsdale quit in March 2003, at which point the club’s debt was £78.9m. Nobody has been able to halt the decline since and there is a possibility that relegation could lead to administration and resurrection as "Leeds United 2008". In that event, they would start next season with a 10-point penalty and be debt-free but at the bottom of the table. Ridsdale is redeeming himself through careful husbandry at Cardiff City. For Leeds, redemption may take a lot longer. Ask Nottingham Forest.
Fallen giants
Northampton Third Division champions in 1963, they reached the old First Division by in 1965 but went down after one season. They narrowly avoiding dropping into the Conference in 1994
MK Dons Elected (as Wimbledon) to the Football League in 1977, they reached the First Division in 1986 and beat Liverpool to win the FA Cup in 1988. Relegated in 2000, they moved to Milton Keynes in 2004
Leeds fall into abyss
Leeds 1 Ipswich 1
Paul Forsyth at Elland Road
Anticipating the fall of a footballing institution is one thing. Watching it disappear into the abyss, with scarcely a shred of dignity, quite another. The scare stories that have multiplied with Leeds’ every step closer to the trap door became horrible reality at Elland Road yesterday when the club were all but relegated to the country’s third tier, and the behaviour of some of their supporters compounded the humiliation.
During a dramatic finale, in which Ipswich’s late equaliser combined with Hull’s win at Cardiff to effectively seal the club’s fate, thousands of Leeds fans spilled on to the pitch in stoppage time, forcing officials to consider an abandonment. While the majority of home fans chanted "scum" and "you’re not fit to wear the shirt," it was at least 15 minutes before the pitch was cleared. Eventually, the players returned to complete the match, but it made no difference.
It all means that Leeds have 46 points and Hull 49, but the latter’s far superior goal difference makes a turnaround in next weekend’s final fixtures all but impossible. Agonisingly, the goal that did for Leeds came in the 89th minute, when Gary Roberts’ curling corner was glanced into the net by Alan Lee.
The pity was that this was not the last of Leeds’ worries on what had become a black day for the club, on and off the pitch. A huge crowd crammed into Elland Road with a mixture of alarm and sympathy that resembled nothing so much as a state of emergency. While the club have been delivered from European glory to humiliation in the space of six harrowing years, their supporters were not so demoralised that they couldn’t rally themselves for one last home game in an effort to prevent the worst.
The match doubled as a farewell to Gary Kelly, who has made 531 appearances in 16 years at the club. Fans were asked not to invade the pitch at full-time, or his retirement ceremony would be abandoned, but they were on it long before that.
After just 11 minutes, in fact, a handful of them had hurdled the perimeter fencing. That was how long it had taken Leeds to relieve the tension with a goal. Alan Thompson collected the ball deep in his own half, turned his man, and sent a long, searching ball beyond the full-back. David Healy dashed on to the opportunity, drove a low shot that the goalkeeper could only parry, and was rewarded when Richard Cresswell stooped to nod it over the line.
While the reaction bordered on hysteria in the stands, Leeds haven’t fallen this far without acquiring a keen sense of their own fragility. Despite Cresswell’s continued threat there were nerves in the home defence as Ipswich attacked with growing frequency. Rui Marques was required to make a sliding clearance, and Francis Jeffers also tested the goalkeeper from 12 yards.
Ipswich were quick and kept possession to ensure that their opponents’ willpower increasingly manifested itself only in late tackles.
Leeds still had the lead but nobody was more anxious than the home support. They exhaled in collective relief when Roberts’ volley rose over the top, and screamed with dread when substitute Jonathan Walters cut a perfect ball across the six-yard area. Had Lee been a fraction earlier in arriving, the equaliser would have been a formality.
As the Leeds fans grew ever more tense, lifted only by Cresswell’s diving header over the top, suddenly their counterparts could be heard down by the corner flag. Hull, it seemed, had taken the lead in Wales, and the travelling support was in no mood to withhold the news. "Going down," was the chant.
Nightmare at Elland Road
Mismanagement has sent a once great club from the Champions League towards third-tier oblivion in six years
Joe Lovejoy
LEEDS United are not the first former Premiership club to crash and burn, nor the biggest, but their meltdown has been the most spectacular. Six years ago, David O’Leary’s Leeds were Champions League semi-final-ists and as recently as 2002-03, under Terry Venables, they were Premiership leaders and beating Manchester United at the bear pit that was Elland Road.
How the mighty are fallen. Results yesterday mean Dennis Wise’s motley crew are effectively doomed to the backwaters of English football’s third tier for the first time. The club that rubbed shoulders with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Milan in 2000-01 is likely to visit Hartle-pool, Walsall and Crewe next season.
It is a cautionary tale of overweening ambition and financial mismanagement. Most observers point the finger at Peter Ridsdale, the chairman who behaved more like a fan than a businessman, and in his own words "chased the dream", but he is by no means the sole culprit. That said, Ridsdale’s dream had the rudest of awakenings, with the club £100m in debt and forced to sell their ground and any player who would fetch a price in a fire sale that averted bankruptcy off the field, but not on it.
The erstwhile chairman’s catastrophic misjudgment was to budget, or rather gamble, on Leeds qualifying for the Champions League on a regular basis. It happened only once, in the annus mirabilis of 2000-01, and when they missed out on the European cash cow thereafter their finances collapsed, bringing on a crisis from which they have never recovered.
Ridsdale’s ambition, first exercised through investment in players such as Danny Mills, Michael Duberry, Michael Bridges, Jason Wilcox and Darren Huckerby, was seen to be paying off, with Leeds reaching the semi-finals of the Uefa Cup in 1999-2000 and finishing third in the Premiership that season.
But once into the big time, the Champions League, the boat was pushed out so far there were icebergs on the horizon, for anybody prepared to look. Olivier Dacourt, Mark Viduka, Dominic Matteo and finally Rio Ferdinand (the latter for an eyewatering £18m) were signed on mortgage against the new income stream, and nobody was complaining as O’Leary’s adventurous team barnstormed their way to the semi-finals, where they were beaten by Valencia.
It was now that the speculate-to-accumulate approach started to become reckless. Fourth in the Premiership, Leeds had not qualified for another ride on the Champions League gravy train, yet it was spend, spend, spend. In came Robbie Keane (£12m), Robbie Fowler (£11m) and Seth Johnson (£7m), while nobody of financial consequence was sold. Yet if Ridsdale was to blame for sanctioning it all, questions must also be asked of O’Leary. Such as why, with Viduka, Keane, Bridges, Alan Smith and Harry Kewell to play up front, did he feel the need to acquire Fowler?
Top of the table at the turn of the year, Leeds fell away badly to trail in fifth and, with the club £77m in the red, O’Leary was sacked in a summer of discontent that bordered on panic. Venables was appointed to replace him in July 2002 but before a match was played he had to sell Ferdinand. Keane went at the end of August, followed by Jonathan Woodgate and Fowler, and Venables gave way to Peter Reid before the season was out.
Ridsdale quit in March 2003, at which point the club’s debt was £78.9m. Nobody has been able to halt the decline since and there is a possibility that relegation could lead to administration and resurrection as "Leeds United 2008". In that event, they would start next season with a 10-point penalty and be debt-free but at the bottom of the table. Ridsdale is redeeming himself through careful husbandry at Cardiff City. For Leeds, redemption may take a lot longer. Ask Nottingham Forest.
Fallen giants
