Whites count cost of shameful night
By Phil Hay
There is much to admire in the rivalry between Leeds United and Sheffield Wednesday and the first derby between them for five-and-a-half years was shown in a compelling light for more an hour at Hillsborough.
United’s manager, Neil Warnock, should have spent the aftermath savouring the sublime volley from Michael Tonge which stole a point his team barely deserved but the merit of a pulsating game was lost to a moment of idiocy for which Leeds can expect to pay heavily.
Tonge’s finish came in the 75th minute with Wednesday attempting to finish off a derby they had dictated and dominated from the earliest moments, and supporters behind the goal of Chris Kirkland – filled with an away crowd in excess of 5,000 – spilled immediately onto the pitch.
All eyes were on Tonge but as the former midfielder Sheffield United midfielder ran towards the Leppings Lane End, Kirkland was struck in the face and knocked down by a Leeds supporter who ran in front of him.
The implications of that appalling moment were obvious long before the Wednesday goalkeeper underwent treatment and regained his feet and composure.
Criminal proceedings are certain to follow for the supporter in question – caught clearly on Sky Sports’ cameras at Hillsborough and quickly identified in photos circulated on Twitter – and the Football Association are unlikely to spare Leeds either.
Less than a month after the Elland Road club were fined £25,000 for failing to control their players in a game against Doncaster Rovers last season, they await fresh contact from the FA’s disciplinary department. It was not the only moment of crowd trouble during the second half and United moved to publicly condemn the attack within minutes of the final whistle.
The controversy involving Kirkland did a sorry injustice to a fine derby which looked likely to prove the universal truth that form is of little consequence in derbies until Tonge dug Leeds out of an ever-deepening hole with a fine shot from 25 yards.
It was tempting to assume that Wednesday would be tender and vulnerable after a month of relegation-like results but their fuse was lit by an overdue meeting with Leeds.
The better side were the struggling side and Wednesday would have been worth the win they very nearly claimed. As an occasion, the derby threatened to pass United by.
They fell behind to a goal from Jay Bothroyd scored late in the first half but were troubled as much by their own failure to play their way into a game that Warnock had no intention of losing comprehensively. The scoreline looked narrow but the contest did not when Tonge appeared in space and lashed a precise finish beyond Kirkland’s despairing dive.
The scheduling of last night’s game – moved to a Friday on the insistence of Sky – irked Warnock but a feisty match under the floodlights at Hillsborough befitted a derby which United’s manager called the “main one in the Championship this season.”
Warnock’s prime concern – that Rodolph Austin would arrive back from international duty with Jamaica too late to play – proved unfounded, though his fear about the midfielder suffering from fatigue was not. The pre-match murmuring about Tonge’s damaged shoulder was also precautionary, and both players took their places in an unchanged team.
Tonge’s appearance gave Leeds as heavy a presence of ex-Sheffield United employees as they could possibly have had, alongside Paddy Kenny and Michael Brown. Their line-up offered the home crowd much to concentrate on in the minutes either side of kick-off, and Warnock kept a low profile as he walked belatedly from the tunnel. He and first-team coach Ronnie Jepson shared a joke about the time it took Hillsborough’s Kop to abuse him – 10 minutes to be precise – but he soon had more to worry about.
Having seen Chris O’Grady threaten to draw first blood by drifting in front of his marker and glancing a header into Kenny’s hands, Warnock looked on anxiously as the “Wacky Races” start he predicted caught Leeds cold and set the tone of the game.
That United emerged unscathed until the penultimate minute of the first half was down to good fortune as much as anything. Outrageous luck came to Kenny’s aide as early as the 11th minute when a fierce but manageable shot from Bothroyd slipped through his grasp and rattled the underside of the crossbar before bouncing down and into his grasp.
The look on the goalkeeper’s face said even he was not sure how the ball had fallen so kindly.
He was as badly exposed a minute later, left isolated under a swinging free-kick from Bothroyd which Michail Antonio met with an uncontrolled header. Those moments and Wednesday’s general attitude gave some credence to the insistence of the club’s manager, Dave Jones, that six defeats from seven previous league games was no reflection of their football or their confidence.
It left Warnock desperately seeking encouragement, provided eventually but briefly by Tonge with 20 minutes gone.
The midfielder brought a diving save from Kirkland after Anthony Gardner’s loose foul on El-Hadji Diouf conceded a free-kick on the edge of Wednesday’s box but the respite for Leeds was brief and they were unspeakably grateful for the bizarre decision from referee Eddie Ilderton which denied Wednesday the most obvious of penalties on 24 minutes.
The official and his assistants were alone inside Hillsborough in failing to see Luciano Becchio handle the ball as Bothroyd swung a corner through Kenny’s six-yard box. The Argentine knocked the ball behind with a flailing arm while Gardner waited to attack it at the far post but Ilderton awarded only a corner. Becchio kept his head down as Wednesday’s players protested in amazement.
The decision had the look of a game-changing moment and the impetus of the home side lapsed slightly in the minutes that followed but United’s players, and their midfield in particular, looked as jet-lagged as Austin must have felt. They cried out for the attacking mind of David Norris, one of Warnock’s seven substitutes.
Becchio saw a rare chance after Tonge picked him out with a low cross which Miguel Llera dealt with close to his own line but Wednesday’s pressure out wide was persistent.
Bothroyd spared Lee Peltier when he ran around the left-back easily and bypassed all of his team-mates with a wild cut-back, and the intensity of the derby began to tell as Llera caught Brown – a constant antagonist in the eyes of the crowd – in the face with an elbow and Diouf became embroiled in an argument with Jose Semedo.
The imminent arrival of half-time promised Leeds a useful chance to retreat and regroup but their defence gave way just as they appeared to have found a way through to the break. Bothroyd, the outstanding player in the opening 45 minutes, slipped away from Jason Pearce as Antonio launched a throw into the box and his unmarked header bounced past an unsighted Kenny at the far post. Warnock could not deny that the goal had been coming since the earliest stages of a one-sided derby.
He took the clearest option open to him at the start of the second half and replaced a shattered Austin with Norris. Chances followed as Tonge dipped another free-kick over the bar and Brown drove a shot against the feet of Gardner, but Wednesday’s centre-back came within inches of a second goal for Wednesday when his effort from deep inside a chaotic box deflected over the bar.
Antonio and Ross Barkley also went close and Wednesday’s ambition gave Leeds little chance of chasing the game. But from nowhere, Tonge met a bouncing ball with a vicious volley which sailed beyond Kirkland’s reach.
The moment deserved to belong to Tonge and he milked it readily but as United’s players ran to him, supporters broke out of the away end and one pole-axed Kirkland with a disgraceful swing of his arms. Kirkland recovered but the mood of the evening did not. Leeds will bear the consequences of that.