Hook, line & Lee Erwin - The Square Ball 22/10/21
GONE FISHING
Written by Rob Conlon
We’ll always have Terry George to thank for the image of Lee
Erwin fishing a football out of the Leeds and Liverpool canal with a shirtless
Casper Sloth. Leeds United’s official 2016 calendar was absolutely definitely
photographed by George, who was shown camera in hand in the video trailer, and
not by Italian photographers Ales&Ales (with creative direction by
Riganera) even if they did shoot exactly the same calendar for Massimo
Cellino’s Cagliari in 2014, have photos from the Leeds calendar on their
business Instagram, have since worked with Cellino at Brescia in the same
style, and even (inexplicably) won an award for the Leeds one without
mentioning Terry at all. Anyway, the sheer lunacy of all that provides a
fitting snapshot of the club at the time. For Erwin and Sloth, it was probably
their most notable contribution as Leeds players.
Every Leeds fan had a different breaking point during the
wilderness years. I can only salute the brave souls that stuck it out until the
end, but for me it came during the Steve Evans season. The best I could feel
was complete apathy, which was an improvement on the usual hatred towards the
owner, manager, and a number of players (Guiseppe Bellusci, I’m looking at
you). I’d moved back to Leeds after studying at university in Nottingham but
decided my Saturday afternoons were better spent earning a few quid in a
brain-melting part-time job than watching Leeds United.
I didn’t hate Lee Erwin. He was simply another transient
character passing through Elland Road who there was no point getting to know,
making it all the more surprising when I recently realised he actually got to
start a league game in the Championship, elevating him above contemporary
obscurities Dario Del Fabro, Zan Benedicic and Brian Montenegro.
After making nine cameos off the bench under Evans, Erwin
was finally trusted to start as Leeds hosted Wolves in April 2016, 43 league
games into the striker’s debut season. The game took place on the day Leeds
announced that people daft enough to buy season tickets for the following
campaign would receive 25% of their money back if the club failed to reach the
play-offs, rising to 50% if they managed to sell 15,000 tickets. It was an
ambitious target, given only 17,694 people had enough enthusiasm to visit
Elland Road that afternoon. These were different times. Stuart Dallas couldn’t
get into the team on his birthday ahead of makeshift wingers Erwin and Lewie
Coyle, while Kalvin Phillips was being kept on the bench by Toumani Diagouraga
and Luke Murphy.
Even more surprising than Erwin’s name in the line-up was
the result, Leeds 2-1 Wolves, pushing the club briefly into the bright lights
of the top half (before failing to win their final three games and finishing a
more familiar 13th). Aside from a turn and shot past the post from the edge of
the box, Erwin’s main involvement was watching Chris Wood find different ways
of not scoring in the first half. At least he got to celebrate both goals in
quick succession, a rocket into the top corner from Sol Bamba and a tidy finish
from Diagouraga, before being replaced by Jordan Botaka, moments before Wolves
pulled one back. Evans described Leeds’ performance in the second half as
“quite stunning” and suggested his side had deserved to score seven in the
second half, to go with the four Wood should have scored in the first, “but
Leeds being Leeds we concede late and have to rely on a big save from our
goalkeeper.”
Erwin did enough to keep his place for the next game, but
lasted just 45 minutes before being replaced at half-time. It was his last
appearance for Leeds. He joined Oldham on loan for the next campaign, where he
finished as top scorer under John Sheridan, one of seven moves in five years.
The signs we shouldn’t have expected too much from Erwin
were there from the moment he joined on a three-year deal, with Leeds paying a
compensation fee to Motherwell. He had scored six goals in his breakthrough
season in the Scottish Premiership, but five came in his last nine appearances.
Celtic and Sheffield United were among the interested clubs, but Leeds managed
to broker a deal through Ross McCormack’s agent Derek Day, despite Cellino
being investigated by the FA for an illegal payment to Day as part of
McCormack’s transfer to Fulham. Cellino was later banned for eighteen months
for breaching the FA’s agent regulations, with Day also fined.
Erwin’s most important goal for Motherwell, the opener at
Ibrox in a relegation play-off against Rangers, had been overshadowed by events
at the end of the second leg, when opposition defender Bilel Mohsni was sent
off for kicking Erwin in the back of the leg then punching him in the face.
Mohsni tried confronting Erwin again after the game as he boarded the team bus,
and clearly has a thing against obscure Leeds United forwards. Asked in an
interview who is the most boring person he has met, Mohsni replied, “At
Southend I played with a guy called Ryan Hall who was decent but he loved to
talk about it. Every Monday you had to listen to him going through everything
he did and how good his left foot was.”
Under Uwe Rosler, Erwin was regularly named on the bench but
never made it onto the pitch, and joined Bury on loan a week after Cellino said
he would not be loaned out. By the time Erwin returned, three games later,
Rosler had been replaced by Evans.
“I’m the first to admit the move to Leeds from Motherwell
was a case of having too much, too soon,” Erwin told the Daily Record in 2019.
“I was too immature to deal with all that came my way. I’m honest enough to
admit there were times when I wasn’t as professional as I could have been.
“I’m not the type of person to harbour regrets but I wish I
had the chance now to move to a club like Leeds, as I’m no longer that kid of a
few years ago who had so much growing up to do. I would deal with things a
whole lot differently, that’s for sure. It was the first time I had to cope
with living on my own. I hadn’t experienced anything like it and Leeds United
are a massive club so it takes a bit of getting used to. There was a lot of
exposure on me and I just wasn’t mature enough to deal with it.”
He has not exactly settled down since returning from his
loan at Oldham to be told he had no future at Leeds by yet another coach,
Thomas Christiansen. A year at Kilmarnock produced eight goals before he made
an eye-catching move to Iranian club Tractor. Erwin only played seven times for
Tractor, but scored a seven-minute hat-trick against Zob Ahan, the fastest in
Persian Gulf Pro League history. Erwin celebrated those goals in front of a
capacity crowd of 66,000 at Tractor’s Sahan Stadium, but some of his other
games were played out in front of empty seats, much like being back at Elland
Road. “Playing in Iran was torture,” Erwin said. “I’ve never been in prison but
I’d imagine that’s how it feels. I spent most of every day sitting in my hotel
room.”