How to spoil a kids’ party, by Leeds’ kids - The Square Ball 23/4/22

ENJOY NOTHING

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

The Friday night crowd at Elland Road was 21,321, and a few years ago, that wouldn’t have been remarkable, met with a tut and a shrug and maybe a sigh. Back in 2015/16, the season started with Uwe Rosler and ended with Steve Evans while Massimo Cellino ruled all, adding pie taxes to South Stand ticket prices and threatening to prevent our away fans from travelling to punish Sky (don’t worry, that never made sense). Along the way, home fixtures against the following teams had fewer than 21,321 in attendance: Ipswich, Blackburn, Cardiff, Bristol City, Middlesbrough, Fulham, Bolton, QPR, Reading, Wolves. These were all first team games in the Championship. The average attendance that season was 21,667, just 346 more than went to see Leeds United Under-23s play a development match this weekend.

Leeds didn’t win, going down 3-1 to the Under-23 portion of Manchester City’s ‘Elite Development Squad’. According to Wikipedia this comprises at least 33 young players out on loan, plus eighteen based at Sportcity Manchester, all presided over by Academy Director and former Leeds winger Jason Wilcox. Last season the Manchester City first team won the Premier League, the Under-23s won Premier League 2 Division One, and the Under-18s won the Professional Development League. A point at Elland Road would have been enough for the U23s to retain the PL2 title; goals from Kayky (a reported €10m + €15m addons buy last summer from Fluminese), Cole Palmer (no longer an Academy player but part of the senior squad, with a Champions League goal to his name) and Liam Delap (still an Academy player but also with a Champions League appearance) gave them three.

What did Leeds Under-23s learn from the night? First, that despite being at risk of relegation from the league City have won, they can compete with the best team in it. When Mateo Joseph signed in January, some thought it was to make up numbers while Joffy Gelhardt and Sam Greenwood graduate to the first team, but he is turning out to be a forceful striker in his own right. He gave Leeds the lead when five attackers in the penalty area were too many for City to cope with. Sean McGurk set Joseph up and the goalie was beaten with a shot at his near post. Manchester soon went ahead, taking advantage of Leeds’ narrow shape and high line to sprint down the right twice and score twice, but between that and Delap’s last minute third, the game was almost all Leeds, even if they couldn’t dominate without moments of end to end madness. Things might have turned for the Peacocks if the Citizens’ goalie, a Scotland Under-21 international named Cieran Slicker, had been sent off for sprinting out of his box and clattering Crysencio Summerville when he was through, as he often was. Only young United’s tiredness, perhaps brought on by playing so well for so long without reward, allowed City some comfort in the last few minutes.

The other thing they learned is that it’s important, as a Leeds United player, to know how to spoil the other team’s fun. Technically this was Manchester City’s big night, but there are better ways to celebrate a title than getting booed and jeered by 21,000 Loiners while you’re being outplayed by the ones on the pitch. Despite the scoreline, this was not a coronation. There was a brief boisterous huddle of Blues at full-time, then they all looked a bit bemused, deflated, unsure what to do next. They milled about until the crowds cleared so they could pose for some party photos, like trying to post ‘Best night ever!’ to Instagram from an empty nightclub.

Last season, when Leeds secured the PL 2 Division Two title away at Aston Villa, I had felt sympathy for Adam Forshaw. He was along for the game as part of his route back to health, and his sore hamstrings near the end were both a setback to his recovery and a contrast to the youthful exuberance all around him. As happy as Forshaw must have been for them, I can’t imagine where on his rehabilitation itinerary he would have placed ‘Travelling back from Birmingham on a minibus with fifteen hyperactive teenagers having a disco’. Marcelo Bielsa’s regime was helping to keep those lads fit, but with their first trophy in the bag, the brakes were off, and the first drinks of the season were on. Maybe even of their entire lives, or at least that’s the story they were telling their parents. The journey back to Leeds was one thing. But first, the journey around Sutton Coldfield looking for an all-night offy so Joffy could get his first taste of MD2020.

Friday night’s bus ride back over the Pennines might have been fun for City, but there must have been an undercurrent of shellshocked analysis when the whooping died down, time spent wincing and counting the bruises Charlie Cresswell had left. Sure, some of the players on that bus have Premier League and Champions League experience, and now two Under-23 titles, and they won on the night. But some of them were shown up in the game by sixteen-year-old Archie Gray, and had to listen to 21,000 people letting them know they could see it. As the M62 forked around that farmhouse, and they replayed the game in their minds, were they happy? Or did they go to sleep that night with nightmares of Summerville sprinting past them, McGurk’s frantic dribbling continuing through their dreams?

This was more useful to the Leeds players than the Mancs. If they’re to have careers at Leeds United, they’ll have to get used to the taste of glory in defeat, and learn that at Elland Road just weirding out the visitors is often enough.

The perfect example of this in the modern era was against Arsenal at the end of 1998/99. A lot of pre-match attention focused on whether Leeds would want to win, knowing that would hand the Premier League title to arch-rivals Manchester United. The answer came in the explosive delight after Jimmy Hasselbaink’s late header. Arsenal fans and neutrals were bewildered — how could we be so happy with this self-defeating win, helping the team we hate win a trophy? But of course Leeds had a very good reason for winning: we wanted to see Arsenal crying in our stadium. The Mancs were elsewhere and could be ignored. Ruining the Arsenal party was the priority.

“I was speaking to their manager before the game,” said Leeds Under-23s boss Andy Taylor. “He said ‘Tayls, why’s there so many fans here, what’s the occasion?'” The occasion in the end was Manchester City’s title victory, and Leeds were making sure the guests enjoyed little to none of it.