Proposal: Leeds United players should be nice to children - Square Ball 30/4/23

THEY'RE KIDS!

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

Question: how are the Leeds United football team going to take difficult wins from their upcoming games against Manchester City, Newcastle United, West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur if they can’t take the easy win of simply being polite to a child?

Doing the basics has become a problem at Leeds but we’re down to real first principles with this one. You’ve probably seen the video, taken in the lobby of the team hotel as the players left for their big game against Bournemouth. Perhaps they were all too focused on the enormity of the sporting occasion in front of them, and that’s why with headphones on and eyes down all except Max Wöber failed to even glance in the direction of one young boy trying to wave to them. (That’s very specific, by the way. He isn’t even trying to get a wave back, let alone beg for a shirt or other trinkets. He is trying to wave to them, to cheer them up.)

If focusing on the game is the excuse, then next time I suggest we get a full children’s choir down there and force the squad to join them in a rendition of Ilkley Moor Baht’at, because focusing on the game isn’t doing them any damn good. Whatever was in those headphones and on those phones that was so important didn’t do a damn thing for them in the game itself. So let’s try something else, like acknowledging the damn child, the one standing right there trying to smile at you.

Football clubs enforce some rules around these public interactions to prevent hotel lobbies being overrun by autograph hunters and selfie collectors, and that’s fine. The Women’s Super League is struggling at the moment with how to balance letting kids meet players at the end of games without turning pitchsides into dangerous scrums (as our Flora wrote about recently in her excellent email newsletter that you should sign up to here, for free). But whatever rules are in place, some fans are bound to turn up anyway just for a glimpse of their feeble heroes, and clubs also ought to have a plan in place for that.

This is what my plan would be: lads, when you walk from the hotel to the team bus, there will be some fans there, so while you can’t stop for autographs or photos, please make sure you politely acknowledge their support with a smile, a thumbs up, or a high-five. Perhaps even consider leaving your headphones off until you reach the team bus! It might mean the world to a kid if, when they tell you ‘Good luck!’, they think you can hear them.

It’s an easy win. Social media loves this from footballers. You’ll never get more likes and nice comments than by posting a video of a successful football player doing something nice for kids.

And not doing it is an absolute public relations disaster. Arsenal had this problem the other week, when their players were filmed frowning at a mascot, but they were saved by the kid’s parents confirming warmer off camera interactions. Not here. If that kid’s parent is going to confirm anything it will be that yes, the players who walked past their son really did act like a bunch of pricks (edit: turns out they’re fine with it, so fair enough!). Meanwhile, far from an easy win, the video has gone viral and now all the worst accounts on Twitter are taking the moral high ground (Piers Morgan, who is Piers Morgan, and Barstool, which is too much to go into here but here’s some background reading and then you can block them).

Obviously on an already angry Bank Holiday Sunday night after a 4-1 defeat in a vital relegation match that people spent hours travelling hundreds of miles to pay to watch, seeing a video of the players who played like incompetents also acting like jackasses did not help any Leeds’ fans mood. And many were sent rushing back to the good old days (like, three years ago) when the players would walk into Elland Road through a crowd of adoring fans who would cheer and encourage them and get smiles and waves in return, plus sweets from Marcelo Bielsa who had pockets full for just this purpose. He used to carry keyrings and pens just in case he bumped into young Leeds fans in the street, for crying out loud.

But we don’t even really need to lean on Bielsa’s days for this. I once interviewed Victor Orta about growing up as a football fan, and he told me about how he used to ring round all the hotels to find out where visiting teams were staying, then bunk off school to stake out the lobbies all afternoon and get their autographs, simply because he was a kid who loved football and football players. Orta could remind our team, if for some reason they need reminding, which it looks like they do: those kids in the lobby love footballers more than they love their own brothers and sisters. All they want is a smile, a tiny moment of acknowledgement from a hero, something so simple that could yet be an encouraging memory for months and years. Leeds players: please be kind to children, for crying out loud! It will be good for the kids, and one less thing for everyone else to be mad at you about!