The Festive Spirit — Square Ball 6/12/24

Merry MaxMas

Words by: Calum Archibald

For many, Christmas is the season of goodwill, a time to reflect on the past year, to be generous in spirit and to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. For kids, it’s hoping there’s a PS5, iPad, Fortnite V Bucks or whatever newfangled toy, tech or app is all the rage these days.

For me, and I’d hazard a guess for plenty reading this right now, it’s about football. More specifically, it’s about Leeds United playing a metric fuck-tonne of football throughout December and the festive period.

And when I think about Christmas and my love of football, there’s only one thing that really stands out in my mind — Max Gradel in December 2010, when he really became the player that I longed for ever since, at least until Raphinha repaired a lot of the damage that Gradel’s exit dealt me a decade earlier.

For context, Leeds started that month in 8th place in the Championship, with the division’s fourth-best attack and third-worst defence, which goes a long way to explaining why I have much more reverence for the likes of Gradel, Davide Somma, Rob Snodgrass and Luciano Becchio than Paul Connolly, Fede Bessone, Neill Collins and Alex Bruce.

Already that season we’d shipped four goals at home to Cardiff, five away to Barnsley and six at home to Preston. But we entered December with three wins and three draws in our last six, on an upward trajectory with Becchio hitting form as a lone striker having spent the previous two seasons doing the donkey work for Jermaine Beckford.

Then Gradel decided to take things up a notch.

After a late double salvo from Becchio in a 2-1 win over Palace, Leeds headed to Turf Moor to face play-off contenders Burnley. By half-time we were 2-0 down, with some familiarly abject defending to blame, a hallmark of a season in which Simon Grayson repeatedly begged Ken Bates for a competent centre-back, only to be left with Alex Bruce and Andy O’Brien holding the fort.

To this day it remains one of my favourite Leeds games, which seems odd for a game I only listened to on the radio and then watched a two-minute highlight package at midnight on the BBC’s The Football League Show. Gradel volleyed in a Becchio knockdown before Luciano equalised and Jonny Howson curled in a late winner. But the energy of that comeback all began with Gradel.

The following week, Neil Warnock’s all-conquering QPR rolled into town. They were lavishly bankrolled in the days when £10m would buy you a super team in the Championship, led by the ever-irritable Colin. Or rather, they were led by the enigmatic Adel Taraabt, who was making an absolute mockery of the Championship, scoring ludicrous long-range goals of all varieties each and every week. Taraabt is the ultimate ‘streets won’t forget’ player, and by Warnock’s admission, his instructions to his players were to never pass to Taraabt inside their own half but get the ball to him as soon as possible in the opposition’s.

Yet on that day, with the snow that bought me a day or two off school shovelled off the Elland Road pitch and piled up by the advertising hoardings, Taraabt had a bit-part role in a game dominated by Leeds’ leading man. Gradel took the game by the scruff of the neck and made the league’s best team look bang average.

His early goal took the pressure off, and the atmosphere was as good as Elland Road’s ever been — anyone who was there will gladly tell you that WACCOE rang out for a good 25 minutes loud and proud, despite there being just under 30,000 fans inside the ground.

With twenty minutes remaining, Gradel picked up the ball just inside QPR’s half, backing up the full-back until he eventually found himself inside the box, chopping outside onto his left before drilling a shot under Paddy Kenny. In that moment, I was charmed, snake hips Gradel had won my heart forever more.

The result moved Leeds into the top two, but while Gradel scored in the following two games, Leeds threw away a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 with Leicester on Boxing Day, and again in a 3-3 draw against Portsmouth, with Andy O’Brien scoring two own-goals. Whatever our attack accomplished that season, our defence had a habit of completely negating with utter nonsense in almost every game.

But there was something about Mad Max marauding down the left flank at the time that has stayed with me. That combination of pace, flair, trickery, and an absolute bullet of a shot in a two-footed player who had somehow rocked up at Leeds when we never had players like that. Ian Westlake, sure. Steve Stone shunted out wide, aye. But Max Gradel? Doing this sort of stuff for Leeds every single week? It was always too good to be true.

There’s something in Largie Ramazani that has a touch of the Max Gradels in a way that nobody has really come close to since. That little bit of arrogance backed up by hard work, quick feet, and a desire to do something positive every time the ball arrives at their feet.

Maybe this December I’ll finally let go of a four-year obsession, but I know that’s not likely to happen. After years of stodgy football, League One lows, being battered by everything from relegations to points deductions, winding-up petitions, play-off defeats and whatever the footballing world could throw at us, this felt like payback.

Of course, we ended up with more of all that in the next decade afterwards, but for a brief moment that season I believed. And after all, isn’t that what it’s all about? Those fleeting moments where you think everything is going to be alright, even if it later isn’t.

So, this Christmas, forget the presents, forget the mince pies, the turkey, the Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas special, Home Alone, A Christmas Carol — just let me feel like Max Gradel made me feel in December 2010.