Inside Leeds United afterparty as unexpected mastermind inspires after-hours soiree with fans — YEP 7/5/25

By Joe Donnohue

Leeds United players and staff descended on city centre bar Katie O'Brien's following their title parade celebrations.

As the three open-top buses turned off The Headrow and onto the A58, en route back to Elland Road, their two-hour crawl through the city centre came to an end. Some might assume a dedicated group of professional footballers would have had their fill of merriment by that stage. They would be wrong.

Leeds players continued their Championship title celebrations within one of the suites at the stadium, where they won 18 and drew four of their 23 home league games this season. Friends and family, who had been perched on the city skyline for the duration of the parade, also made their way to Elland Road where festivities were only beginning to get underway.

Club captain Ethan Ampadu's antics on board the open-top bus have since earned him a place in Leeds United folklore and his jubilating did not finish with the Whites' tour of the city. He and Patrick Bamford climbed atop one of the tables at Elland Road, sung terrace chants in honour of their teammates, as well as a rendition of Natasha Bedingfield's 'Unwritten', which according to the skipper was a duet performed during Leeds' pre-season tour of Germany.

An all-day party, fuelled by adrenaline, a drink made famous by Leeds' minority shareholder and the success of a 100-point Championship title was just about enough for some members of the squad, in particular those with young children, who sought the refuge of home comforts, requiring time to recuperate before an end-of-season trip to Las Vegas.

Others, including those also with young children, took a different view.

"We got a call from one of the guys at the club asking if they could come down for a couple of drinks," Karl Whitley, general manager of Katie O'Brien's Leeds branch told the YEP.

"They wanted somewhere a bit more fun and lively."

By this point in the day, Leeds fans had begun to file into the bars and restaurants lining the parade route, while others had left the city altogether.

Whitley said it would be no issue hosting the team.

"We got the hit from the parade from 2pm-8pm. Everywhere on Greek Street got a hit. At about 5ish, people started to dissipate," he added.

Fan favourite Junior Firpo took to social media, posting a short but effective message to supporters on his Instagram story: 'Stay in town'. Upon arriving at Katie O'Brien's, the advance party was made up of 20 or so Leeds players and staff. According to Whitley, that grew to around 50 or 60 by the time word got back to Elland Road.

"We kept the capacity manageable so the players were comfortable and weren't getting mobbed. There was a point we had to shut the doors to make sure it didn't get out of hand," he said.

Prior to this, Jayden Bogle took to Instagram; he had started a livestream.

Jack Calvert and fiancee Poppy had been in City Square during the parade before heading for cover inside the West Riding pub on Wellington Street. It was whilst inside, digesting the day's events, that Bogle went live. Recognising the backdrop at Katie O'Brien's, Calvert and his party made for the Irish tavern.

"We went over and got in about five minutes before they stopped letting people in," he told the YEP. "I knew a couple [of people] in the smoking area outside which I think helped our case whilst waiting. Maybe it looked like we were supposed to be there, I don't know, but I rode the wave."

Along with a select number of other lucky Leeds fans, they had secured entry to the most exclusive party in town, which hadn't yet reached its climax.

"It was a little bit manic when all the fans descended on us," Katie O'Brien's general manager Whitley said, but there were no issues to report. Leeds' 'very experienced' security team, with whom Whitley is familiar, ensured of that.

Another who'd managed to squeeze their way into Leeds' after-hours afterparty was Joe Brennan, whose trip home to visit family and friends from his base in Madrid had coincided with the Whites' final two games of the season and subsequent title parade.

"Absolutely nuts," he recalled to the YEP. "[I] was inside for the last part, just as Patrick Bamford and [Largie] Ramazani sat down to sing '500 Miles'."

An avid and skilled musician, Bamford had approached Katie O'Brien's manager with a request earlier in the night.

"We had an open mic on at the time," Whitley began. "Bamford came up and said 'Firpo wants to sing 'La Bamba'. I can play guitar and he knows the lyrics'. It was the first time I'd spoken to him [Bamford], very polite, very well-spoken."

According to a source, as Bamford made his request, Firpo was occupied at the other end of the bar, drinking from a bottle of tequila rose and 'singing his name over and over'. When Bamford took charge of the open mic with his acoustics, serenading one half of the city centre establishment, Firpo had joined forces with his full-back partner Bogle at the other end of the bar. In amongst their renditions of popular Leeds chants, the pair led a recital of The Cranberries' well-known hit 'Zombie'.

Before the night was done, more videos emerged of the players stood atop wooden benches on Greek Street, orchestrating a starry and glassy-eyed crowd, coining new chants of their own.

For Katie O'Brien's, general manager Karl Whitley described it as a 'good, little off-the-cuff event' and a 'fantastic advert' for the bar which opened its present location last October and plans to launch three more across Yorkshire.

"We're inoffensive, good craic, we've got live music, it's more preferable to a lot of people these days," he said. "A couple of the [Leeds] lads were in the other Tuesday night, just for a quiet drink.

"I think the age of footballers going into VIP sections of clubs and all that pizzazz is gone."

Without doubt, if the current Leeds crop hadn't endeared themselves to supporters through their performances on the pitch, they most certainly will have done with their title parade antics. The response to United's club captain letting loose in front of hundreds of thousands of fans, after a season of outstandingly consistent displays, has been overwhelmingly positive - a collective acknowledgement of the effort expended justifying a once-in-a-generation celebration.

As for the mastermind behind Leeds' impromptu after-party, United's Katie O'Brien's regular is apparently departing chief executive Angus Kinnear. According to general manager Whitley, the soon-to-be Everton employee 'comes in a lot' and will have had a hand in arranging the Leeds vanguard's reconnaissance mission, scoping out somewhere celebrations could continue long into the night.

Those who participated won't forget in a hurry, while videos and photographs of one of the most celebrated days in Leeds' recent history will be immortalised. And quite rightly, so will the players who made it possible.