Saturday, September 23, 2006

Tide turns... 19k spot optimism!

Since Kevin Blackwell has been sacked, I had picked up on a wave of positive energy from Leeds fans and even started to think about going to today's game against Championship leaders, Birmingham.

Such was the depressive cloud over the club and has been there for some time, it really had kept me away - given I'd spent the last 20yrs (or at at least a fair majority) more or less at most home games barring travel, sickness and new children.

Anyway after hastily arranging to meet Craig from Game Republic, I picked him up near the ground and we headed towards "Fortress Elland Road".

First things first (after an ice-cold Guinness of course) was to witness some trouble kicking off in the Peacock Pub, next to Elland Rd... but it seemed like hand-bags and despite the hordes of Keystone Cops running Ealing-comedy wise over the car-park, it quickly was over - there was so few people around that even the Kaiser Chief's couldn't have predicted a riot.

So into the ground via the bar, a Liverpool performance on flat screens and a Potato & Meat pie (what the hell happened to a "Meat and Potato pie"?) before breaking the urinal seal and scrambling to our seat from the wrong end, making everyone stand up when we could have just annoyed 1-2 people from the other end.. but I DID ask which was the best end to get to our seat...

Then the game. What can I say? Leeds shooting on sight, players in position, crowd up for it, team up for it, lots of shots, incidents, goals, noise (even with a paltry <19k attendance) and ultimately a 3-2 victory which was just about deserved against a strong side.

Even was even (just about) worth the expense of the tickets we had in the best part of the ground and with the Guinness & Cider involved it just had to make for a top afternoon. I hope they can keep it going if only to have a few more afternoons with Craig and soon, Tim Smith.

Nice one. We'll need a few more in the ground to do the full "Marching on Together" but for now, there's certainly a bunch gathering steam :-)

No comments: