The last time we played Leeds, 3000 Brentford fans were plotted up in Elland Road out singing their hearts out for the entire 90 minutes .. with Wojciech Szczęsny in goal for the Bees and Doncaster manager Paul Dikov coming off the bench for Leeds.
There has been a lot of water under the bridge since and BillytheBee catches up with David Watkins (@DaveLUFCWatkins) – author of the Leeds travel biogs In Pursuit of The premiership who has only missed a couple of games home and away in the last 4 seasons – about owner Cellino’s ambition to drive the team bus … playing his £500k rated dead granny alongside Ross McCormack … how Real Madrid influenced his team .. and whatever you do, don’t mention the number 17.
Do you remember your first game ?
Just about despite the gradual onset of old age! It was at the Hawthorns, West Bromwich in 1968, a 1 – 1 draw with Eddie Gray scoring our goal. That was the time of the great Revie team that everyone remembers as Sprake, Reaney, Cooper, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles, and Gray and Paul Madeley of course. Clarke hadn’t joined us until the following summer. We have lived in the shadow of that side ever since but it is part of the reason why so many football “fans” of all teams still regard Leeds as one of the main teams even though we’ve been out of the top flight for well over ten years now!
We still live on the history!
You have had a so so start to the season. Losses to Millwall, Brighton and Watford have been followed by happier days with wins against the likes of Huddersfield, Muff and Bolton. Do you think things have settled down for you now???
I think we all underestimated the time it takes to gel a new side. We’ve brought 15 new players in and got rid of many of last years team. Many of the new players are foreign (mostly Italian) and several only joined us after those early games. We had a new manager too, Dave Hockaday, who was a bloke none of us had heard of when he arrived.
Pre-season was a bit of a joke – they went to Italy with just 20 players and then one of the teams we were supposed to play didn’t turn up! I think everyone now agrees the job was too big and pressurized for Hockaday but even so you couldn’t expect us to start getting results on day one with a new side. And we didn’t.
We made Millwall look good on day one; just scraped past Accrington; got a lucky win v Boro and then were outclassed by Brighton and Watford.
We also had a few red cards along the way that continued to disrupt the selection. Luke Murphy got a red early v Bradford in the COC but we should probably have still won it – taking the lead in the last few minutes only to see the home side hit a worldie in the top corner and then give away a poor goal to lose 2 – 1. Hockaday was sacked the day after!
But Cellino, our Italian Stallion, put Neil Redfearn in charge while he pondered his next move and the one change he immediately made was to bring in 17 year old Lewis Cook and 19 year old Alex Mowatt – both products of our academy that Redfearn knew well (Redders runs the academy). We started to pass the ball around and our energy levels improved dramatically.
We were still “raw” and the passing game was a bit stop-start but gradually it is now coming together. Bolton outplayed us for long periods but we nicked a one goal win; Brum did the same in the first half but we grabbed a draw; and then at Bournemouth they battered us for thirty minutes but only got 1 goal. The second half was one of those games where we could do no wrong – a break away goal got us level, a centre back (Bellusci) who’d only ever scored 1 in 8 years hit a worldie free kick and then when they chased the game we picked em off again for a 3 – 1 win.
The last game v The Dog Botherers (that’s Huddersfield to the rest of us – Ed) was our first real “performance” of the season and for long spells we were outstanding. We still had a few weak moments but much better for a 3 – 0 win. To most of us we appear to be improving with every game and for the first time in years we are now good to watch. Im seriously hoping we do not change what we were doing on Saturday under the new manager.
Your new manager Darko Milanic. What’s the score there? Didn’t exactly set the world alight with Sturm Graz. Is he any good?
The short answer is “who knows?” He’d only been at Sturm for one season. He was at Maribor in Slovenia for 5 years and won everything there. He’s come with his assistant Novica Nikcevic and the Bees match is their first game.
Interestingly in his presser this week Milanic says he will keep Redfearn in the dug out and involved so I hope we continue along the same road.
His favoured formation is a straight 4-4-2 apparently. We love to play beautiful attacking football … 4-1-4-1 … playing the ball on the floor .. passing the opposition to death .. but quite often failing to create as many chances up front as we would like. How do you think the two teams will shape up on the battlefront?
It sounds as though you already play how we are trying to. The difference may be we do now have a few lads up front who can actually take a chance in Antenucci and Doukara. We still don’t create many chances though.
I would guess we will play with our recent diamond formation with Lewis Cook deep and Rudy Austin marauding just behind the front two. At Bournemouth though we went 4 – 3 – 3 with three recognised strikers!
Your owner Massimo Cellino … is he really bonkers? Or is that just a charade
Yes he is! BUT not a lot of people realise that he was trained as an accountant! Hence he has transformed the finances of the club from losing £1m a month to a more stable situation.
He has done it by sacking most of the admin people at the club though. It is now a nightmare to get an answer on the phone or to an email and the website is full of typos and errors!
He has these two particular superstitions: He hates the number 17 considering it unlucky. If you have a player wearing 17 he won’t like it. Apparently it stems from a road crash he was involved in that took place on the 17th with a car that had 17 in its registration.
He also hates the colour purple – famously banning players from staying in one of the top hotels in Leeds because it had a purple colour scheme (that must be The Malmaison – I stayed there once and the Leeds team were staying there .. on the night of a home match. I thought that was a bit strange – Ed)!!!!
He has had a few convictions for financial misdemeanors and of course everyone is waiting to see if the Football League try to throw him out if he is proved to have been “dishonest” in his latest case that he lost earlier this year – failing to pay VAT on a yacht he himself was sailing into Italian waters. This has been in the news this week.
Most people believe it will take years to resolve…at least we are hoping so.
Other than that he plays guitar in his own band which performs live in Italy and he famously took to the stage at the annual awards dinner at the end of last season to play with the Pigeon Detectives. There is a great YouTube video of that knocking around – he’s pretty good!
He also wants to be involved in every aspect of the club from, as he puts it, “From mowing the pitch … to driving the bus”!
You’ve had a history of bonkers owners. How does he compare to the infamous Ken Bates?
The vast majority of Leeds fans hated Bates while I gauge that the majority love Cellino (though not everyone though).
Bates was in it to make money and hoped he’d do it by buying it cheap and getting it to the gravy train in the Premership.
Cellino (I think) is in it for his ego. He was with Cagliari for 22 years and from what everyone says he knows his football. He is (apparently) a rich man – he owns corn fields in Sardinia – and I get the impression he just loves the adoration of the fans whereas Bates couldn’t give a t*ss about us and regularly told us so.
Previous (I could even say interim .. but that’s a bit mean) manager Dave Hockaday. Do you feel sorry for him?
I do! If you were offered the chance to be head coach at Leeds would you turn it down? No, of course not.
I also think he did a good job in getting the players fit and in laying the foundations that we may just be seeing come to fruition now.
He also took such a lot of abuse from Leeds fans who thought he just “wasn’t good enough” for us – you know, a non-league bloke coming to the mighty Leeds.
Cellino says he felt sorry for him too, telling us that in the end he had to sack him to save him from the pressure as he couldn’t cope. I don’t think the Hock did much wrong but I think I’m in the minority there.
It’s ironic that you bashed up Huddersfield 3-0 recently as they tried to take you over in your early days – your first kit being blue and white stripes. Don Revie flipped you to all white in the 60’s in a hope you would emulate Real Madrid. Did that work out for you?
Have you noticed how many teams have switched to all white in the last few years again? Spurs, Fulham, even England and countless others. Revie was another superstitious man of course (he had a fear of birds and hence the old owl badge eventually disappeared).
Last season our home kit had a bloody great blue stripe down the middle and the fans hated it! We looked like a cigarette packet (Embassy Regal) we were all clamoring for a more “all white” kit which we duly got this year. There is a feeling that we hardly ever win in our gold away strip and we’ve not even played in our second “all blue” strip yet.
For the record we’ve only won one away game this season (Bournemouth) and we wore white!
Ross McCormack went to F*lham for £11m. Do Leeds fans feel that F*lham got rinsed or is that a fair price?
Ha ha ha ha! Unbelievable price! They took big Matt Smith too and he got sent off on his debut while Mac has scored just two – both last week at Forest (Actually he scored there .. unfortunately, he got off the mark in our limp encounter with F*lham at Griffin Park in the League Cup – Ed) If Ross is worth £11m then my Granny is worth £500,000….and she’s been dead twenty years!
What were your coming and goings this summer?
As noted already we have 15 new players, mostly foreign. Some we haven’t yet seen on the pitch including Adryan, the Brazilian youngster who is reportedly worth £3.5m
The best so far have been the keeper Silvestri who has only had one dodgy game so far. His lady Sofia Jamal Eddine may be in the crowd…she is an Italian fashion model!
The Warrior Peppe Bellusci scored that marvellous free kick at Goldsands. He almost scored with an amazing chip v Huddersfield having run the length of the pitch (Antenucci put in the rebound when it hit the bar). The player is is quality. He is a bit loose at the back mind and is just as likely to bring his man down and get booked – he’s already been red-carded v Watford.
You wont see Berardi as he got sent off v Huddersfield (he’s a dodgy tackler too).
Antenucci and Doukara up front look class finishers and Bianchi in midfield is getting better all the time. We have seen little glimpses of quality from most of them but seldom do we put it all together – when we do we will batter someone!
We have got rid of Paddy Kenny (depending on who you believe, Cellino got rid of him either becasue he came back from pre-season weighing in at 17 stone or because he was born on 17th of the month!), Tom Lees (you’ll see him v Wednesday), Danny Pugh, Michael Brown, Matt Smith, Diouf, Zalliukas, Dom Poleon, Cameron Stewart, Jimmy Kebe (Hoorah) and Ross Mac plus a few of the junior players.
(Blimey – your owner has got it bad. Warburton should seriously consider just fielding 6 subs making our team 17 players. Cellino will freak out. It will be like kriptonite. He might even forfeit the match or something – Ed)
For the Bees, Pritchard (on loan from Spurs) is a quality attacking midfielder. Striker Gray (£500k from Luton) and winger Odubajo (£1m from Orient) can be devastating on their day – fast and tricky. Ex Leeds midfielder Douglas has always been solid for us but has really risen to the occasion in midfield this season since the departure of League 1 Player of the Year Adam Forshaw to Wigan. Alan Judge (signed from Blackburn) is enthusiastic and tricky .. and loves a shot. We also have three Spanish tricky midfielders … Jota … Tebar … and Toral as well as one Portugese striker on loan from Sporting Lisbon – Betinho. We’re absolutely delighted to have two players on our books with the customary hispanic football player solo name.
Sounds like you have an exciting side you’re developing. Forgot to say we also have Lewis Cook in midfield – 17 years old but plays like an old un and Rudy Austin – if he has a good game is unstoppable.
There is some survey out there saying that Leeds is the team in England with the most fan rivals. Is that true?
We will sing ourselves “We all hate Leeds scum” mimicking what we tend to hear wherever we go. I think we are a Marmite team – you either love us or hate us.
As I said so many football watchers of a certain age (mine!) remember that Revie team that was undoubtedly one of the best of all time. It also got that tag “Dirty Leeds” of course as players like Hunter, Charlton, Bremner and Giles were said to be “hard”.
All I know is that wherever you go you will not go far before you meet a Leeds “fan”. We are like rats and accountants … you are never far away from either!
You’ve been to Griffin Park once in the last 60 years. Back in 2009 – a 0-0 draw. Fond memories of that trip bar the lack of goalmouth action?
I didn’t make that trip and this is my first visit. Everyone tells me I will love the experience. I know Leeds fans from down south who hail from near Brentford and who either went regularly themselves or who have or had family members that did.
I travelled to see Leeds a fair bit back when Brentford weren’t playing back in the Yeboah era. He was quality. Who was your fave ever Leeds player?
Too many to mention! I did always have a soft spot for Gordon Strachan though. The best times I had at Leeds were when we got promoted under Howard Wilkinson and Strachan was a key leader in that team along with Vinnie Jones. But you know….I loved every one of them from every era…..except Jimmy Kebe!
I actually met Lucas Radebe at a Kaiser Chiefs match v Moroko Swallows match in Johnannesburg 10 or so years ago. Lovely bloke. He got his wallet pickpocketed by a Chiefs fan as I took a photo with him. Some say he was the finest Leeds defender since the Revie era. Fair assessment?
You are right he is a great bloke. I was lucky enough to have a chat with him last season when he came to Leeds to publicize his latest book. And yes, that’s a fair assessment. Woodgate and Ferdinand was a good partnership too but that fell apart.
I remember going to see Leeds put Birmingham out of the FA cup the day after Brentford gloriously dumped Norwich out of the cup at Carrow Road. That was a tremendous dubble-bubble weekend for me as Birmingham were big BIG rivals of ours back in the day. What is your most memorable match??
My most memorable match is probably the Bristol Rovers game when we won promotion from League One. I was there with my eldest son and his girlfriend;
Elland Road was packed out and we all expected to be celebrating at the end. Then we went a goal down and had Max Gradel stupidly sent off and it looked as though we’d blown it.
Howson came on and got an equaliser and then Jermaine Beckford (another cult figure in Leeds) got the winner in what we knew was most likely his last game and he was skipper for the day.
We are all dreaming of a similar day as we win promotion back to the Prem which most of us still regard as our rightful place.
Can you see glory days returning?
We wouldn’t have kept the faith these disastrous last few years if not!
Brentford fans were particularly peeved paying £31 to get into Boro at the weekend. That’s the most we’ve ever paid for a league match. Leeds get it bad. Because they are a popular fan base, they always get charged the highest prices for away games – £40 for Ipswich so I hear. Do you think is it fair that you are changed more the more popular team you are???
No it is totally wrong. I think away tickets in general are too expensive. There was a movement started last season called “Twenty is plenty” which was trying to get all clubs to standardise the price at £20 quid because it recognised that travel costs are so high these days – whatever happened to that? (It’s still going strong as you can see in this article we wrote … I was in fact part of a delegation who met with the Premier League and Football League at the beginning of the season regarding this – Ed)
It is the Norwich game for us that has just been announced as £40 which is bonkers. They have given us 2,000 tickets and I know we will sell out but it is ridiculous to penalise us for our loyalty and passion.
We are as bad. I think we still charge £36 to most away fans and the spot we give you over in the old West Stand is one of the worst views you will ever get in football anywhere!
And here’s our made in Leeds corner ….
Brian Clough or Don Revie?
You are having a laugh! Revie!
Paul Robinson or Nigel Martyn?
Nigel Martyn
Back2Basics or Cream
Our cream is on the rise!
Mel B or Olympic gold medal boxer Nicola Adams
Couldn’t give a flying fig!
Chris Moyles or Jeremy Paxman
Moyles…he’s as creative with his tax affairs as Massimo Cellino!
Leeds Carnival or Notting Hill Carnival
If we score you may hear: “Leeds United Calypso!”
Head to head, Leeds are ahead winning 11 games to the Bees’ 7 with 10 games drawn. Do you think you can carry your run on?
If we play to our Huddersfield standard we could come out on top by quite some margin but if you are as good as you say I’ll take a point
Give us a score prediction
Bees 2 Leeds 4
What are your expectations for Leeds this season
…. realistically?
Cellino has always said that promotion in 2 years was his goal. I have seen enough of the Championship already to tell me there is some rubbish in it again this season.
Seeing the way we played on Saturday, I believe a top 6 finish is quite possible and anything less would now be a big disappointment.
Here’s to a great game of football and I wish you guys all the very best for the season once we have got Saturday out of the way. I also hope it is not too cold for you southern softies in Leeds in February!
Best wishes!
Beesotted would like to thank David Watkins (@DaveLUFCWatkins) for taking time out to give us the full SP on Leeds … You can check his page on Amazon here
BillytheBee
@billythebee99
Check out the Leeds United Pre-match podcast LIVE from the pub at 2pm on Beesotted Audioboom channel (click here)
You can catch the Beesotted pre-match guide to Leeds by clicking here
Pubs in Brentford
For Leeds fans coming down, you are probably aware there plenty of pub options pre-match. There four pubs around the ground. The Griffin is closest to the away end and is very popular with away fans – but also very busy. The New Inn is on the other side is also popular with away fans. The Princess Royal and The Royal Oak (normally home fans only) are the other two options.
Other pubs slightly further afield for the more creative amongst you include (and this is by no means a definitive list) the … The Globe (Windmill Rd) & The Lord Nelson (Enfield Rd) – both incredibly friendly and cozy away-frienly pubs .. frequented by away fans in the know – and The Plough (Northfields Ave) in Northfields is a decent stop-off if you are coming by tube to Northfields before making your way down to the ground (normally stopping off at The Globe and Lord Nelson en route).
For ale head to the Magpie and Stump real ale pub on Brentford High Street. The Royal Horseguardsman can probably hold 15 of you at a push. The Brewery Tap is a cosy boozer by the river. There are loads more too.
A quick google search and you’ll find them all. There are many many more too if you have an early start (or all evening) …
