Archive for December, 2009

Leeds United: GG’s Monday Talking Point, the future is white.

Dec 28th, 09 / Comments Off

 

Your reading a pre 2010-11 archived article

In this weeks column Clarkeonenil’s Monday columnist Graeme Garvey gets a bit giddy (too much time in Woodies me thinks – Ed).

Will Saturday’s 3-1 win over Hartlepool be our last home game against them in the league? With all due respect, I hope so. We managed well enough never to play them in the league throughout all our history until we slipped into League One and we ought to manage ok once we go our separate ways again at the end of this season. The one comfort of playing them is that we have never lost, with seven wins and one draw including cup ties. A comfort, yes but consolation, no. I doubt if, in years to come, Leeds fans yet to be born will ask us to tell them ‘all about when we came from 1-0 down to beat Hartlepool’.

That said, though, any win is pleasing and the winning habit is addictive. However impressive topping the league looks, you think how much better it is going to look with even more victories to our credit. In that sense, beating teams like Hartlepool is becoming routine and it is such a good feeling to no longer be a team that the minnows love to play. Did we really lose to Histon? Shock results and giant killing acts are the stuff of football, stopping it being a boring game like rugby union where the stronger team always seems to come through in the end. But I no longer have the sinking feeling when we play one of the less fancied teams that another embarrassment is on the cards, especially away. We visit Hartlepool on February 6th with every expectation of winning what, we hope, is our last game against them – ever. Then it will be Bon Voyage Hartlepool! To be honest, I’ve never liked playing against places where they hang monkeys as French spies.

Saturday’s win and today’s match against Stockport take us to 23 games and the half-way point in the season. We can reflect on a job well half-done. With the year and decade now at an end, it is also an opportunity to look back just a little, with some pride in having gone so far in the Champions’ League but still much bewilderment at how we came to plunge down to League One. It is also baffling how nobody ended up in prison for losing so much of the club’s money and we’re talking about millions and millions of pounds! Overall, it is better to look forward to what the next decade might bring. We ought to be back in the Premiership before long and, if England’s World Cup bid is successful, playing in a modern 50,000-seater stadium. Leeds is a bustling city and can easily accommodate a top club, as has been shown in the past. That is always crucial if a team is to be successful in the long term, even if the smaller town clubs like Burnley do well for a time. Not only that, but Leeds United is a club with both a national and an international fan base. Two of the last three home games have seen attendances over 30,000 and, along with the big crowds returning to Elland Road, it will be fascinating to see how many supporters go to Wembley if we beat Carlisle. 40,000? 50,000 perhaps? How nice it will be to have a day out with the hope of winning and nothing at all to lose, for once.

The future looks a heck of a lot brighter now than in those dark days and what impresses is the all-round sense of a club with genuine momentum. No resting on our laurels. As Buzz said, ‘To infinity…and beyond!’

Monday Talking Point

Sniffers Sunday Shorts 27/12/09: Leeds United, Liverpool, Wolves, Ipswich Town, Charlton Athletic, Preston North End, Stockport County, Cheltenham Town, Torquay United, Manchester City.

Dec 27th, 09 / Comments Off
soon to be notsoplainmoor.

soon to be notsoplainmoor.

Welcome to the Sunday edition of Sniffer Nose, a punchier version of your favourite occasional column.

Do it on the big stage.

So one week on and the Beckford fan club are purring again. I’ll try to be charitable, it was up to Beckford to recover from his stupidity and giving a team assisting performance on top of his 1.5 goals is what was needed (although I do tire of the way the occasional non selfish Beckford performance gets treated like the second coming of Christ). However still some to do: let’s see him perform against a PL side and in front of the national stage, call it a goodbye present to the fans by scoring at Old Trafford.

Getting desperate.

A sure sign of the desperation at Anfield was the behaviour of Benetiz and Reina in ensuring the Wolves went down to 10 (more of in next segment). Why the Spanish goalkeeper felt the other 10 Liverpool players weren’t gobbie enough heavens knows. Add in the deluded garbage the manager spouts that equates home wins against Wigan and Wolves as the equivalent of winning the title and once gain all your thought turn to wondering when we can lose this lunatic from the English game. The facts remain that anything other than a victory at Villa Park means Liverpool should be more concerned about being overtaken by Fulham than chasing for 4th.

Unfair treatment.

Wolves have a case of the Ward sending off, not about the mistaken identity (or more like sheer incompetence) by Marriner, but the fact the referee felt the need to pull out a card anyway. You see if that had being Steven Gerrard we know he would have left his card in his pocket, like he did on 3 occasions when the No1 scouse giet made some blatant wild tackles. Ward on the other hand who isn’t given the same leeway made two non descript tackles and is off. There is no place in this country for refereeing based on who the tackler is, and it’s about time the managers of the other clubs made that clear.

Over Keane.

Another classic example of bizarre refereeing came at Selhurst Park. Before Taylor interfered the game was even, after Ipswich Town lost a ten match unbeaten run. Even Warnock said it was a bad decision, although he failed to criticise his players for running in like cretins after the tackle (which looked not even a yellow). I’ll tell you how bad it is, I agree with Roy Keane when he said: “I’m still amazed when people seem to enjoy seeing players get sent off. Some players get involved when they should have nothing to do with it. Other players, other managers, trying to get players sent off. It’s ridiculous. That’s the horrible side of football”.

Take control.

Preston North End lost their Boxing Day game due to “safety reasons”, let’s examine this a little further. The pitch was fit, the stands were safe, the roads in Preston open, so what was the problem. Apparently it was the pavements that weren’t safe, now maybe I’m being reckless here but why was that allowed to disrupt a professional sports event? Do the Police think people can’t take into account the conditions around a football ground as they approach it? How many accidents in a crowd of 10k would accrue, 5, 10? Get a grip someone and take controol of some common sense.

Have you thought of chemicals?

Sometimes however players do remind you how stupid they can be. Already down to 10 men against Swindon Town, already booked, Charlton striker Deon Burton goes and does a Maradona by punching the ball whilst going up with the Swindon goalie; utter idiocy. Sometimes you wonder whether the only way to stop this generation of mindless footballers is to have them injected once a week with something to stimulate their dead brains. Hit him Mr Parkinson where even a man of limited intelligence will feel it, in the wallet.

Dying on its knees.

Occasional you come across a team that in terms of ownership, of club and ground, is more complex than even Leeds United. Add in a run of results on the pitch so dire that its frightening and that’s where Stockport County reside. Protest marches notwithstanding it looks like the end of a professional league club in that part of Cheshire is imminent. If the Leeds home game tomorrow is off that will potentially be the end having had no home league game since December 12th whilst cash-flow is tight. Sometimes it’s just right not to call from afar why these things happen and instead hope that Stockport make it to season end and can rebuild from whichever division they are in.

Planning for demotion.

Question for any Cheltenham Town fans out there, are the club planning for the Conference? I ask this because recent events seem to suggest so. The appointment of a Conference manager, following the debacle that saw Martin Allen removed for being innocent, suggests the board have resigned themselves to relegation and are planning for a new part-time future. I realise that arousing the locals of that gentile town to care for the club is hard but please whilst Grimsby Town are in the condition they are in at least show some fight!

In praise of bouncing back.

If Cheltenham need a model for planning for relegation followed by promotion they need look no further than Torquay United (and as posh towns the analogy works there also). Paul Buckle has done a grand job rebuilding from relegation and despite some early season struggles the club is now established in L2 and in the third round of the FA cup with a chance of a shock against Brighton. Fair play to him and the rest of the set-up there, good to see what can be done with good planning.

Get down the bookies.

What do the following have in common? Wolves, Blackburn Rovers, Everton, Stoke City, Portsmouth, Hull City, Bolton Wanderers?. Answer; Manchester City’s next 7 league opponents. Now I tell you this from where I’m sitting that’s 19-21 points in the bag for Mancini. Given that City start the new year 10 points, with a game in hand, behind Chelsea, that they have the best loss record in this season wide open PL title chase (where it seems no-one really wants to win it), a little punt on them winning it, at something like 40-1 now, well worth it. What that set of fixtures also does is silence the xenophobic element in the press who think a tactical lightweight like Mark Hughes can be equated with Mancini’s quality.

The Other 91 Basket Cases

Leeds United: Clarkeonenil’s Xmas message.

Dec 23rd, 09 / Comments Off

 

Mole's special friend

Christmas is a strange time, in life and in football, it can be the best of occasions or the worst of impositions. It is also a reflective time, one to see beyond the glamour and glitter of shops and to notice the passing hobo. As I sit down with the privilege that is my wife and kids on Xmas day I will also, as is my want, reflect on those, too numerous to mention here, who perhaps might not have quite a good as day.

Let me introduce you to someone, by no means the most extreme example of misfortune I know but nevertheless still worthy of mention. For the benefit of this piece let’s call him Mole. Said person is a lot of things in personality terms but he is also a Leeds United supporter. Now I don’t know everything about this lad, I really don’t know anything about what he has been doing over the last few months, except the titbits that have made it through the grapevine, but none of that matters in this context. Mole is a good lad, heart in the right place and a man whose life has outrageous highs and lows and he is also a symbol of how life, and particularly following Leeds, is unkind.

Mole is spending this Xmas either at home in rented accommodation in a seedy part of Leeds, or in a hospital ward, or in the bosom of his family who live overseas or in a cave somewhere east of Krakow. Its probably one of the first two but either way chances are he isn’t at his physical peak. Despite being only in his 40’s the gods of health have not been kind to Mole, imposing a serious breathing condition on top of an already existing body that has lived life to the full. Factor in a personality that attracts “friction” and the one thing he can never get is peace and quiet.

Mole, like a lot of us, came to Leeds United before he ever knew his Beeston from his Bramley, and like those of us like that has more loyalty in his little finger to the club than 99% of born lioners. He has lived the last 15 years, the highs of the CL semi, the lows of the administration and -15 points with an equal amount of fortitude. Along the way he has acquired a million friends, some he has kept, some he has lost, some he has buggered off in a tizzy that no-one but him understands. Mole doesn’t get back what he gives but in some ways he wouldn’t be happy if he did, he only wants it replicated by those really special to him.

Now I wouldn’t want you to get the impression that Mole is perfect, a million taxi drivers will testify otherwise. He is also guilty of one of the worst crimes against humanity I can imagine, being one of the mid-wife’s of the curse of Squmotaccoe. But we can ignore that, its finding out he has the brain the size of a planet hidden behind his spiky facade that can wind you up. His other contributions to the world of Leeds United either are still too raw even for him to reference or too current to be useful to mention. However in the round his general contribution is bigger and more significant than a 100 more media savvy/whorey types out there. The experience of the 00’s would have been lesser without him.

So why am I telling you all this? Well because as I ponder the atheist version of the meaning of Xmas I am drawn to his memory. I am also a bit soft in the head, prone to a belief that if you articulate something you can make it possible. Whilst I could name a million positives I’d love in my life in 2010 I think I can spare a couple for Mole, may the fates bring him a better year than the one gone by. Without the Mole’s of this world all we a left with is the bland and boring, nonexistent omnipotent being save us from such hell.

When I raise my glass over Xmas dinner I will silently toast my pal Mole (and wish to buy him a pint in the Vic one day), anyone thinks they have him or a similar character in their life, why not do the same over your Xmas meal?

Football through a hardened glare