Michael Green (Editor): “Michael is a 47 year old Yorkshireman who lives in South West London with his wife and children; he occasionally works in lobbying and likes real ale, single malt and saying it like it is”. Not exactly the most informative of personal profiles but it’s all you need and it’s all you’re going to get. As a lifelong Leeds United fan, some years going to every game, some years not as many, I am therefore blessed with complete piece of mind and special luck, or if I am I have somehow missed it. There are worse clubs to support. Three times in my life my club has won the ultimate English football prize, it has reached the semi-final/final stages of the big European cups 6 times and the show-piece domestic trophy finals 5 times. Since 1963 it has been in the top division for 34 seasons, most of them in the top half. What a great ying.

The yang? Well, a bit of a reputation fans wise with some of it surpassing feral, the first ever Premier League financial meltdown, Peter Ridsdale, Ken Bates (our World Class Shyster) and others providing us with an endless supply of iffy owners, a recent introduction to the third level (now happily behind us), some of the worst football ever to be inflicted on living souls (special place in the hall of infamy to Kevin Blackwell and Dennis Wise for that), 3 play-off disasters in 4 seasons, lost grounds, lost training pitches, lost pride. Put it all together and you have a permanent market for prozac.

 Thank god for the the occasional day like January 3rd 2010 and the slow progress back., the present secret ownership are still a disgrace however.

Graeme Garvey:  West Riding born and bred, I was lucky enough to see the Revie Boys at their peak – If only they had played without fear, they would have won many more than just the six trophies. When I went to university I made sure I applied to the places Leeds played most. Ending up at Liverpool I was, at first, mystified by Scousers calling Billy Bremner a ‘swass’.

Upon hearing rumours Jimmy Adamson was going to manage Leeds, I emigrated to Wales and took up farming. That was where I developed my (possibly extreme) ideas about crowd control.

I returned to England in its time of crisis (Thatcher had just been re-elected) and taught for a number of years developing my (possibly extreme) views on pest control.

I edit, write and publish books. Two have been about Leeds United; ‘Fanthology’ and ‘Doolally’.

My favourite-ever Leeds players are Tony Currie, Eddie Gray and Gary McAllister; flair players and crowd pleasers.

My main football dislike, apart from the less-than-healthy running of the club, is probably the lazy national press, especially theTimes, Independent and such like who trot out the tired old ‘Dirty Leeds’ rubbish at the slightest excuse.

Darragh Mullen: An actual member of the Beaten Generation of Leeds fans having only supported them through the bad and being too young to remember the good years of the turn of the Millennium. Living in Ireland and still attending Secondary School (for 1 more year anyway) my games per Season are quite limited although I sure do pick’em with the Millwall 4-2 a couple of seasons back and more recently attending a game in Old Trafford on January the 3rd I have actually never seen Leeds lose a game! That being said I’ve only ever seen them in the third tier of English Football so it will be interesting to see how my run continues as we move up the divisions.

Clarke is my first attempt at any sort of thing journalistic and I’m sure that shows but I attempt to try put across the view of both the younger generation of fans as well as the overseas fan and so far haven’t had as much criticism as perhaps expected/deserved.

Favourite players would only have been over the last 10 years so include childhood hero’s such as Viduka, Harte, Kewell at the time but obviously not anymore and Smith perhaps somewhat controversially. 

Footballing hates include Harry Redknapp, Harry Kewell, Turkish football and fans by name only that are all too common in Ireland.

Having only ever supported Leeds through the Downs I am now expecting the Ups I hear about in the song and am a firm believer of Tiocfaidh ár Lá (Our Day will Come)! After a great Season of 09/10 this Season will be the most exciting there has been in the last couple of years.

Paul Hatt: was born in the World Cup year of 1962 on the day Fulham lost 2-0 to Sheffield United in the old League Division One. Some 48 years later and I’m still watching the men in White from Craven Cottage. I’ve seen them play in all four divisions of the professional league and for the most part my years watching Fulham have been outside the top flight. Although there was a losing FA Cup Final in 1975 to West Ham as a highlight……

The takeover by Chairman Mo towards the back end of the 90’s changed everything and after a couple of promotions, we started the 2001/02 season in the Premier League. Somehow we are still there and 2009/10 saw the unthinkable as we reached the Europa League Final.

In 1991 I move North and have been in Leeds ever since. I don’t get to see the Fulham Whites as much as I would like, but I have in the last 19 years been attending games at Elland Road, so have shared in the glory of the Champions League run and the despair of life in League One.

I’m a believer in supporting the team where you were born, so my son who is Leeds born and bred, has Leeds United as his team. I hope he gets to see his team hit the heights that Leeds rich history holds.

In terms of writing, I’ve contributed to the football books ‘Fanthology’ and ‘Doolally’.

Away from football, you can find me treading the boards at The Carriageworks Theatre in Leeds where I have taken part in productions for the Cosmopolitan Players and Leeds Children’s Theatre.

Favourite Fulham memory: April 2010, 2-1 win in Europa League Semi-Final against Hamburg. Never felt anything like that during the 90 minutes of the game and the feeling for days afterwards.

Football dislikes:

• MK Franchise FC – a disgrace that they exist and the appalling decision by the FA to include Milton Keynes as part of the England 2018 Bid.
• SKY Sports inflated opinion about the Premier League and their near on wiping out of the existence of football pre-Premier League.

James Ellis: makes a mean cup of tea but is also a journalist, photographer, trainer and consultant who specialises in the travel industry. The downside is he’s a Leeds United fan.

Born in a pub (literally) in a South Yorkshire mining town, he officially became a Leeds fan with a first visit to Elland Road on February 19, 1974 when the Whites lost an FA Cup 5^th round replay to Bristol City.

After holding a season ticket until his tenth birthday, he managed to escape the dross of the Adamson and Clarke years when his mother decided to pre-empt Shirley Valentine by moving to Greece.

Here, he would follow United by collecting glass pop bottles and using the refund money to buy a weekly copy of the News Of The World to check the results (there was no internet back in the dark ages), while also adopting a local Greek team.

Panionios (not to be confused with Panathinkaikos) were a Greek team formed in Izmir, before the population exchanges between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s. They arrived in Athens, set up a new home and struggled to terms with their new environment – James liked the parallels with his life.

Panionios flirt between the odd Greek cup success and European foray with relegation from the Greek Premier League – like Leeds, they’ve had their ups and downs.

James Dielhenn.

The glory years of the early 2000s are, unfortunately, pretty much lost in the memory of a young boy.  Too young to truly appreciate the significance of beating teams such as AC Milan, I recognised those unbelievable Champions’ League nights by being allowed to stay up late on a school night if we were winning.  My earliest memory of Leeds is actually before those times, though, having seen the team that included the likes of Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink and Alfie Haaland.  Although we lost the majority of games I saw live (as is still the case today), my love for the white shirt was instilled in me by my dad, and by the fanatical support that I experienced in my occasional trips to Elland Road.  I thrived off the fact that everybody hated my team, but we were Leeds United, one of the biggest teams in the country.  Although the fortunes of the club declined as I really started to develop interest, I remember the feeling of watching a bunch of nobody’s wearing the famous Leeds shirt at Elland Road in the second and third tier of English football.  It didn’t matter that we have witnessed some awful players in the lower divisions – teams fear and respect us because of who we are.  Long may that continue as we continue our journey to where we belong.

Robert Law: Clarkeonenil’s webmeister without whom not of this would be possible (fuller profile when he gets round to it).