For the second time in four days Leeds put in a largely unconvincing performance, but came away with a victory.

With the weather forecast threatening all sorts of nasty things all over the country I was dreading the prospect of having to stand on an open terrace, but as it turned out it wasn’t that bad an evening, though it got a bit nippy once the sun had gone down. I don’t know if the Leeds team were feeling the cold, but one of our female messageboard regulars complained that their shorts were far too long. I didn’t dare to ask if she had only come to look at their legs!

It was a bit of a disappointing crowd of 3,422, bearing in mind how excited the Macc fans had been when the draw was made. I would guess there were about 1500 Leeds fans there, with some deciding to miss the game as we could only get tickets through an agency who charged a £1.50 credit card fee on top of the ticket price, plus their own fee of £4.85 per ticket. An absolute rip-off.

Wise had promised to give some youngsters a chance, but there were one to experienced players on show as well. Prutton and Douglas got a game after missing Tranmere though suspension, but I was more surprised to see Lewis, given the rumours of a possible transfer to Stoke, as he will now be cup-tied if that move does go ahead. His presence meant that Ben Parker had to play in central defence, while Carole was also out of position on the left. The other youngsters in the side were Gardner at left back, Howson in midfield and Elliott up front.

Most of the game was extremely dull, with our defence coping with the best that Macc had to offer, but our own strike force finding themselves permanently offside every time we broke forward. We certainly had plenty of height in our attack, with Elliot and Kandol being supported by Heath at set pieces, but our crosses never seemed to clear the first defender to reach the danger area.

The home side’s best efforts in the first half came from long distance, with Casper doing well to turn Dunfield’s shot round the post and Murray going just wide. Before these two chances Leeds had appealed for a penalty for handball, when a close range header from Heath was bundled off the line, but the ref ruled that it had come off the defender’s chest.

Wise made a couple of chances at half-time, with Westlake and Beckford coming on for Carole and Elliott. Beckford’s pace was soon causing problems for the home defence, and from one break he forced Lee into a fine save, before Kandol somehow failed to score from the rebound, by picking out the one defender on the line. Thomas produced yet another long-range effort for the hosts that went just past the post, but the game seemed to be drifting towards extra time and the fans starting praying for just anyone to score so we wouldn’t have to put up with another half an hour of tedium.

But in the 79th. minute Leeds finally put us out of our misery with a goal from a fine flowing move that was quite out of keeping with the quality of much of what had gone before. Prutton swung an excellent cross over from the right, and when Kandol fell over, the ball ran through to an unmarked Westlake beyond the far post, who made no mistake as he volleyed into the roof of the net.

Macclesfield kept trying to press for an equaliser but never looked like scoring, and Parker came close to putting the game beyond their reach from a corner with a shot that wasn’t far wide. Finally the ref was kind enough to put us out our misery with the final whistle, and we scurried off into the night dreaming of a glamour tie in the second round, against someone really exciting like Aston Villa or Sheffield United…or maybe even Hull .

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