Nineties nostalgia alive and kicking as Ian Rush blows the lid on his year at Leeds!
Last week, it was Eric Cantona explaining why he did not get on with Howard Wilkinson.
Now it is Ian Rush's turn to speak out about Wilko and unlike Eric he has nothing but praise for his old-boss.
Rush has an autobiography out and extracts were today published in the Yorkshire Evening Post this morning(Wednesday).
Liverpool legend "Rushie" arrived at Leeds, aged 34 in the summer of 1996 as Leeds went through a traumatic, prolonged takeover by the Caspian group, largely due to differences in valuation between the club's then three-major shareholders Sir Leslie Silver, Bill Fotherby and Peter Gilman.
However Rush was lured by the prospect of becoming an understudy to Sgt Wilko and, he claims in his book, his eventual successor in the Elland Road hotseat. As a result, he snubbed playing-contracts with Manchester City and Sunderland to move east to Yorkshire.
However just weeks into the 1996/97 season, the dream died. Leeds had suffered just one-defeat, before Manchester United rolled in on September 7th and crushed us 4-0 at ER. A certain Eric Cantona scoring the fourth in the last minute at the Kop End, despite earlier missing a penalty.
It was too much for the fans to take. I was at the game and rather than baying for his blood, most of us were singing "Wilko, its time to go!" - 12 years on to this day, I stand by that. Although he had won the league for us, in the three and half years since then he had lost the plot and things had gone stale.
But according to Rush, we were the instigators behind Wilko's departure and Brian Deane said that we were a few fans who knew "bugger all". So obviously we were the ones who picked the team that performed so feebly in the Coca Cola Cup final that year? Valued Carlton Palmer as being worth three Eric Cantona's and then made him club-captain, oh and signed a fat, Jane Torville lookalike called Tomas Brolin and a pizza-guzzling, injury-plagued playboy called Lee Sharpe for a mere £9m combined!
I agree, when you look at Wilko's reign in its entirity, he is without a doubt the most successful boss this club has ever seen behind Don Revie. But some of his decisions, like packing the defence with old-men from Oldham and Sheffield were atrocious and I doubt he would have lasted as long at any other club, particularly in the "sack em" culture of today!
Even offering such a lucrative contract to somebody like Rush, by then 34-years-old and way past the time when he terrorised defences for fun, was another barmpot decision by Wilko.
From a personal point of view, Rush's dream of managing the whites died. Just 24-hours after Wilko said his farewells and cleared his desk, the long-expected appointment of George Graham took place and Graham brought in David O'Leary as his number two. Rush was banished mainly to the right-hand side of midfield and managed just three-goals for Leeds that season before linking up with his old mate Kenny Dalglish at Newcastle.
His book is priced at £18.99 (Ebury), but I doubt many Leeds fans will be rushing out to buy it on the strength of what little he did in a Leeds shirt. Although he is rightfully regarded as a legend in Liverpool, his brief contribution at Elland Road has long since been forgotten!