Wednesday July 29th sees two fallen giants of English football go head to head in the Dennis Wise Trophy Challenge.

Well just kidding! After all, who would want to win a trophy based on the odious little squirt who did so much to ruin two great northern giants.

Oh well, July 29th will give us chance to try and recapture those old days when the United's of Leeds and Newcastle slugged it out.

I'm sure your Dad or Grandad will remember some titanic battles in the 1960's and 1970's. Being more of an 80's kind-of-guy there were some memorable clashes in the 1980's - remember October 1982 when we beat them twice in a week? On the 27th October we turned them over 4-1 in the League Cup (we lost 0-1 at ER a few weeks earlier) and on the Saturday we romped home to a 3-1 win in the old Division Two with Messers Burns, Butterworth and Worthington on the scoresheet.

Our promotion season 1989/90 got off to the worst possible start, a 2-5 drubbing on the opening day of the season when that Fat Scouse Git Mickey Quinn bagged four for them. However we had the last laugh, beating them 1-0 at ER in December Ian Baird scoring in his swansong and by the end of the season we had gone up and they were in the play-offs, Bairdy scoring twice for The Boro against the Mags just to make sure.

The 1990's ahh! Remember Macca and Yeboah's outrageous pre-goal celebration in 1994/95 at St James' Park? How about the 4-1 win in October 1997. Even the 3-4 defeat in December 01 was a pulsating affair, played out in a white-hot atmosphere with the irony of the Geordie's giving out bucketloads of stick to Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate - who had both just stood trial at Hull Crown Court!

Bowyer, Woodgate, Milner, Smith, Viduka all made the journey further north eventually...fond memories, happy times, now the reality is both clubs linger due to mismanagement on and off the field and Wise surely is in part culpable for both clubs fortunes having taken Leeds into League One and jumping ship halfway through a season when Leeds looked handily placed for an instant return to work his magic at Newcastle?

Incidentally on checking out the details on the Newcastle official website, I stumbled across their family ticket prices (two of my own son's are keen to start going to matches regularly). It disgusts me that one adult, one child at Leeds would cost a whopping 608GBP whilst Newcastle are doing a similar ticket for 400GBP.

Whilst one would never change his allegiance or want his kids supporting anyone else, it is an eye-watering comparison. Hopefully soon Newcastle will be rid off Ashley, we will be rid of Bates and both clubs will be heading back in the right direction both run by people who actually care about the club and its fans.

Photo: Action Images

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