I love a good beamback me. So much so that instead of staying at home in Greater Scumchester I drove all the way to Leeds just to watch the Bristol City game on a screen in our wonderful Lowfields Road pavilion. Is this dedicated of just plain sad?
I can claim with all honesty that I have the honour of being the very first person served with a free pie at a Leeds United beamback, when I got to the head of the queue before the Bournemouth game last year. So you can imagine my disappointment this time when I found that the ticket included a free drink and nothing else. Times are getting tough.
But at least we were treated to the pre-match thoughts of Terry Yorath, once the dodgy microphone had finally crackled into life. Like most of us he was glad to see Antenucci starting as a second striker, but was less impressed by some other changes to rest players so early in the season. The modern players aren’t as tough as they were in the 1970s.
And the compere said what a wonderful turnout it was at the beamback, a sign of our great support to see both the Pavillion and Billy’s Bar close to being sold out. Yeah, congratulations to Leeds for taking 1,500 fans all the way to, er, Leeds!
Finally the lights dimmed and we waited for the action to start. And we waited, and we waited. Was it just me or was the first 25 minutes as dull as dishwater as both teams worked hard to close each other down but showed nothing in attack? My mind wandered as leant back in my chair and wondered if all those small lights on the ceiling of the pavilion are meant to resemble the stars in a clear night sky.
But the game finally caught my attention as Leeds began to look threatening on the break towards half time, and finally our reward came in the 38th minute, with Antenucci brought down as he tried to go round Hamer. The Italian was by far our most impressive penalty taker in the shoot-out at Doncaster (though that’s not saying much) and he duly stepped up to put us in front with another confident finish.
At half time our Terry was up on stage again, but I didn’t agree with his view that Hamer should have been sent off for the incident that led to the penalty. Antenucci would have had a narrow angle to shoot from if he hadn’t been brought down, and a defender had got back to cover the near post.
But the night seemed to be getting better after 52 minutes as Wood cut inside to curl his shot inside the far post. His celebration showed more than a little relief, as he seemed to look up and thank the heavens for his deliverance from the massed hordes who have been slating him on WACCOE.
Leeds continued to look dangerous on the break, but Brizzle started to put us under pressure as time wore on. And then Eddie Gray uttered the fatal words in his match commentary, saying that Leeds were looking comfortable and defending well. Yeah, right. And sure enough, with 89 minutes on clock the ball was played through to Agard in space, and he hammered the ball past Silvestri into the far corner.
And there were gasps of horror throughout the room as six minutes of injury time were announced. Where had he got that from? There were no significant injury breaks, and despite Cotterill’s comments the only time wasting I can remember came when we took ages over a throw in. Sure enough, Silvestri fumbled a shot in the 95th minute and Flint was on hand to bundle the rebound over the line.
And that was it, as the disgruntled punters were left to file outside into the pouring rain, thinking of the fine evening we very nearly had. There were enough of us to generate a queue to get out of the car park, so there was plenty of time to listen to Uwe’s moaning on Radio Leeds. Apart from the ref, he was suggesting that the Football League had it in for Leeds for making us play so many games with so much travelling in a short space of time.
But whilst it’s true that the decision to move the Doncaster game to a Thursday for TV purposes cost us a day’s recovery time, we could have cut down the travelling by going directly from Reading to Bristol on Sunday night, rather than returning to Leeds. We could have found somewhere for a training camp and treated it as a mini-tour within the season.
So am I going to come back for the next Beamback? Why not, it’s not a bad way to spend an evening if you can’t otherwise get to see the game. But if only they could bring back the free pies.