Was the defeat at Oldham really just a blip? Can our last promotion campaign give us a few crumbs of comfort?
Two weeks ago, every Leeds website was keen to point out that it’s 19 years since we last suffered defeat on the opening day of the season, when we suffered a poor 5-2 defeat at Newcastle. And yet that game was the start of our last successful promotion campaign, when we finally regained our rightful place in the top division after eight long years.
Like this season, August arrived with Leeds fans having the highest hopes for the months ahead. The season before we’d recovered from a difficult start once Howard Wilkinson had been appointed, climbing the table to finish just outside the play-off places. And like this season, the manager had improved his squad with several big signings over the summer. To add to his capture of Strachan and Fairclough the previous March, Wilko splashed the cash to bring in six more signings, including Vinnie Jones, Mel Sterland and Jim Beglin.
But it all went pear-shaped at St.James’ Park. Though we were holding them at half time, a few heads went down once the Geordies took the lead after the break, and we ended up conceding five. It was immediately apparent that one or two players were struggling for fitness due to coming back from injury (Beglin) or having been out of favour at their previous club (Sterland). And it would take a bit of time for all the new signings to ‘gel’, and get used to each other’s style of play.
The first home game saw a lucky win against Middlesboro, thanks to an absolutely hilarious own goal in the last minute of injury time. For ages the game had been drifting towards a 1-1 draw and thousands of people were streaming out of the ground, accepting that we weren’t going to win. But then a Boro defender (with no Leeds player anywhere near him) and hammered a backpass from about 50 yards out, without taking the trouble to turn round and look at his keeper. The goalie had come well out of his area and rushed back frantically, but was unable to stop the ball sailing past him into the net. Absolutely priceless!
The next three games all finished 1-1, and frustration was starting to set in during the third of these fixtures, as we failed to overcome Ipswich at Elland Road. The video of that game records a Leeds fan yelling at Wilko as the players left the field, telling him that he “wants to sign Van Basten”. While the visiting East Anglian Daily Times informed it’s readers that despite spending big money in search of promotion Leeds “might not make it”, and that “Mel Sterland was one signing who hardly looked a bargain on the day”. We were now only 12th. in the table, and would have been a few places lower if it hadn’t been for that last minute fluke against Boro.
But things finally came together in the sixth match of the season, with a 1-0 win at our dear neighbours Hull City, which we followed up with a comprehensive 4-0 home victory over Swindon. The rest, as they say, as we put together an unbeaten run of 14 games to storm up the table, while Swindon was the first of nine successive victories at Elland Road. We hit top spot at the start of December, and at one stage were 12 points clear of third place. We stumbled in the second half of the season, and it went right to the wire, but we finally managed to clinch the title with that famous win at Bournemouth.
So the lesson to learn for the current campaign is that you need a bit of patience when several members of your team haven’t played together before, and you can’t expect instant success. They need a bit of time to get to know each other, and work out how the team can make use of each other’s talents. We may get a few dodgy results in the opening few games, but there are 46 matches to play, and there’s plenty of time to catch up. We’ll soon prove to everyone that we’ve got the best squad in this division, so chin up Macca!