Middlesbrough fans will travel to Elland Road in numbers on February 15th despite calls from Leeds fans group LUST to boycott the game. Meanwhile Leeds are also on course to sell out their 6800 allocation for the FA Cup clash at Bolton on Saturday.
All the hullabaloo about the ongoing Sky TV row doesn't appear to have bothered Boro fans.
Their official club website report they have less than 600 tickets remaining for the clash a fortnight next Monday. A total of 2476 were allocated to the Riversiders.
LUST had called for fans of both sides to boycott the game, in protest at the decision to move it from Saturday afternoon to Monday evening for the benefit of Sky TV. There was understandable anger, including a travelling party of our loyal Norweigan fans who'd booked travel and accommodation around the original fixture and fly home just hours before the rescheduled kick-off.
I'll make no secret of the fact that I am not a big fan of LUST. This is a personally held view after I had a verbal disagreement with one of their former Chairperson's after a match against Watford some time ago. I found many of their statements both bewildering and too wordy, most definitively proclaiming self-importance. Particularly during the GFH take-over which proved to be an utter shambles. I feel you should also be careful in calling for fans to boycott things; as I found to my cost when I tried to organise a protest to support some silly old woman who was banned afer running onto the pitch. The South Stand "pie tax" protest during the Hull game was a bit of a disaster and ended up with further punitive measures for the fans after £10,000 worth of damage was caused to the concourse. That's nearly as mindless and moronic as when Burnley fans trashed their own town following defeat to Blackburn Rovers several years ago. Admittedly the clean-up operation for that little-embarrassment was probably a lot less than £10,000 but I digress.
I hate to say it, but I told you so! Sixteen years ago, writing in the paper-version of To Ell and Back I rejoiced that a 1-0 win over Spurs, which saw Harry Kewell score a typical goal of individual brilliance was above-all magnificent because it took place on our first Saturday game for months!
I warned then that Sky and other TV companies were ploughing a fortune into the game so we had little or no option but to dance their merry tune. Okay my prediction that we'd probably have 05:07 Friday morning kick-offs to suit broadcasts in Jakarta were a little far-fetched but the principles are the same. The same rules apply.
Sky TV pay their money and we turn up when they say. We're not famous anymore? Yeh right!
Meanwhile one game which has escaped the TV Tinkerers is our trip to crisis club Bolton on Saturday, 3pm for the FA Cup Fourth Road. If you haven't got your ticket yet then get a wiggle on. Earlier this afternoon (Wednesday) around 700 remained of our whopping 6800 allocation at the Macron. It's just a fiver if you're lucky to be 23 or under. I'm not but can't grumble at £20 can you? Bolton have made it all-ticket only for Leeds fans, you would have thought given all their strife with the tax-man they'd have made it cash on the day. Okay, when we went down in 2004 we had very little sympathy from them, in fact they rejoiced smashing us 4-1 in the game which virtually sealed our relegation and loved rubbing our noses in it about our troubles on and off the pitch. What goes around comes around eh? I'm looking forward to it, it's going to be like a home game.