We’re back and why waiting 16 years is all worth it
Good things come to those who wait they say.
Sixteen years for one of the biggest clubs in the country to be exiled from the top flight is some wait. When relegation to the Championship was confirmed in 2004 with just Kevin Blackwell and Gary Kelly at the club (as the former never tires of saying) it was clear the rebuild the place needed to get the club of it’s knees would take time. But not so much time that children and teenagers from the last time Leeds kicked a Nike Premier League ball are now adults, some with marriages, children, careers and mortgages. Newborns from the 2003-04 season are now legally old enough to join the army, have sex and buy lottery tickets. New signing Joe Gelhardt celebrated his second birthday two days before that fateful defeat to Bolton.
It should’nt or took this long for Leeds United to bounce back, despte how bad things were and even worsened in 2007. Bournemouth (until recently), Crystal Palace and Brighton are three examples of much smaller clubs facing oblivion but managing to set up camp in the big league for some time.
But it has took this long and now were there, we maybe there to stay. We could of bounced back after two years in 2006. But that Play Off final side was not vintage and went down the year after, in the Championship, goodness knows how we would of fared in the Premiership. Simon Grayson came close a decade ago but would we really of wanted to go up with Ken Bates upstairs using our top flight status to sell season tickets you would need a mortgage to pay for? Or laterly would you of wanted GFH scoruing football manager for signings up there or Massimo Cellino’s madness being broadcast to a wider audience whilst doing a Watford going through 4/5 managers a season?
Would you really of wanted to be in the Premier League if it meant Neil Warnock was the man who promoted us and commisoned a statue of himself with Steve Morison?
Would you really want to be sat in a half empty Elland Road despite what league were in because the fan base had been so disenchanted and fractured?
Probably, yeah, we were desperate and any promotion is better than being nobodys in mid table Championship. But Leeds United are a unique club. An all or nothing kind of club. You couldn’t possibly imagine us going up, back down in a year and then mounting another promotion charge like Norwich City and West Brom seem to exist doing, Our last two promotions prior to this year have seen the start of our two most famous dynasties. Don Revie’s all conquering young side returned to Division One in 1964-65 and only missed out on the title by goal average and Howard Wilkinson’s 1990 vintage came and impressive fourth before romping to the title a year later.
For the current team to reach those heights would be unlikely but there are reasons to be excited and confident about our return this weekend.
It has took time but we are returning as a stable club. One that owns its own stadium and has plans to develop as it can’t meet the demand for supporters wanting to get through the turnstiles with a 20,000 strong waiting list.
It’s a generally well run club with likeable and competent owners and directors rather than the circus’s that used to be LUFC.
It’s now a club that shops for Spainish and German internationals instead of the emergency loan market and free agents.
It’s team that will sweat blood over our shiny new Adidas Kit and one that is so well versed in its roles that nearly every regular starter stook a claim to be player of the year in our champions season last year.
And most exciting of all is the man on the bucket. Enough anout Marcelo Bielsa has been said but to be entering the Premier League with a man with God like status to us and the fasciniation of the world is wonderful.
On Saturday a whole generation will witness Leeds United playing in the Premier League for the very first time. It’s Match of the Day rather than Quest, kids can join in games if Match Attax with their Pablo Hernandez shiny, FIFA players can play their games at Elland Road.
It’s been a long road, but just as wine and whiskey tates better with age and a freshly cooked cod tastes better than those sat on the counter, waiting for Leeds United to truly be ready both on and off the pitch to return to the Premier League will make it all the better.
By Lawrence O’Sullivan
