By Keith Ingham After the 'yob' is now enjoying the comforts of her majesty's prison, Leeds turn their attention to ending a pretty horrendous lack of victories on this certain
day of the week. A home game against Charlton is hopefully just what is needed after a few days when Leeds have been in the national headlines for all the wrong reasons. Neil Warnock may be tempted to change things around after a less than impressive display v Wednesday and the likes of Ryan Hall may get his first chance to impress the Elland Road faithful as Leeds face a side who are eighteenth in the Championship with twelve points. Charlton have a player in their ranks who needs no introduction, Andy Hughes was one of the heroes of the Promotion winning team, with his adaptability and always giving one hundred percent, it's just a shame he might miss playing his former club as he has not been a regular this season. Three home games in a week is going to be tough but I'm confident that Leeds can win the first of these games to continue the unbeaten run. Prediction: Leeds 2 Charlton 1 Pearce, White On On On
0 Comments
By Keith Ingham I'm perplexed, a thug belts somebody on a football field and gets four months, I live in a town and if I did the same I would have thought it would have been a heavier sentence.
Whatever the time given to the 'lowlife' it's the reputation of the club which concerns me. The club has fortunately been out of the newspapers for the wrong reason for a considerable time, since the bad days of the eighty's when I was openly spat at for being 'a Leeds thug' just for wearing my colours at a seaside resort in Wales. It is said give a dog a bad name and it will stick but thousands of loyal fans travel great distances to follow their team home and away, it would be a travesty if they are painted with the same brush as Aaron Cawley, who's name will forever be associated with the unacceptable side of football underbelly. It can only be hoped that the FA will take into account the lack of stewards and police presence at the time of the attack. The majority cannot be attacked for a minority but I'm not so sure they won't use Leeds United as a example... They usually do! On On On  We are currently looking for someone to write match reports on our website. If you are a passionate Leeds fan, have plenty to say and are able to report on every Leeds game, we would love to hear from you.
If you are interested in joining our current team of writers please get in touch with us via our 'contact us' page. MOT! By Keith Ingham It's hard to concentrate on the football action on the field when a mindless, cowardly thug enters the field of play and viciously attacks an opposing player. What happened shamed our club and the everything we hold dear.
The manager kept faith with the side v Barnsley but new signing Ryan Hall made the bench. It was Wednesday who started better and went close on a few occasions especially when Paddy Kenny 'flapped' at a shot that bounced off his gloves hit the bar and fell back into his grateful arms. Leeds hardly showed anything and the midfield was run ragged by the home side. Rodolph Austin looked well off the pace and Michael Brown was lucky not to see a card for his usual 'boisterous' challenges. Sheffield took the lead after a long throw found the head of Bothroyd to score with a flick off his head. While all around him were trying to keep their head El Hadji Diouf was doing his level best to talk his way into the referee's notebook. Sadly a first half to forget. Maybe a few teacups were thrown at half time because Leeds improved in the second half with David Norris coming on for the ineffective Austin. Some of the passing was really good and half chances were created but the final ball was just not right. Michael Brown finally tested the referee's patience once too often and was booked. Varney was brought on to replace the injured Peltier, who to me is out of position and is constantly struggling being on his wrong side. With the clock moving towards the last ten minutes, after a great passing move the ball broke to Michael Tonge who un-leashed a rocket past the despairing hands of Kirkland. What followed is simply something that cannot be tolerated in modern society, never mind football. A mindless act by a moron who should be banned from all football matches. It's sad that the actions of one shames the others there to support their team. This is a match Leeds did not deserve to win as the break seemed to take the momentum out of recent performances. Man of the Match : Jason Pearce, the best centre back we've had since Lucas. By Russ Vernon
Friday 19th October 2012 Championship Hillsborough, Att: 28,582 (5300) Sheffield Wed 1 - 1 Leeds United Bothroyd 43' Tonge 76' Team: Kenny, Byram, Lees, Pearce, Peltier, White, Austin, Brown, Tonge, Diouf, Becchio Subs: Ashdown, Drury, Green, Norris (on for Austin 46), Varney (on for Peltier 68), Gray, Hall Michael Tonge scored a beaut of a volley to help Leeds United to a 1-1 draw against Yorkshire Rivals Sheffield Wednesday after Jay Bothroyd had put the Owls infront, but we were all talking about 'moron' Aaron Cawley after he attacked Chris Kirkland after Tonge scored for the Whites. It wasn't the best of opening 10 minutes or so for Leeds as Paddy Kenny was the busier keeper after making a string of saves to keep the scores level. The Owls, who have been on the bad run of late looked as if they were going to change the run after creating the best chances of the first half. It took 20 minutes for Leeds to test Kirkland via Tonge when he hit a free-kick destined for the top corner, with the former England keeper making a brilliant save. Wednesday felt annoyed before the half-hour when the referee failed to spot Luciano Becchio's handball which would have resulted in a penalty to the home side and a red card for the Argentine striker. Wednesday were still having the better of things but Tonge almost picked out Becchio with a cross which had Kirkland all at sea. With the first half petering out the Owls got the breakthrough two minutes before half time, when Bothroyd rose the highest to head home a long-throw from Miguel Llera. Half Time At the break Boss Neil Warnock made a change with Jamaican midfielder Rodolph Austin being replaced by David Norris. As the second half started there were two bookings for the hosts via Daniel Jones and Antony Gardner as Leeds started the half brighter and Tonge's free-kick went over the bar. As the game passed the hour mark it wasn't that entertaining as the clash was looking really scrappy, but Bothroyd fluffed a half-chance for the Owls and Gardner won a corner after his shot was blocked over the bar. On 65 minutes Leeds were on the front foot and Michael Brown had a shot blocked and there were appeals for a handball after Norris had an effort blocked. Leeds were forced to make a change when skipper Lee Peltier picked up a knock, he was replaced by winger Luke Varney. With less than 15 on the clock United were level when Tonge struck home beautiful volley for the equalise,r but the celebrations were marred as Wednesday keeper Kirkland was attacked by 'moron' Aaron Cawley and had to recieve treatment. There were little chances for either side as the game headed towards the five minutes added . And that was that the points were shared but the talking point wasn't the game but the 'moron' who attacked Kirkland. Full Time Player Ratings: Kenny 7, Byram 6, Lees 6, Pearce 6, Peltier 5, White 7, Austin 5, Brown 7, Tonge 8, Diouf 5, Becchio 6. Subs: Norris 6, Varney 5.
"I felt embarrassed to be a manager, it was an absolute disgrace. I think they should get the guy, prosecute him, and put him in prison. There's no place at all for that.
" Listen, he (Kirkland) went down like a ton of bricks, but that doesn't make a difference. There's no way he should be on the pitch doing that, I hope we can make an absolute issue of it. "It spoilt everything for everybody. When I see a moron like that I'm not proud to be Leeds manager. I don't mind the rivalry - elbows flying, penalties missed by the referee - but to see things like that...I'm absolutely embarrassed. "They had enough security men, but if you've got a person like him with what must be a five-year-old's mentality then you can't stop it." "Dave was saying we shouldn't thank the crowd but our crowd were fantastic. All of them apart from one moron were excellent." By K.G. Bailey The game itself up until Wednesday scored was a bit drab, besides the handball in the box by Becchio that everyone saw except the referee. Wednesday's goal was typical Leeds defending from soft crosses, that needs to be addressed asap. Our equalizer by Tonge was great, but it wont be remembered in this game.
There were so many things wrong with Security Friday I dont know where to start & I'll probably forget some things. Let's start with before some of us got in, the game had kicked off and stewards were taking their time patting people down before letting us in. I managed to get in 8 minutes after the game kicked off. Not acceptable when you pay full price for a ticket. In the ground there seemed to be a lot of police & stewards but I'm sure they were there purely for decoration because they were as useful as a chocolate teapot. I am not defending the idiot that slapped Kirkland one bit, he's done nothing but bring unwanted attention to the club, but it shouldnt have got that far, he should have at least been spotted by one of the many stewards standing around by the goal to see someone had ran past them and got onto the pitch. The incident there was sour and now the club will now wait & see what punishment we get. I would hope just the individual is punished and not the club but I cant see that happening with this being linked to Leeds United. Alan Smith got Punched by a Huddersfield fan, not slapped but punched after a game, but I do not remember that being talked about as much. Regarding the hit on Kirkland, myself and people around me had no idea what happened, we thought Kirkland had another one of his shoulder injuries after diving for Tonges shot, I didnt know Kirkland got hit until I got on the tram and was informed by Wednesday fans. Chanting is usually just banter, as it was up until Istanbul (thats two people that died, non football related) was mentioned, thats when things got heated. The thing about banter is its usually just quickfire statements ie "so & so is a _____" etc.. which is brushed off every week by many players & managers (our very own Neil Warnock for example) Neil even had it at this game, so why did Dave Jones take the chant towards him so personally? If he was innocent then surely you just not react? Make no mistake about it, his "vile animals" statement after the game had nothing to do with Kirkland getting slapped, that was just a perfect smokescreen for him to use, he was talking about the chants towards him being accused of child molestation, which were dropped. I find it hard to believe that Dave Jones told Neil Warnock off about clapping the away fans at the end when Dave Jones himself clapped his Wednesday fans that abused Neil Warnock & Paddy Kenny during the game in addition to a Wednesday support that threw a flare onto the pitch. Double standards? I think so. There is blame on both sides. Leeds fans are being slaughtered for reacting to Istanbul chants but you just know if anyone ever tried to chant anything to Liverpool fans regarding their tragedy that the opposing support would be getting slated and people would "understand" why Liverpool fans got so emotional. Once again, I'm not saying Leeds are innocent in this, but I was standing with a father and his son, behind was a father and his daughter, they were certainly not acting like vile animals, they were there supporting the team and doing that only. After the game on the tram back into Sheffield, both sets of supporters crammed on one train, whos idea was that? After what happened shouldnt they have separated the fans like they do for Sheffield derbies? Held the away support back like they have done in the past? Nothing done, police & stewards there for decoration. I haven't heard of anything sour happening after the game so hopefully everybody got back safely. On a lighter note, a Wednesday fan questioned his own supporter who threw the flare to ask "why did he throw a red flare? Of all the colors, it makes no sense!" That broke a lot of tension on that tram, good man. Everything that has happened will certainly put a big spotlight on the return match in April and if Dave Jones is still manager for Wednesday (again he didn't win a game which this was another good smokescreen for that fact) it will he interesting to see what the reception is like with 20K+ "vile animals." One day soon, the club will get back to just talking about matters on the pitch, not takeovers, tunnels brawls & an idiotic fan, whom in all fairness to our support has been named on social media sites and passed onto Police. I cant wait for this day. K G Bailey By Rab Laverty So here we are now as we approach Halloween, the traditional half term break and I thought it may be time to have my tuppence worth on our season so far.
We started with a fairly comfortable win over a poor Wolves side on the first day, where Neil’s new signings to be fair looked the part. Although we looked as if we are still badly lacking some decent firepower up front I have to say I was happy enough with both performance and result, as relegated teams usually still have a reasonably strong set up especially with parachute payments etc. Then we had a reality check with a bit of a lesson in soccer from a fairly competent Blackpool side who, to be honest, could have won about 4 or 5 as we chased shadows for 90 minutes. The question from this game for me, was a problem we have had for a couple of seasons now, why do we struggle on a Tuesday night? Consider some of the shockers from last season, especially the horror showing against a poor Forest team and I am at a loss to explain why we struggle. Maybe our poor players don’t like playing on the dark nights, either way though we need to start getting our consistency sorted out and great results on a Saturday need to be followed up on our midweek travels. Two of our three losses this season have been on a Tuesday night with exceptions being a win over a poor Peterborough and an excellent performance against a good, strong Everton side. We need to produce this sort of game against all our opposition and get out of the championship this year, hopefully with the backing of our prospective new owners (still unsure about this one) in the January transfer window this will become a reality. Hopefully we will start on a good winning run this TUESDAY v Charlton and with another very winnable game on Saturday v Birmingham, come the end of next weekend we could be sitting in a very useful position in the league, which if I’m to be honest I would have been very happy with at the start of the campaign. On passing I would like to mention Friday evening’s game v Sheff Wed. I don’t want to say too much about the clown in the Kirkland incident, as to do so only gives idiots like that valuable publicity, other than he let 5,500 passionate, loyal fans right down so if you know him boot him square on the balls before the police get to him. Our away fans have been incredible all season so far, and we don’t need this sort of thing to blight our proud club. I’m sure our prospective new owners were glowing with pride at Hillsborough, NOT. As a support we need to get away from all this nonsense about the likes of Munich, Dave Jones past and other events, I couldn’t care less about any other club and don’t want them to justify chants about Christopher Loftus and Kevin Speight murder because of our chanting. I will chant about my team and support them passionately but let’s get above all that and grow up as a support. In closing this paragraph the Kirkland moron ruined what was a good point on a difficult night which has kept us close to the pack, hopefully it won’t end up with us having points deducted. I am pleased with the transfer dealings of Neil Warnock and in this old warhorse we have, I feel, the right man in position to get us to the promised land. I love having Paddy Kenny in between the sticks and I know at times he can drop a clanger or two, but I feel that a decent keeper can probably earn a team 6-9 points a season and in Paddy I believe we have that. I still feel that we are lacking in defence, a good strong pair of full backs is a necessity and also a good 25-30 goals a season centre forward, but we are close to a decent side and I am reasonably content that we can get players in to do a job during January. It will be interesting to see how Ryan Hall gets on and hopefully he will get a chance to show what he can do. So for my midterm report I have decided to give a big thumbs up to Neil Warnock and the boys. We would all have accepted being in the pack of leaders, especially with the summer we had due to Captain Birds eye and the will he sell/ won’t he scenario so let’s all march on together and cheer the team to promotion in the right way. MOT By Mike Courtney The title says it all; Ashamed, embarrassed, disgusted, these are just some of the emotions I felt last night after watching the game. I shouldn't have tofeel this way supporting my team but because of the actions of a few, and yes I mean a few and I'll explain why soon, I went to bed last night feeling this way.
I have been supporting Leeds for over 40 years so I've seen the mindless violence of the 70's and 80's when fighting on the terrace, ripping up seats and pitch invasions were the norm. But I thought all that was behind us. I thought we as a society had moved on from that. But what I saw last night shook me to the core. It just gives the media another stick to beat us with. We at Leeds have taken a lot of flak down through the years for our fans and teams behaviour but I felt of late, especially since relegation from the top flight, that our fans had earned respect for the way we have supported our team through the bad times and the vast support we bring to away games in particular. But all that progress we have made has been well and truly kicked to touch by the actions of some fans last night. Yes we all have seen the footage of that Moron, as Warnock rightly labelled him after the match, and it’s been beamed around the world and is currently trending on Twitter. Many better writers than me will print stories about him and I'm glad he has been named on some site's (I won't do the same here because I refuse to mention his name in the same breath as my beloved LEEDS. But he wasn't alone, other fans came on to the pitch and if you watch the footage you will see another so called fan kick the microphone behind the Wednesday net. Is this behaviour acceptable? If this happened on the street it would be Criminal Damage. We had 5000 fans there last night and yes there was chanting but that was from both sides so Dave Jones needs to get his own house in order before labelling us all vile animals but today he can take the moral high ground because of those few who entered the pitch and committed crimes, because no matter what way you look at it that's what they were, CRIMES. 99.9% of Leeds fans and in particular those that spend their hard earned cash to travel to away games are top class genuine supporters who lift the team when we are down and who get behind the boys no matter what. But the actions of those few who entered the pitch last night have dragged the name of Leeds United and football as a whole through the gutter and brought it back to the dark days of the 70's and 80's. So instead of celebrating a fantastic strike by Michael Tonge that earned us a vital point when we didn't play particularly well we are on the front pages of every newspaper with our reputation tarnished and it'll take more than a statement from the club and condemnation from the Manager to repair that. Finally I'd like to finish on this point; I think the worst thing about it for me is that this happened at the Leppings Road end of the ground where 23 years ago 96 fans lost their lives and all the advances in safety and behaviour of fans since then have led to a situation which allows a mindless THUG to do what he did to Chris Kirkland last night.I will still support Leeds but it is with a heavy heart and a head hung in shame that I do so today. MOT Leeds Leeds Leeds |
 Leeds United News 24/7CategoriesArchives
January 2019
|
RSS Feed
