The Yorkshire Cup

By Steve Barras

I have always wished for a more competitive edge to pre-season games. Last season I went to watch Leeds against Burton Albion away and to be honest the best thing about that game was the Leeds fans singing ‘We can’t see a thing, we’re Leeds United and we can’t see a thing’ when the sun was beaming directly onto us from above the opposite stand, Luke Varney’s fumbled goal was at the time below average but after his start to last season, a fumbled goal would have been welcome in the ensuing games.  

At the Sheffield Wednesday game this season at Elland Road, the game when the
aforementioned Varney bagged two headers to win us the game, I was stood during the game listening to the torrents of abuse aimed both at us and the Owl contingency and thinking if only we could have games like this on a more regular basis. This led to me wondering what a Yorkshire League would be like, imagine every Saturday playing against bitter Yorkshire rivals to see who was or in fact is the best team in god’s own county.  

I approached Andy Gregory (Editor) a few months ago about the idea to host a Yorkshire Cup on the site and on our Twitter feed and thankfully he agreed with the idea.  

Unfortunately the hierarchy at each Yorkshire based club would never agree to a real-life Yorkshire Cup because of the potential minefield’s that this tournament would throw up. How many more 12:30 kick offs can we stomach? 

So we at We All Love Leeds have taken it upon ourselves to construct a simulated version of a Yorkshire Cup.  

The teams that will be competing will be, in alphabetical order, Barnsley, Bradford City, Doncaster Rovers, Huddersfield Town, Hull City, Leeds United,  Middlesbrough, Rotherham United, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday and York City. These team’s will be split into two random groups of five team’s, this will be after Bradford City and York City contest a Qualifying game to determine which one of those shall take the tenth spot. These two teams will contest a Qualifying match because they are the two lowest ranked Yorkshire teams in the Football League.  

For readers who support a different team other than Leeds, please be assured that, if you wish to keep an eye on events as it unfolds on our Twitter feed, it is completely un-biased towards Leeds United. In fact during a dummy run I did, Hull City won the cup on penalties. 

If this is successful then I hope to host the Yorkshire Cup a few times during this coming season and would like to invite any fan from any of the Yorkshire teams competing to take control of thier team, all you would need to do is be free on a set evening for a few hours, have your computer/email account to hand and to have an account on Twitter. This is so you can send me your formations and starting line-ups/substitutes for each game, if you are interested in participating in the next Yorkshire Cup please add a comment at the bottom of this page with your name, Twitter alias and the team you support. 
 
Finally, join us tomorrow from 5pm on Twitter (@weallloveleedsu) and watch the first Yorkshire Cup unfold. 

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