By Andy Baggott
May 16 2004

I received this letter from Harry Allen, a Leeds fan from York, giving his views on where it all went wrong. Some really strong points in there. If anyone else wants me to publish their views on this or other matters, feel free to submit an article to me - email link on the left... Ten Reasons for Leeds United’s Downward Spiral

1) The appointment of Brian Kidd

Clubs and managers are prone to making one signing too many; Kevin Keegan splashing out on Faustino Asprilla and Malcolm Allison destabilising his well oiled Man City squad with the purchase of Rodney Marsh in 1972 being two examples of men who ignored the old adage ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.’ In Leeds’ case, this happened with a member of the coaching staff. With the club playing the best football in recent memory under David O’Leary and Leeds favourite Eddie Gray in 2000, Chairman Peter Ridsdale and O’Leary (never one to hide his admiration for Alex Ferguson) moved the well-loved Gray aside to make room for Brian Kidd to become coach. As a result, the atmosphere changed within the club, progress appeared to be being made for progress’ sake, rather than as a result of careful consideration. The European form continued to be of the highest standard, but the league form lagged, and the club failed to qualify for the champions league at the end of the 2001 season – The crucial failure in terms of the financial gamble that Ridsdale had made.

2) The Leeds United Youth Policy

Although the youth policy at Leeds has been heralded as revolutionary, and can boast a first XI of full internationals, the club has repeatedly failed to produce players who can compete in tough matches; players with physical presence. With the notable exception of Jonathan Woodgate, Alan Smith and James Milner, every player to emerge from the set-up at Leeds lacks pace and strength, which exposes them to any other team that plays an expansive passing game. Arsenal enjoy playing Leeds so much because their physical attributes are so poor that we they can’t compete. It would be desirable if the club made a point of developing youngsters who can compete physically, and above all have pace.

3) The decision to drop Nigel Martyn

In the spirit of progress, another grand old man of the club was shoved into the shadows by Terry Venables, in his short stay at Leeds; Nigel Martyn. After David Seaman’s miscalculations for England against Brazil and Macedonia, it was generally accepted that his time had passed as England goalkeeper. There was an understudy, with huge experience in league and European football, in Nigel Martyn (who had for some time been described as England’s true No.1, but found it impossible to dislodge Seaman), but because of the actions of Terry Venables, Martyn’s destiny as England keeper was never realised. After the World Cup in 2002, Martyn requested that since he had only just returned from duty in the Far East, he would prefer not to immediately tour with the Leeds First XI on their pre-season tour that would include fixtures against the Colombian team Colo-Colo and Bankok. As a result of this refusal to tour, and bearing in mind how well he had deputised for Martyn in the previous two years, Paul Robinson was made first choice goalkeeper. Unfortunately for Nigel, he would never play for Leeds again, even though he was officially England’s second best goalkeeper (ahead of Paul Robinson). If the decision was made as a result of a wage-saving plan, then this would be understandable, but Martyn languished in the reserves for a year before being put out to pasture at Everton. Since, Nigel Martyn has displayed outstanding form and agility in comparison to Robinson, who appears overweight and unmotivated to do anything about it. Martyn, although 12 years his senior, still appears more athletic than Robinson (who has been far from impressive both this season and last), commands a defence to a much superior level, and is loved dearly by the Leeds fans, as shown in the recent match at Elland Road against Everton.

4) Peter Ridsdale and the finance department.

The most well documented and obvious reason for the decline in fortunes both on and off the pitch at Leeds. All failures can be traced back to a common denominator, and that is Peter Ridsdale; the man who truly believed he had the right to gamble a club’s very existence in the pursuit of glory. The logic he employed in buying players was that they would be sold, if necessary, for the same or more than the price Leeds paid for them. This ignored two major considerations: Firstly, assets do not retain value if the vendor is known to be in financial difficulty and potential buyers will inevitably take liberties; secondly, he bought the players with bank loans, and therefore any money recouped would not bolster Leeds’ bank balance and actually only make a small dent in the debt that he had built up. The rushed sales of Robbie Fowler, Robbie Keane and Lee Bowyer at knock down prices are testament to the ignorance of Ridsdale. The wage bill was another area where Ridsdale failed to consider consequences; tales of Seth Johnson’s £30k P/W contract have become the stuff of drinking house legend. In an attempt to emulate Manchester United, Leeds had a strict wage structure, but once the contract of Rio Ferdinand created a new echelon, it became open season at Elland Road, and new contracts were signed, committing Leeds to players such as Mark Viduka an estimated £65k P/W. The work of Peter Ridsdale is intangible in terms of damage levels, but his name will quite rightly raise a sneer of contempt from any Leeds fan for ever more.

5) Leeds Signings

Successive Leeds managers have made puzzling signings over the years, leaving fans to wonder whether there is any method to their madness whatsoever. David O’Leary, while already well endowed with native defensive and attacking strength in depth at the club (Leeds still boast an all-international back four and strike force, despite the sales), decided to make the purchase of yet more strikers and defenders, despite a dearth of talent in the midfield. His £18m purchase of Ferdinand can be overlooked considering his outstanding contribution and subsequent £30m sale (a rare piece of good business), but the purchases of Fowler, Keane and Duberry to augment a squad that already boasted Smith, Viduka, Bridges, Radebe and Woodgate (all capable of performing to the very highest level in the Premiership), must be considered an act of consummate folly. Below Bakke, Batty (a player on his last legs) and Dacourt, Leeds had no quality defensive or creative central midfielders, and the subsequent fall from grace has in its basis an inability of the Leeds midfield to win the midfield battle. The signing of Seth Johnson, although appearing to be sensible contingency planning at the time, did little to improve matters. Although constrained by the financial situation at the club, subsequent managers have also failed to make good signings. Peter Reid all but ruined the first half of the 2003-4 season by alienating the entire fan base through his persistence in playing journeyman loan signings above crowd favourites like Ian Harte and James Milner.

6) Leeds Sales

Once again, the desire to make progress hindered Leeds in the long term, as it led to the decision to sell certain players who had key roles at the club. Rather than maintain a core of loyal players in the reserve team squad, who were guaranteed to try their damnedest if called upon to play for the first XI, O’Leary proceeded to sell players who had previously been integral to the Leeds cause, and had bee very well-respected within the club for some time. When clubs attempt to re-invent themselves, it invariably ends in failure, as is the case at Leeds. David Wetherall, Alfie Inge Haaland, Rod Wallace and David Hopkin; these players hadn’t got the ability to take the club to a Champions League Semi-Final, but neither did they demand large wages and were definitely not equivocal regarding the club’s wellbeing. A man like David Wetherall would have been Leeds United’s first choice centre back this season, and would have done a much finer job than shocking Roque Junior. More importantly, these players represented the more honest and hard-working Leeds culture that fostered the prodigious talents of Alan Smith and Harry Kewell. This culture was lost under O’Leary, who was happy to see such old fashioned squad members be replaced by more expensive and less loyal journeymen.

7) The Choice of Managers

David O’Leary became Leeds manager at a time when it was clear that George Graham, Gordon Strachan and Martin O’Neill thought that it was a poisoned chalice; a non-starter. He was given the job because nobody else appeared to desire it, and not because of far-sighted wisdom on Ridsdale’s part. O’Leary built on Graham’s defensive stability and developed exciting players like Lee Bowyer and Harry Kewell, to make Leeds into a formidable European force. By 2002, after O’Leary’s ill-advised book (possibly another attempt to emulate Ferguson), and the failure to re-qualify for Europe, the powers that be at Leeds believed that the manager could be dispensed of to make room for the massively overrated Terry Venables (the man who has only one Spanish league title, and one FA cup to his name). Venables proceeded to attempt to sign the only men still standing from his glory days in the late eighties/early nineties (namely Nick Barmby), and totally failed to get the best out of a squad full of stars. Venables obviously had to manage against a the backdrop of wholesale player losses, and was clearly not informed of the situation when he signed on as manager, but it represented an opportunity for him to prove his worth as a coach and a motivator by keeping Leeds in the top half of the table. Instead, Venables appeared uninterested in the club, and allowed the team to slip into the relegation zone after a string of defeats to poor teams. While Venables was incapable of managing Leeds in their financial situation, David O’Leary has gone on to prove that he is more than capable of taking a club with limited resources to the brink of the Champions League at Aston Villa. The decision to force O’Leary out seems worse as time goes on.

8) Leeds were ‘too good too soon’

The fortunes of Leeds United is a classic example of being ‘too good too soon.’ O’Leary’s babies peaked so early that players such as Ian Harte, who is 26, twice a member of the PFA team of the year and should be entering into the prime of his career, now seem to be old and jaded in comparison to their former glories. Leeds getting into the Champions League, and their incredible success in that tournament, was the prime motivation behind Ridsdale’s decision to borrow so heavily against promised future success. The unbridled success that the club experienced as a result of a particularly gifted set of home grown players, led certain people at the club to believe that success was guaranteed, and thus led to the financial situation becoming as dire as it did. But just as many still believe Adolf Hitler, and not the German hyperinflation in the 1920s, was to blame for the evils of Nazim, thus Ridsdale must be blamed for the recent evils of Leeds United.

9) The Court Case

The actions of Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate outside the Majestyk Nightclub, on that night in Leeds, cast a shadow over the club that was never fully recovered from. Despite the success of the club during the trial itself, and the eventual light sentence they both received for their misdemeanours, the whole affair compelled O’Leary to wash his hands of the situation through ‘that book,’ and led the nation to turn permanently against the club as a whole. The fact that the individual attacked was asian, despite the assuranced of the Crown Prosecution Service that the case was not in any way linked to Racist issues, Leeds United as a club was immediately branded a ‘racist’ club. Many people involved with the club have subsequently had to put up with such a reputation, despite Leeds having fielded both the first black player (Albert Johannson) and the first Asian player (Harpal Singh) in the English league. People still to this day assume, as a result of the image of the club being dragged through the gutter, that the consummate professional Alan Smith is a racist thug; despite his being entirely unlinked to the Bowyer/Woodgate incident.

10) The general reputation of the club, and its repercussions.

It is taken as a given that the press in Britain hold incredible power over the hearts and minds of the masses. Leeds United’s reputation, stretching from the 70s to the 90s, as a team of confrontational thugs (Billy Bremner, Danny Mills, Norman Hunter, Alan Smith), has had the sum effect in producing widespread hatred of the club in general. This hatred meant that rather than Leeds’ setbacks being dealt with and overcome, they were compounded and exacerbated by a hostile press and public. Footballers read the newspapers, and are incredibly impressionable. For the Leeds players to read the venomous reports of insolvency and corruption emanating from the tabloid newspapers on a daily basis, and detach themselves from such reports while training and playing, was an impossible task. No matter how many assurances they got from the club that the press were simply being inflammatory and sensationalist, it did affect how they played, and it did mean that the situation at Leeds was worsened. For the past two seasons, the response to conceding one goal has invariably been to concede another and the response to having a player sent off has been to lie down and surrender. This is totally at odds with the fighting spirit associated with Leeds. Leeds players have seen the way that the press seemingly view the downfall of the club as comeuppance for their previous sins, and it has broken their spirit. The fearlessness on which the team was built has been replaced by a sheepish inability to fight. The Leeds players were sick of being likened to thugs like Lee Bowyer, but could not shrug that association unless they changed their hard but fair playing style, which in footballing terms has resulted in the capitulation of the club to the demon of relegation.

OVERVIEW

The club now has to take this chance, which not many other big teams have had, to entirely reconstruct its workings from first principles. The directorial side of things has to be based on trust and honesty, with an open and frank approach to the financial running of the club. On the managerial side, Leeds need to appoint someone who will not walk away from a sinking ship, but also someone with true ambition; Gordon Strachan is the obvious choice, if he can be lured. In terms of players, Leeds must evaluate how they have failed to compete over the years, as a result of physical failure and injuries to key players. If Leeds can rid themselves of dire physical specimens such as Stephen McPhail and Ian Harte, then they may not fall foul to such failures in the future. Arsenal are the obvious model, Leeds have an opportunity to emulate their style of play by constructing a team that has strength and pace as a theme running through the squad. This will not only enable them to cope with the physical demands of the first division, but also allow them to compete in the Premiership when the time comes. Having the pick of young players from England’s third biggest city gives Leeds a massive advantage over many other teams who have to share their catchment area with another club, Leeds need to consolidate this advantage. Rather than attempt to rush towards achievements, the club should be happy to rest in the knowledge that success breeds success, and that with the loyal fan base that Leeds possess, it is possible to work with a long term plan in mind.

The moment when Leeds United as a club started to fail was when it abandoned its long term plans for success in order to rush the process.