On the face of it this shouldn’t be that fun for Leeds. You know the story, Champions League semi-final, David O’Leary’s kids, Seth Johnson, none of them as good as we all thought, huge debt, Venables, relegation, Ken Bates, Dennis Wise etc. etc.
But is it actually the case that the once hated Leeds fans are actually now enjoying their football more than ever? Item one for the prosecution are the following quotes from The Times:
“I haven’t been this excited about coming to games for years.”
says a season-ticket holder called Maureen. While Paul McManus, another fan of 30 years says:
“We’ve had people who haven’t been to a game for five years booking seats on the coach. It could be just wanting to see their club winning games, or to go to grounds they’ve not been to before. But what it really comes down to is they’ve seen half the world having a go at their club and the other half laughing about it. They want to show that, right or wrong, it’s still their club.â€â€
Much is made of how ‘true’ football support is in the lower leagues, so are Leeds fans enjoying life now or would they give it all up for the heavily marketed, Sky-enforced glitz of the Premier League?