Leeds United - Fancy a ride?

Article by Connor Law

I wonder what it's like supporting a team different to Leeds United. Better? Worse? It must be easier for others, actually no, look at Portsmouth. So I guess it's not all that bad, is it?

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Sat in mid-table of the second tier of English Football is not where we wanted our beloved club to end up for so many years, even relegation to League One came as a bit of a shock to me although I was only young. For 8 years I felt left in the dark not knowing what was happening with the club but who did other than Ken Bates. In a sense he did save the club but he dug an even deeper, darker hole for us fans to fall into. These days fans need to know what's going on at football clubs not everything but the minor things such as what the clubs plans are in the transfer market and if the club is in good hands or not. I can rightly argue that during Ken Bates' reign nobody knew any of the minor things. The fans felt three emotions during the course of a season under Ken Bates' ownership; expectation, hope and disappointment. Obviously we need to be optimistic about something otherwise what's the point? It usually ended in disappointment.

Achieving promotion to League One was grand, I finally had something to look forward to, The Championship. We've been here for 3 seasons and haven't progressed I guess you could call it "ups n downs". We've lived through the good times and the not so good times; the 4-1 beating we delivered to Nottingham Forest at home was a personal highlight in the 2010-11 season although they got their revenge during the Neil Warnock era 3-7 it was and we were the home side what a shambles!

Now Leeds United have new owners, GFH Capital. From my perspective I still feel there is a dark cloud as to whether they're in it for the long haul because of all the rumours that still consistently fly around about whether they're selling the club or not. I'm reasonably happy with how they've finally gotten rid of Bates' 'muppets' and connected with the fans. Excellent work in bringing back The Leeds United Supporters Trust into the club and they've even started negotiating about buying a 10% stake in the club the Yorkshire Evening Post reported a couple of days ago. I can honestly say it's really brought the fans closer to the club, are we finally climbing out of this dark hole?

The summer was upon us and the expectation and hope was back again after GFH-Capital appointed Brian McDermott as manager. An unconfirmed sum of £2 million was spent in the summer bringing in four players, two on free transfers. I expected a few more players to come in to be quite honest but McDermott is very cautious as to who he brings in and that's understandable he's got a solid, proven track record of finding potentially great players for little money. Selling Shane Long for £5 million and bringing in Adam Le Fondre from Rotherham is a prime example.

This season we started well in the play-offs for a couple of games and have now dropped to 14th after a poor run of results. My advice; keep the faith, Brian McDermott knows what he's doing as it's all about the long term and progression. Brian says "We can't just wish our life away" I agree, come May we'll know where we're in the table until then let's just enjoy the ride. I guess what I'm trying to say is although we have our "ups and downs" and maybe aren't doing as well as i thought we would be it's a heck of a ride and I wouldn't swap it for anything else. The fans keep this Football Club going, that statement does sound simple but without us it wouldn't be enjoyable and no-one would be able to fear the club that gets labelled "Dirty Leeds." We'll stick by our team through literally everything whatever the result is.

So does anyone fancy a ride?

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