At the risk of condemning Leeds United to another 16 years outside the Promised Land, it feels like the club is, once again, on the cusp of something exciting. If Marcelo Bielsa awoke the giant then the latest Premier League relegation left it stunned, but now there are signs of a second wind.
This is why I joined The Athletic. Most of you will already be subscribed to this place — or at the very least aware — because of the stellar work done by Phil Hay and Nancy Froston, who are really good people as well as excellent writers. This site has brought together the best collection of UK football writers under one roof and delivered the quality I have envied since 2019.
Even at 6ft 6in tall, I can only hope to hit the heights my predecessors have achieved as The Athletic’s new Leeds United reporter. Some of you may have started reading my work with Leeds Live, while none of you will have seen my stuff at The Herald and Swindon Advertiser. It’s been a circuitous route, but every step was taken to get me into a job like this.
It began with Euro 96. Alan Shearer’s goals and Paul Gascoigne’s hair. I was using dice and old cereal boxes to write out my own knockout tournaments by the time Gareth Southgate was appearing in Pizza Hut adverts.
I always had a mind for names and numbers. While watching Match of the Day on Sunday mornings, I would write out Premier League squad lists, but numbered in the correct way, my way. Right-backs with two, central midfielders with four (not six, you heathen) and strikers with nine.
Like most football writers, I was never going to make it as a player, so being inside the stadiums was the next best thing. Commentary appealed, but writing seemed to stick as I went through school and university. Living and working in a one-club city like Leeds, covering a club of that magnitude was always the dream.
Let’s go back to 49ers Enterprises and now. They were involved in many decisions, good and bad, through the Bielsa era, but this time it should be different. Paraag Marathe and the army of investors behind him have bemoaned the financial shackles of the Championship, but promotion would seemingly unlock their ambitions.
Euro 96 was a defining tournament (Stu Forster/Allsport/Getty Images)
Last year was an undeniable failure, given the squad put in place and the subsequent sales in the summer window. Another failure in May does not bear thinking about, but the team is well placed beyond the halfway mark and fingers can only be crossed that this current crop gets the club over the line.
Wheels are turning, slowly, on Elland Road’s long-awaited redevelopment. Promotion would unlock those plans and a wider transformation for that pocket of the city around the stadium. The fabric of the club and its wider community could be changing and those stories need to be told — and I will aim to do so.
The spotlight must remain on the American owners too. The bright lights of the top flight would bring more investment, more investors, higher-profile names and grand plans. It’s still Leeds United, though. That cannot be lost in the noise. The same mistakes of the last visit to the top table must not be repeated.
Red Bull’s influence is intriguing too. It brings money, connections and stature, but the intense scepticism around its long-term plans among supporters will never fade. The energy drink giant cannot avoid scrutiny.
If, God forbid, it does all blow up before May, those people in power need to be watched even more closely. A third year in the second tier would virtually wipe out any of the momentum taken from the top flight. It’s a hard reset, a rebuild and you know it’s never smooth at Elland Road.
Leeds United is a football writer’s dream. I’ve learned that since starting on the beat in February 2018. The storylines never stop. The passion from the terraces never stops. The Athletic is the perfect place to go deeper into the chaos and the romance.
Whether it was Pablo Hernandez’s 16-second slammer in 2019, the Spaniard’s far-post steer in Swansea or Stuart Dallas’s pitch-long raid in Manchester, this club gets its claws into you and never lets go.
(Top photo: Harry Trump/Getty Images)
