But fear not my nonagenarian friends, we’re not about to start discussing the merits of console based soccer games. This rather is what Leeds United needs to be thinking about – not the next set of signings and contracts – but the next 10 years.

Howard Wilkinson not only dragged us out of the mire in 1990 he also created arguably the finest production line of talent in the Football League. No better investment has been made by our great football club than Thorp Arch. Not only did the players I mentioned offer us some incredible profit margins – and save us from utter financial collapse, they afforded the English game some of it’s finest talents.

Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Alan Smith, Jonathan Woodgate, Ian Harte, I won’t go on as it’s making me feel somewhat despondent, even wistful. There have been lesser lights too who’ve steered us on our dark journey through the doldrums post 2004, Matt Kilgallon, Jonny Howson, Ben Parker and there are ones for the future too, Aidan White, Tom Lees.

Good teams don’t just live fleetingly, they evolve.

Look at Manchester United (if you can), probably the best example of this. Financial decisions aside, the fact that Scholes, Giggs, the Neville brothers all have the disgraceful red badge running through them like Blackpool rock, has set them on a footing in the European game like no other. New players augment the core, even aid their development.

Leeds just don’t have that, and haven’t done for quite some time. The days of the club stalwart are numbered it would seem, with the paucity of finance available in the lower leagues, when you get a good youngster on your books, then the Premier League vultures are circling, often before they’ve even run on the pitch.

Neil Warnock’s biggest challenge is probably self-imposed. He wants to get Leeds United in the Premier League by the end of next season – and if he can by the end of this season, though that appears unlikely. What will interest a lot of supporters is how far he’s going to tap into that Thorp Arch conveyor belt. Is Neil Warnock going to build a team purely for promotion, or is he going to build a team for the next 10 years?

The snappy catch answer is that he’ll go for option one. Doubtless bin off the Grayson deadwood, and bring in his old(er) guard, seasoned campaigners from Sheffield United, QPR, and maybe even Crystal Palace, whom he knows and trusts to do him a job.

But you have to wonder how far he now has his eye on Thorp Arch too, he’s seen what Lees can do – and is an admirer. One wonders whether his vanity will stretch to unearthing others, so that his promotion isn’t just a final flourish, but people talk about his legacy too – much like Wilkinson?

If Leeds United do go up and don’t blood some of their youth team in the coming season and a bit, then one would have to say it’s not only a lost opportunity (come on how many have ended up as dross – I can’t think of one in fact) but strategically suicidal.

To compete at the top table, we have to accept that we need a `real’ 30 man squad. Not 12 professionals, and a hotch potch, rag-tag group of 18 others under 15 years old or with fragile hamstrings, a pathological fear of scoring goals or some kind of beef with the coach. To do that you’ve either got to invest heavily in a decent squad (not going to happen) or else start blending your youth players with the more senior group. Grayson was probably at fault here, as he seemed more likely to go out and buy a Forssell or a Grella than blood a Poleon or an Ions. And the impact of those same players drafted in last minute, by and large, has been minimal to the extent that their trialling and recruitment has been pointless. Those academy players are going to be younger, fitter, and in a position where they have a point to prove. They’re of course already bought and paid for – and in the shop window.

If the issue on Tuesday was heavy legs – really? – Well wouldn’t some youthful exuberance have been key? The last couple of times I’ve played as a thirty something the last thing you wanted was some bright spark bringing along his nephew – 17 years old, a trainee at wolves – they just buzz around you like a mosquito until, flapping and tired you just give up. Sure they might not always be the best but the youthful energy of perhaps times earlier this season was definitely missing.

So why don’t we actively start evolving our core team right now? Building for the future, how Darwinian. Or rather spend less on finding has beens with 6 months left in the locker – and start using our already expensively assembled – but better value youth players – there may be another Howson, Smith or Woodgate lurking, who knows?

Thanks to Stephen Bridle from Five Year Plan Fanzine for taking part.

We last met at Elland Road in September when Leeds won 3-2. Has much changed for Palace since then?

A lot has changed since we met near the beginning of the season. I feel we played a good game against you and we’ve won many games this season having played worse football. Our fortunes have picked up since then and we’ve enjoyed many successes – with perhaps the most outstanding games being our 2-1 victory over Man United at Old Trafford and spanking Brighton 3-1 at their place.

We’re in good stead at the moment and spirits are high after beating Cardiff on Tuesday evening, so you’ll certainly have your work cut out.

You’ve had an impressive run in the Carling Cup, but do you think this has affected Palace’s form in the league?

Not really. We’d been using the cup to blood a few youngsters. Much was made of United’s changes to their usual starting line-up when we played them, but what most pundits seem to neglect to do is put any sort of research time into the lower league team when it comes to these sorts of games. If they had they’d have found we also have been making many changes throughout our cup campaign. We’ve got enough depth in the squad to have allowed us to stay strong in both competitions. While we’re not on the run that saw us a fixture in the play-off positions like earlier in the season I think we’ve still managed to hold our own.

With the play-offs still achievable, where do you expect to finish this year?

I expect we’ll finish just outside of the play-off positions. Which would be a huge achievement given the relegation struggles we’ve faced over the last few years. A season to regroup in mid-table could work wonders for us. Of course a finish in the play-offs with the prospect of promotion would be lovely, but I won’t be losing sleep if it doesn’t happen.

Who should we be looking out for in your side on Saturday?

If he’s fully recovered from his virus, right-back Nathaniel Clyne is the one to watch. He’s been linked with all manner of Premier League clubs this season – including Manchester United – and he’s really a force to be reckoned with.

Going forward most people tend to look at Wilfried Zaha, who it has to be said of late isn’t putting in the performances he was at the beginning of the season.

The Championship 2011/12: 3 up, 3 down?

Southampton, West Ham and Middlesbrough to go up. In that order.

In no particular order Millwall, Doncaster and Coventry to go down.

If you could sign one current Leeds player for Palace, who would it be?

It’d probably be Becchio. He always scores against us, so it’d be nice to see what he’d do if he was with us.

Finally, what’s your prediction for the game?

I think it’ll be a tough game, but this time we’ll come out on top. Expect us to play calm, defensive football looking to catch you on the counter. That’s seemingly how we’re lining up at home so far this season. We’re solid at the back – as a quick glance at the stats table will tell you – so a high-scoring game it won’t be.

Palace 2-1 Leeds

Sure, we’re in no position to really be laughing at the misfortunes of Manchester United and Manchester City – and the majority of us probably wished Man City nothing but good will – but it was hard not to crack a few Channel Five jokes as the self-proclaimed “biggest club on earth” were knocked out of the Champions League by a distinctly average Swiss side.

Twitter was awash with jokes as last night’s events unfolded, and we couldn’t help but get in on the action ourselves with a bit of Photoshop editing of the famous Manchester City billboard – which was also created in red (below) after requests from The Seventy Two whose own dismal Photoshop skills led to the whole thing in the first place.

As The Scratching Shed’s effort was being retweeted and shared, Colin emailed us his own mock-up of Channel Five’s website, advertising Europe’s equivalent to the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

I know it doesn’t speak well to my mental well-being, but I really do love the hate-fuelled vile constantly aimed at our club from all directions. It makes us unique and rather interesting.

Take this, from an Arsenal fan as an example;

Arsenal have, as we all know by now, drawn Leeds United in the third round of my favourite competition, the FA Cup. More recent Arsenal fans might not know this, but Leeds United are the embodiment of all that is ugly and wrong with soccer and parents should steer their kids away from being Leeds fans just like they steer their kids away from talking to balding old men who lurk at the edge of the playground in a windowless white van.

Such a captivating opening to his rant, right?

It’s rants like these that make me love being hated. Aside from Millwall who are universally despised for being Millwall, the Championship is a league full of boring clubs no one could care less about. If we were in the Premier League at present, would any of us be looking down at the Championship for an exciting cup tie? Would any club for that matter be looking down at the Championship for an exciting cup tie? I sincerely doubt it.

Leeds are the exception to an otherwise boring set of teams that are either yoyoing back and forth between the Premier League/League One or content with their own mediocrity, happy to make the numbers up in England’s second tier. These other teams are totally devoid of character – going to Portsmouth or Barnsley is no more or less interesting than going to Southampton or Burnley.

If Leeds have been cast as the Pantomime villain of this division, then so be it – Christ knows it needed some character.

The Arsenal fan whose rant I referred at the top of this post goes on to explain his hatred, citing the general “Dirty Leeds” nonsense we’re all used to by now. He even takes a shot at one of his own club’s legends, David O’Leary, for putting together a team that beat seven bells out of his own set of pansies.

You can read the rest of his stereotypical, wildly exaggerated rantings here (it’s amusing, if nothing else). You’ll notice a major inaccuracy in the following paragraph that speaks volumes to his research;

Leeds spent the rest of the 1980′s in the Second, gaining promotion back to the First in 1989-1990. Up until the late 1990′s, though, Leeds didn’t amount to much, and it was only after George Graham was named manager shortly after the start of the 1996 season that Leeds started to play well again.

We didn’t win the title in 1992 then? Funny how so many of us imagined that.

Summing up, the bitter Arsenal fan explains his hatred, referring to the game as “soccer” which could explain his lack of knowledge – I assume he’s American and most of them think the game was invented around the time Manchester United started winning things;

[Leeds] personify everything to me that is wrong with the game – ugly play, a massive financial overreach, and the arrogance to believe that both of those things were and are acceptable. They may be running their club in a more fiscally responsible way now – I don’t pay attention to them these days and thus have no idea – but the fact that they borrowed so heavily against a future that provided no guarantees, all the while playing a style of the game that would make your average prison basketball team blush, means that in my opinion, Leeds got and are getting what they deserve – lower division soccer.

Deserving of lower division soccer indeed. We’re also getting an FA Cup tie against Arsenal that few of us care about, but will still do all we can to maintain our “Dirty Leeds” reputation in.

For sport is nothing without characters and if the Premier League was a division full of Arsenal’s with their sleep-invoking manager and team made of lightweight pansies who spend as much time moaning as they do playing football, it’d be an extremely boring division no one would be interested in.

Once upon a time I had a great respect for Arsenal. When the team featured warriors like Patrick Viera, Tony Adams and Sol Campbell, it was hard not to look on enviously. But the modern day Arsenal is a side full of over-hyped, perpetual moaners who think they have a God-given right to be successful – a myth predicated on the basis that their squad cost relatively nothing and shows more skill than effort.

Arsenal supporters have dropped dramatically in my respect levels too. Highbury had a library-like atmosphere few people enjoyed but their fans were entirely genuine. With the Emirates however came an entirely new fan base who love nothing more than to indulge in half time prawn sandwich eating contests, and boo their players every time they lose possession or have a bad game. There’s a large percentage of glory hunters, no different from Manchester United, who demand and expect success that represent all that is wrong with modern football.

Quite how anyone can consider Leeds United fans arrogant when we have Arsenal to make us look humble is baffling, but let me add to that stereotypical attribute by theorising the real reason the above Arsenal fan hates Leeds United is the passionate, vocal fanbase we take everywhere that puts all else to shame – even when we’re losing. Perhaps it’s the enjoyment we take from following our club, despite our recent struggles and ongoing attempts to regain Premier League status they find so hard to stomach? Maybe it’s our devilishly good looks?

Or maybe it’s just the arrogance I gave you a perfect example of above? I don’t really care to be honest with you, I love being hated.

On and on…

Leeds United will face Arsenal in the FA Cup for the second consecutive season, drawing the Premier League side away at The Emirates.

The Whites took Arsenal to an Elland Road replay last time the two sides met, drawing 1-1 at the Emirates before Arsene Wenger’s side won 3-1 at Elland Road.

The biggest tie of the third round is undoubtedly Manchester City vs Manchester United whose balls were weighted to ensure Budweiser’s advertising money was well spent.

There are times in life when rivalries are set aside and you can have nothing but respect for even your most hated of rivals.

In my lifetime, there have been two instances of tragedy overcoming football fan divide that really stand out – both of which involve the “War of the Roses” rivalry between Manchester United and Leeds.

The first was eleven years ago following the murders of Christopher Loftus and Kevin Speight, when fans of clubs from across the country came to Elland Road to lay tribute to their memory.

I too was in Turkey for that game against Galatasaray, and when I returned home we went via the Billy Bremner statue to lay a Leeds United shirt we’d scrawled our own messages of condolence on.

It was there that I met a Manchester United fan laying flowers on behalf of his fellow supporters. He was understandably nervous entering enemy territory, fearing he may be an outlet for the Leeds United fans’ anger, but the rivalry between the two sides seemed incredibly petty in light of the tragedy we were there to mourn.

It was one of those ‘some things are bigger than football’ moments that always seem to catch you by surprise, and tonight, I caught news of another one.

Despite the fact Gary Speed tributes have taken place up and down the country, I never really considered Manchester United would hold their own minutes applause. But they did, and credit to the club for doing so – it’s nice to see the football world honouring such an inspirational figure, regardless of his personal allegiances.

But that wasn’t the part that shocked me. As deeply encoded into my DNA as the rivalry with Manchester United may be, I’m not at all surprised to hear they honoured the minutes applause. What surprised me was that the fans went above and beyond that, chanting “there’s only one Gary Speed” from the terraces.

My unreserved respect goes out to the Manchester United fans that took part in that chant tonight, and to all the football fans – regardless of club – that have stood united to mourn the loss of one of football’s true heroes.

As one Twitter user put it, “Gary Speed – played for Everton, Liverpool fans liked him. Played for Leeds, Manchester United fans liked him. Says it all.”

Of all the condolence messages I’ve read, nothing sums up the reaction we’ve seen quite like that tweet – the response has been truly heart-warming and I’ve never been prouder to be a small part of the footballing community.

A bad patch of form at Leeds United means the cries for Simon Grayson to be sacked are back with a vengeance. Even a 1-0 away win to promotion favourites Leicester City did little to halt some fans vendetta.

You see, the problem with Leeds United fans is that they’re incredibly reactionary. Not only that, but because the vast majority are Yorkshire born and bred, stubbornness is hard-coded into their DNA. Once they’ve committed their instantaneous reaction to social networks, forums and sites like this, their stubbornness won’t allow them to turn back.

Their reaction is now permanent. People can quote them on it, so they fear any change of opinion would be taken as a sign of weakness, thus devaluing any future comments they may wish to make.

Even days later when they’ve had chance to calm down and put things into perspective, or weeks later when Simon Grayson has got things back on track they’ll still find justification to stick by their earlier comments – even though they’ve realised how stupid their reaction was.

The defence is a prime example of this. It’s easy for fans to use it as justification for a Grayson Out rant, despite the fact we’ve been plagued by constant injuries (Naylor, Kisnorbo, O’Brien, O’Dea, Lonergan) and that we still managed to finish above what anybody had hoped for last season.

Who’d be a manager? Everyone’s a critic, and everyone insists they’re right. Doesn’t matter how well the opposition perform, or how good they are, there is simply no excuse for Leeds United being second best. Our recent League Cup tie against Manchester United summed it up perfectly when we lost 3-0 to the English Champions and our fans criticised everyone on the pitch for a lack of heart.

Could it just be that Manchester United are a better team? Don’t be ridiculous.

Things can’t be that simple. It can’t just be a case of us being second best on the day. There has to be a reason why we didn’t win. Someone must be blamed. The game must be analysed and re-analysed, then analysed some more until we’ve reached a stage where someone has run a simulation of the game on Football Manager 2012 playing Youth Player X instead of Robert Snodgrass, with Ramon Nunez and Jonny Howson playing just behind Luciano Becchio in a Christmas tree formation, thus resulting in a convincing Whites win.

And there’s absolutely no excuse for Simon Grayson to have not used the same system. It works on FM2012 for Christ sake Simon, what is wrong with you?

Never mind the fact that new formations take weeks, sometimes months of practice to master, or that Football Manager is an absolutely pointless game that has no reflection on reality which people waste far too much of their life playing, LeedsDude47 has a screenshot that shows a 3-0 win. He saved and reloaded the game eight times first, but that’s beside the point.

It reaches a stage where the realistic fans are overshadowed by a stubborn minority who by now, have spent so many hours picking flaws in highlights of Leeds United games, they’ve convinced themselves Simon Grayson is an absolute idiot and they could do a much better job.

This is the TalkSport generation; a generation who are convinced football management is best learnt from watching TV, and that anybody could do it better than those rare few who actually do.

It’s a generation who cares little for the hours spent on the training ground, for the hours more a manager sits in his office studying the opposition and working on tactics and less still for the obstacles they may have to overcome, such as injuries or failed transfer bids. That all requires reasoning and perspective, and unfortunately for Simon, that seems to be evading more and more fans every season.

It puzzles me as to why these fans watch football in the first place. They clearly can’t handle the variance inherent in this sport. We all suffer when our team loses, it can govern our mood for days after. But for the majority of us, defeat only makes victory all the more sweeter.

That’s not true of this minority though, is it? One suspects defeat is easier for them than victory, because they don’t have to work as hard to get their point across. Everyone is a little down after defeat and looking for someone to blame – finding allies at this point is all too easy.

But when Leeds have won and everyone else is enjoying themselves, these people have to work harder than ever to continue their campaign of perpetual moaning. The justification for their rants shifts from the most recent game, to every low we’ve had in recent years, all neatly laid out for you with the balance our successful patches and strong points add totally ignored.

I’m sure there’s people reading this that are preparing a speech of how wrong I am. I’m no doubt missing key information that makes their justification for a hate campaign perfectly logical. In fact, I’m the idiot for enjoying football while we have such total incompetence leading the charge.

To those people, please save yourselves the time and go buy a Manchester City shirt. You’re clearly not cut out for a club that has so many ups and downs – it’s ruining your life. Like the gay lads that marry and have kids, you’re fooling yourselves. You’re basically a glory-hunter, afraid to step out of the closet.

Please, don’t misinterpret this as a shot at every fan who has ever overreacted after a poor result, or who has moaned about continual problems affecting the club – we all do that, it stems from our desperate desire to succeed. We want to know that everyone at the club cares just as much as we do, and our emotions get the better of us at times.

The group of fans I’m talking about here are those that take pleasure in defeat and use it to justify their constant moaning. The fans who would still find something to criticise if we’d won the last ten in a row. They’re the “I told you so” crowd that nobody likes, but who insist on annoying us all regardless.

I suspect they’re the kind of people who grow old and spend their last remaining days on this earth trying to ruin the lives of youngsters by confiscating their football, or starting neighbour watch groups determined to prevent kids from laughing. They don’t enjoy football, they enjoy moaning about it.

They’re Arsenal fans basically.

It’s been a difficult few days for us Leeds United fans coming to terms with the embarrassing 5-0 defeat at home to Blackpool.

The inquest into the cause of that defeat was led by angry fans, and once we’d finished blaming everyone from Lucas The Kop Cat to the Elland Road tea lady, with no one else left to blame, we turned on each other.

A club whose fanbase was once impossible to divide, united by an “us against the world” mentality born of the hatred aimed at us from every possible direction has crumbled into a divided mess of angry name calling and relentless moaning.

The defiant roar of “we’re Leeds United, we don’t give a f**k” is nothing more than a poignant reminder of how much we’ve changed. Of how petty we’ve all become.

When did we start to care that our star winger was a little slower than average? That our striker is a bit short to pose any aerial threat? That our bench is perhaps a little less exotic than that of Leicester City? “We’re Leeds United, we don’t give a f**k” remember?

This is a club built on misfits for Christ sake. By the end of the season there’ll be two statues outside our club. One will be a fiery Scottish player rejected by most clubs as being too small to make it pro, the second will be Don Revie; the laughing stock of many an FA meeting with his threadbare lucky suit, bingo games and Gypsy curses.

But “we’re Leeds United, we don’t give a f**k”. They didn’t laugh when Revie’s team was tearing their set of generic footballers apart, guided by that fiery little redhead they’d all dismissed.

Enjoy yourselves while you can people, because we’ll only come back stronger. We’re like a little Yorkshire terrier ragging away at your trouser leg – you might shake us off, but we’ll only come back more determined and hungrier than ever.

Except, that’s not true any more is it? We’re so busy picking faults in the manager, in the captain, in the players, in each other that any claim to a die-hard, determined spirit should come with an asterisk stating *if we’ve finished sulking in time. 

That’s the crux of the matter you see. We’re a club of great contradictions. Where once we went Marching On Together throughout the ups and downs, we now moan more than Arsenal and handle defeat worse than Manchester United. There’s no togetherness about this fanbase at all.

We expect results, and we expect them every week regardless of opposition and circumstance. The late Sir Bobby Robson understood the football fans psyche better than anyone, and was absolutely spot on when he said; “People want success. It’s like coffee, they want instant.”

I appreciate the irony of a blogger writing this, but the game is so over-analysed these days that fans are finding fault in absolutely everything. Are there any managers left whose fans don’t seem to think they could do a better job?

A manager shouldn’t be judged by the little things we can pick up on with video replays and the benefit of hindsight, nor should the players. They should be judged on results, and not on a game-by-game, or month-by-month basis but over a long enough duration for the unpredictable variance inherent in every sport to level out and give us a true reflection of their performance. I don’t know, let’s say a season for example?

It’s a strange concept I know, but imagine that we saved all the energy we’ve wasted on moaning and belittling our players and manager and channelled it back into our “us against the world” mentality. Imagine that we rediscovered that unity our club was once famous for and our defiant spirit replaced the petty arguments and tiresome moaning.

The next time you’re at Elland Road and you hear “We’ve been through it all together” blast out across the stands, take a look around at your fellow fans, at the 11 men on the pitch, at Simon Grayson prowling the touchline and at the rest of the players and coaching staff stood behind him.

I’ve written this entire article in a collective sense (we, us, we’re) because we seem to have forgotten what united us all in the first place – we all want the same thing. The fans, the players, the coaching staff, the supporters, Lucas The Kop Cat, the tea lady. We are Leeds United.

As for everyone else? Who the hell cares what they think, let them write us off at their peril. “We’re Leeds United, we don’t give a f**k”. And we thrive as underdogs. On and on…

Ramon Nunez today secured a new contract that will keep him at Elland Road until 2015, with an option of a further year thrown in for good measure.

The 25-year-old Honduran made a sensational start to the 2011/12 season netting five times and making his way into the starting line-up against Crystal Palace following the sale of Max Gradel. However, the winger failed to produce the kind of game-changing performance he’d made from the bench and was subsequently dropped in favour of Andy Keogh for the visit of Manchester United.

Ramon Nunez becomes the second Leeds United player to extend his contract with the club following in the footsteps of Tom Lees who secured a similar deal at the end of September.

Whilst the news of Nunez’s new contract will be music to the ears of most Whites fans, there is still some cause for concern as negotiations with Jonny Howson continue. The homegrown club captain is Leeds United’s longest serving playing and has made over 200 appearances for his home town club, but his current deal expires at the end of the current season.

There will also be some concern about Adam Clayton and Robert Snodgrass. Whilst both players are tied to the club until the end of the 2012/13 season, fresh long-term contracts would go a long way to assuring fans they won’t follow in the footsteps of Max Gradel, leaving Leeds United forced to sell next summer.

The Scratching Shed welcomes Colin, a regular commentator on the site, whose first article looks at Leeds United’s falling attendances. 

Things aren’t all white at Leeds United. Figures suggest that the Yorkshire club’s fans are deserting a club renowned for its loyal support at an alarming and unsustainable rate.

Last season, Leeds United had the highest attendances of any team in the English Football League. The Championship team had an average attendance of 27,299. To put that number in its true perspective – higher than 8 Premier League clubs.

This season, things seem a little different. Against Bristol City in September, there were 22,655 fans at Elland Road. Last season, at the same fixture at a similar time of year, November, the attendance was 27,567, a drop of just under 5,000 fans.

At the last Leeds United home match against Portsmouth, there were 22,476 fans. Last season, there were 31,556. That match was over the lucrative Christmas break and you expect a higher attendance when you take into account the timing. However, it is still important to note that 9,000 less fans have turned up this time around against one of the ‘bigger’ teams in the league. This year, there are no lucrative Christmas ties. Leeds United will play their Christmas games away from home. The Football League Fixture Generator (sponsored by NPower) has been especially Scrooge-like to Leeds United. And that makes the already dispirited accountant at Elland Road, an even more frustrated Bob Cratchit figure. It’s going to be a cold winter in Leeds and he’s not getting any presents.

So why the glum faced accountant? Surely the Manchester United game helped to fill the coffers? It must have been a sell-out? Well, hmmm, no. It wasn’t. Last season, in Leeds United’s ‘big’ test against Arsenal, the attendance was a comfortable 38,000, and it could have been more. The club expected the same result through the turnstiles this time around. But when the Board looked out of the windows expecting to see queues, no-one was there.

The club expected huge demand and encouraged fans to guarantee tickets with a first come, first served offer allowing a guaranteed seat if you attended the previous 2 home games. In addition, it was a ticket for the season ticket holder only, no friends allowed. Then the friends were allowed. Then there were special ‘exclusive’ offers for the Executive boxes and Prawn Sandwich brigade. No-one was hungry.

After much encouragement, only 31,000 fans turned up for a game against ‘The Enemy’ – the Premier League victors and Champions League finalists. The club expected to be inundated with ticket requests. That didn’t happen. Many fans already disgruntled with paying Top 6 Premier League season ticket prices to watch a mid-table Championship team, rightly baulked at the option to be ‘allowed’ to take their own seat for a further £36. The tide has turned and the fans are walking away with their cash in their pockets.

The attendances at Leeds United have dropped by 14%. And that number is a realistic but potentially optimistic one based on the comparable timings of the Bristol City match versus last season. If you took the current average attendance versus last season, or the attendance against Manchester United versus Arsenal last season, or the Portsmouth example, then the club are facing much closer to a 20% figure.

They say a picture paints a thousand words, and images of Elland Road this season show vast spaces of empty seats. If alarm bells are not already ringing in the Leeds United offices, then they should be.

Perhaps someone forgot to change the batteries?

If you’d like to submit an article for consideration to The Scratching Shed, please email us using the online form.

Picture courtesy of MAMF taken at Leeds United v Middlesbrough (13/08/2011)