In light of Kettering Town’s 5-1 defeat at Elland Road, the chairman of Kettering sacked their manager, allegedly for disagreeing with the substitutions he made. Man of the match goalkeeper, and Kettering manager, Lee Harper was understandably dismayed at hearing the news;

“My assistant manager, John Deehan, has been sacked and I have to consider my future. Apparently the chairman didn’t like the substitutions. I love the club but there are principles. What’s been said is not fair. Every one of the players is disgusted. I’m flabbergasted.”

This could well rank as the most outrageous dismissal I’ve ever encountered. The substitutions had no real effect on the result. They couldn’t have really. Kettering are a Conference side, no doubt made up of semi-pro’s and players who would struggle to compete with our youth team, yet for 200 minutes, they played their hearts out and held us off. Of course there was an element of luck involved, most notably the woodwork, but any neutral fan looking at this tie would have expected nothing less than the final result.

The fact of the matter is, that Leeds are a professional side with massive resources and Premier League facilities at their disposal. In the end, it was the fitness levels of the two sides that made the difference, Kettering did well to last for as long as they did. Whoever the substitutes were, it wouldn’t have made a difference, Leeds are so vastly superior to the Conference side that they were always going to struggle. I think the chairman really needs a reality check.

Elsewhere, Mike Grella is deservedly grabbing the headlines for his injury time winner and spectaculor second goal that curled into the far corner from the edge of the box. Not only has Mike been gaining attention on home soil, but back in his native America the fans have been watching too.

Then there’s the FA Cup third round. The kind of tie that makes the FA Cup still an exciting competition over a century after its formation. Manchester United v Leeds United.

Whilst Simon Grayson is trying to keep everyone grounded and focused on the League, Ken Bates couldn’t help but mention the money. Our very own Father Christmas is rubbing his hands in glee at the thought of all them gate receipts, TV and prize monies that will follow the tie against the Salford Yanks.

“It will be a substantial contribution to our income win, lose or draw. That is very important because we have a lot of things to do.

“We have continual ground works to improve the facilities for fans and we have to build up a fighting fund to ensure that Simon has the facilities at his command if we confirm promotion.”

"Shoes off, if you hate ManU!"

"Shoes off, if you hate ManU!"

And finally, what about those glory hunting, prawn sandwich eating fools from across the Pennines? (well, predominantly Kent, but for some reason they’ve left their stadium in Manc).  Well, rather unsurprisingly, they’ve been doing their best to try and wind us up.

Vital Scum went with the following;

It’s a shame the game is not at Elland Road: it would be even more satisfying to do them in front of their own vile fans. But at least we get to meet them again: beating Leeds is something I miss very much. And we have reasons to be angry with them: they stopped producing great players for us. Cantona, Irwin, Ferdinand all became world-class here but since the transfer of Alan Smith our little feeder club has not been doing its job well.

That was my favourite of all the attempts to wind Leeds United fans up (probably because of the owners obsession with the colon), but a quick look on Newsnow will produce many more if you’re interested.

To save you the time, I’ll sum up the jist of it. It’s essentially a collection of ‘we all hate Leeds scum’ comments, mixed in with a few swipes at our League One status and the continual attempts to call us a small team of little significance. Which is clearly the case and is why they’re putting more attention on the fixture than most of the Leeds United sites.