Those of you that haven’t read the anti-Leeds ramblings of Rod Liddle on the Times Online website should apply your rose-tinted reading glasses to the obvious area, adopt your experienced, defiant ‘everyone hates us, but we don’t care’ stance and point your cursor towards the following link. (Brace yourself!)

Amongst the expected ‘we all hate Leeds scum’ drivel is actually some fair points, not least the one about hiring an executioner to rid the world of Ken Bates and Peter Ridsdale. Personally, I’d add a few more to that list. Namely anyone who voted against Leeds’ points deduction following our administration and most importantly, the idiot who thought it was “fair” to allow our rivals to have the deciding vote. 

Points 2, 3 and 5 pretty much cover the same area as far as I’m concerned and could be rephrased as such; 

            Ensure each and every person that has anything to gain from a football club is named and vetted beforehand. Not only should they have the money to fund a football club without the help of banks and so forth, a psychiatric assessment should be undertaken to ensure none of these benefactors show signs of megalomania.

 It should also be made clear what money leaves a football club and to whom and where the rest of the money is invested or stored. A percentage cap should be placed on director’s salaries to dictate how much they can claim from the profits of a football club for personal salaries and expenses. The same should apply to players wages.

The more irreverent, light hearted stuff that’s mixed in with the fair points he makes should not be overlooked either. The part about banning the sale of Scum and Blue Scum shirts in other team’s shops doesn’t go far enough as far as I’m concerned. For me, it should be banned anywhere outside the respective clubs stadium to try and reduce the amount of time I have to spend shaking my head in disgust at the fathers of children who have allowed their offspring to become glory-hunting cretins of society.

Allowing fans to smoke in the stands, getting rid of the jobs-worth stewards that insist on irritating everyone week in, week out and banning novelty items such as klaxons and foam hands is something I whole-heartedly agree with. This isn’t some freak show attraction for the fair weather brigade to destroy with their American toys and sideshow attractions, its football and for the most of us, it’s like a religion.

So, when you look beyond the anti-Leeds dribble expected of most journalists, you actually have some very relevant points for making the game better. Investment in youth, ridding the game of dodgy owners, more transparency and more involvement for the fans is something TSS unequivocally supports. It’ll never happen, but just like Leeds United returning to the Premier League and clearing up at home and abroad, we live in hope.

Oh and finally, vote yes on point 9 (below). Especially the part about excluding the deranged fantasists of Newcastle United, with their messiah complex and ludicrous dreams everyone outside Newcastle can see is idiocracy.

9. Demand that clubs give their fans a greater say in all decisions that directly affect them, except in the case of Newcastle United

In fact, on second thoughts, leave them to it. We need someone to laugh at and make us look a little less ridiculous.