Last weekend hurt. I don’t need to tell you that, I know you felt it too.

It’s not an unusual feeling. Pain and disappointment come with the territory at Leeds, and as devastating as it is watching our automatic promotion chances go down like Ollie Watkins in the penalty area (which is quickly, and without much of a fight) it’s where we feel the most comfortable.

Like you I’ve already toyed with the thought of Ipswich upsetting the odds and stealing a draw at Bramall Lane on Saturday, but realistically I know that anything less than a resounding 4-0 home win will be a surprise.

It’ll hurt watching their fans and players celebrate, just like it’ll hurt watching Norwich do the same. They both deserve it, we can’t argue with that, but it’ll hurt nonetheless.

When I see my 6 year old son tomorrow the first thing he’ll talk to me about is Leeds, and after months of me trying to provide some balance to his endless optimism he might finally start to understand why I’d been doing it all along.

We’ll dissect the games and reflect on how close we really were, and it’ll hurt, though I’m certain he’ll tell me that it isn’t over yet and demand that I play ‘Marching on together’ on repeat in the car (with the windows down, of course) just like every other week.

In truth it took me a while to make him come around to supporting Leeds. Half of his family support Huddersfield and their Premier League exploits made Leeds, especially last season, a particularly hard sell.

In that sense this season couldn’t have gone any better. We were in the family stand when Roofe nodded home the winner against Blackburn, and even though he couldn’t see a thing through the crowd I watched him celebrate like it meant the world to him, and that meant the world to me.

And that’s the thing about football, it’s supposed to be felt.

Before then, there were times when I thought, albeit fleetingly, that it might be best for him to avoid supporting Leeds anyway. After all, for every last minute Roofe moment there are ten Watford playoff finals, but then again, nobody supports Leeds for the glory.

Every week he sits through hours of old Leeds goals on Youtube. “I can’t believe Leeds beat Liverpool!” he’d say, before I’d tell him to search for ‘Yeboah’ and watch his mesmerised eyes following volley after volley into the top corner. The same moments that made me fall in love with Leeds all those years ago.

It won’t be long before this season is confined to history too. We’ll watch the clips and try our best to relive the feelings, and though we’ll never quite be able to we’ll know that it was special.

We’ll appreciate it more than we do right now, remembering the way our players relentlessly chased the ball, destroyed teams with Bielsa-ball and gave everything for the shirt. We’ll remember how we felt every twist and turn watching them, and that’s exactly how football should be.

At times it seemed as though anything less than promotion would be unjust on a team that had sparkled so often in white and yellow, and it hurts, but this time that comforting sense of inevitability comes with a plot twist. A second chance of glory, but also of extending the pain.

The playoffs and Leeds don’t mix particularly well, but who can truly say that if they heard the words ‘Becchio well placed’ they wouldn’t instantly be able to picture the ball hitting the back of the net, and hear the noise as if they were there all over again.

Of course, Leeds went on to lose that game. An unbelievable high, followed by another crushing low. The tried and tested Leeds formula strikes again.

Yet despite everything we know, one thing you can guarantee when the playoffs begin is that every single one of us will be believing again. We’ll soak up the atmosphere, be it at Elland Road or Wembley and sing our hearts out, because that’s what we do.

Whether we win or lose we’ll feel every moment, and that’s the whole point of football. That’s the entire reason we follow Leeds, because when we do finally reach that high, there’ll be no other feeling like it.

Either way, we’ll march on together.

Twitter > @SteveLTurner