Welcome to today’s daily Leeds United comment column which looks at history repeating itself in slightly different forms.
It’s almost impossible as a Leeds United supporter to follow any of the major stories presently engulfing football in this country without suddenly getting a feeling of gut-retching familiarity. In every possible variant, financial meltdown, excessive wages, asset striping, player disloyalty and indiscretions, mad and dodgy chairman or plain old fashioned football frustration we wrote the book and wore the tea-shirt to death. Let’s show this with a little (but not definitive) list comparing us with the top story of the day, Portsmouth decent into administration:
1. Portsmouth fans having a bad day going into administration/meltdown? Been there twice mate. £120m in 2003, courtesy of Ridsdale and the worst financial planning in history and £30m in 2007 as our glorified fund manager managed to spend £20m in 5 months (on what is yet to be established).
2. The administrator looks like he is working for the people who made the mess in the first place? Consider yourself lucky you didn’t get KPMG, who somehow managed to miss a direct relationship between Forward Sports Fund and Astor despite it being blatantly obvious and admitted in open court.
3. One of the major architects of your downfall won’t go? Well you could always either a) pay him off or b) be stuck with him like we were after Bates’s summer of stress.
4. Ground been siphoned off? Well try the ground and the training ground being sold to a semi-detached house in West Didsbury! Follow that up with the prospect of getting your training ground back at half the market rate wasted due to the secrecy of your owners.
5. Worried about who will invest in your club after administration? Don’t you’re a financial leper now, no-one wants to invest in the club and no bank will do business with you due to the credit rating you have now accrued. Such a rating is known as a “Leeds rating” and is what happens when you drag a club down for the second time in 4 years.
6. Players suing for 100% owned whilst the staff get sweet all redundancy? Yep that will be right, players still getting paid years after they left and without a care in the world for the cleaner or catering staff now unemployed. Bless em the poor football creditor!
7. Got a young academy worth its salt? No you don’t, you have a production line for other clubs that will in the next 5 years extract the equivalent of two decent teams off you, sometimes for a steal, leaving you to overpay old pro’s without half the quality.
8. Think lower league football means lower prices? Get real; the club will sell you some sop about “if you want PL football back in the future you need to pay PL prices now”. Look forward to closed stands and half empty grounds for some games.
9. Not sure a CVA will be agreed? That will be -15 points then minimum, and big row with the Football League and a minimum of 3 seasons in L1 if your Leeds United. Obviously if you’re Portsmouth they might treat you better…
10. Looking for sympathy from other clubs fans? It’s a nice idea that will be shattered the moment the “you’re not famous anymore” chant appears.
11. Can’t get rid of your £80k a week useless player? Don’t worry the disloyal (i.e. all of them) will go as soon as a top division club appears, only they will want you to cut the fee to the point of stupidity or pay them off.
12. Looking forward to the “new start”? Why not after all we have been living with financial issues since 2002 and that’s no time at all is it? You don’t get closure till someone explains what happened and that will be buried deep by the administrator!
13. Your local St John Ambulance branch well off? Well they will need to be to cover the loses just fostered on them and also local builders, decorators, service providers, fish rental companies etc.
14. Want your teams name always associated with a certain event? That is very nice of you to take away our “doing a Leeds” tag and have it called “doing a Pompay”.
15. Looking forward to the supporters uniting? Get treatment; your forums will buzz with row after row, idiots will defend idiocy and your life isn’t your own if you care two hoots.
That is just a little list for the South Coast boys to dwell on safe in the knowledge that whilst they are suffering a bit they are only partly following a well worn path carved by us. On the bright side they can look forward in a few years time to offering helpful advice to another crises club without having sorted out your own.
