In this weeks Teenage Kicks In our young writer Darragh Mullen bites, promotes another site and in general just goes looking for a fight.
Another loss in the league and the ‘confidence’ is gone again. Personally I am not all that worried as, no matter what form we are in, we still have the squad and the manager to get out of this league with ease. Its only about finding that form and hopefully its starts with Millwall live on Sky. The first 5 months of the season could not have been a fluke! What got me thinking though was an article written on the Dirty Leeds Blog discussing Southampton raising their game against us and then losing to Swindon mid-week and in general discussing that as a current trend. The article in summary is really just a good old ‘Everybody Hates Us’ moan.
http://dirtyleedscom.blogspot.com/2010/03/saints-latest-victims-of-leeds-united.html
The part I was most interested in though were the comments underneath. Now I would not suggest reading down through the hundreds of comments because that in itself would be enough to kill your spirit, let alone the Cheltenham Festival! If you scan down through them though and filter some of the many rubbish comments you might get an interesting outlook of opposition fans and where they see themselves as a team, in particular the Swindon Town fans.
With all due respect to Swindon fans (well sort of), they are having a good season but ultimately by the majority of football fans they are seen in in the very unromantic way the Dirty Leeds Blog so delicately described them as ‘also-rans’. Norwich at least have a bit of ambition, although that hits its limit really with Premiership football, but Swindon Town are the equivalent of the Blackburn Rovers of League 1 and that is very ominous for a football fan who expects to see their team be in any way successful. That’s why I was so interested in the Swindon fans biting back so hard. They took so much offence to the term ‘also rans’ that I really was taken aback. Obviously us as Leeds fans would be very offended and would bite back ourselves but surely Swindon fans should understand that unless something huge changes they really have no outstanding future ahead other than giant killings and football league trophies. I can understand if they are ones local team and that is a reason for supporting them because that is an experience I get over here but other than that i can’t for the life of me understand why there would be other Swindon fans just for the sake of it and then again how they could get offended when other fans call them shit!? Its just one of those things, in the same way that Michael Schumacher will have to settle for never winning another F1 Championship so there’s no point dwelling over it.
The thing then that differentiates Leeds fans and Swindon Town fans is quite simply ambition. A Leeds fan from Scotland but working in London once questioned where my ambition was and where all of our ambition was for that matter? He liked to say that it had packed up and gone with Ridsdale but I would very much disagree. What makes us potentially one of the biggest clubs in England is that we actually believe as fans that we are able to win the Premier League, even in the Oligopoly that is the current Premier League table where the league is dominated by a few big ‘Franchises’. By God it is looking nowhere near likely in the next decade or so but I would definitely like to think that in my lifetime anyway we will be successful again. I don’t think however the same could be said about the average Swindon fan. Money will come and go but ultimately its the ambition of the club that dictates its future. Although money definitely helps!
I am not oblivious to the fact that to any Swindon fans or someone who supports another ‘also ran’ club can see me as completely arrogant because quite simply that is a very arrogant statement to make. In the same way that Ronaldo can claim that he is one of the best players in the world, it is arrogant but it also has alot of elements of truth behind it. The comments on the Dirty Leeds Blog claimed that its arrogant views like mine which makes Leeds so hated but it could also be said it’s what makes Leeds so famous. Some can call this arrogance, others could call it ambition in the face of hoplessness. Its all well and good talking and worrying about the here and now but all in all in the future of Leeds United will always be bright simply because Leeds fans see it that way. The day we are content with 9th place in any league is the day I will be ashamed to be a Leeds fan. Until then i have no problem being as ‘arrogant’ as ever because in the larger scale we are a big club and there are no two ways about it.
