Your reading a pre 2010-11 archived article
Clarkeonenil is happy to bring you the first of a series of guest articles which I hope you will enjoy. Today Martha Zantides writes on the Leeds United away trip to Wycombe Wanderers but without my cynical eye.
Sometimes I think that August is not the time for football, warm and humid weather does not go with the pre-match drinks and it feels a little surreal to be watching mediocre football whilst stood wearing shorts and t-shirt and when the sun is shining as it did yesterday at Adams Park, High Wycombe.
So yesterday was when the mighty battle scarred Leeds went to Wycombe. Adams Park has a capacity of 10,000 so it might have punctured our self esteem a little when the attendance was just over 8,000. It has been the norm for the past 5 seasons to sell out the away grounds when Leeds is playing. Chants of ‘You’re only hear to watch the Leeds’ and ‘We filled your ground for you’ are common and whilst we Leeds fans might sound arrogant, it is intended as the usual banter, in addition the stats would bear us out to be right.
Whilst we may be perceived to be arrogant, we are under no illusions about the depth and breath of our fall from the so-called ‘big time’ and are in our third-season in League One which is in the stark terms, the third tier of English football. With all due respect to the likes of Exeter and Wycombe, we would normally have only ever expected to play them in the Cups. Our fall from grace is re-emphasised every time we play teams like Wycombe in the league and it hurts. Another reminder was the chant of the wonderful Exeter fans last week,’ Stand up if you hate Plymouth’. Plymouth? Alright they are in the division above us but we are used to chants of ‘Stand up if you hate Man U’, even the Derby fans chant of ‘Stand up if you hate Forest’ a few seasons ago when we were in the Championship, were not such a hurtful reminder, after all Forest were twice Champions of Europe as were/are Leeds of course, well at least in the eyes of every Leeds’ fan. We have long memories and an acute sense of injustice from bitter experience of every referee who made a decision that cruelly robbed us of a well deserved victory, May 28th 1975, Parc des Princes, Paris, Leeds United v Bayern Munich being the most infamous example, leading to our second most famous chant, ‘We Are Champions, Champions of Europe’. Being a Leeds fan is a commitment for life and one of misery occasionally leavened by the odd spell of success.
Right now back to Wycombe. A group of us arrived by train at High Wycombe station around 1:20 to be greeted by just two policemen, first good sign of sense, not the usual hysterical over-policing that we are used to, Cumbria Police and the West Midlands being two examples of that. We walked through the town and again, mixed with locals and were welcomed and served quickly in the pubs. Wycombe is a busy town and is best known for being the home of Sir Francis Dashwood and the nefarious and notorious activities of his Hell Fire Club. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfire_Club The Hell Fire Caves now forms the main tourist attraction in the area along with The Model Village. http://www.hellfirecaves.co.uk/index.php?id=70
We shared a cab with a Wycombe fan to the ground and just about managed to get to the ground for kick-off. The stadium is decent enough and is surrounded by rolling green hills and is a very pleasant environment.
This was the first ever competitive game between the two clubs and probably their biggest league game ever in terms of crowd, hype and interest.
The bare facts are that Leeds won 1 – 0 to keep our 100 % record. Luciano Becchio scored in the 61st minute after pouncing on a cross along the ground from the right which came he fired into the goal. The cross came from a rare piece of good movement from Leeds.
The first half was a scrappy turgid affair with Leeds playing an ineffective long ball game, as is usual when playing against inferior opposition, we dominated but failed to convert that into effective play and created very few chances.
The second half performance was much better as Leeds started to play the ball on the ground but still some way from the pass and move football that would destroy most of the teams in League One and are capable of. We still were dominant and still failing to capitalise on it, we still are ineffective in the final third most of the time and at times the midfield go missing. We need a fit Kilkenny back in the middle to play the playmaker role in a team playing pass and move.
I am still undecided as to whether Higgs is a better options then Ankergren who now seems to be dropped in favour of Higgs, but Higgs made a great save to deny Wycombe late in the second half from a rare bit of good movement from them. A debt of gratitude is owned to Higgs as this could so easily have turned into the all too familiar 2 points dropped late in the game because we failed to defend our lead, always a sickening experience.
So we keep our 100% record, are third from the top, 6 points from 6 and Walsall looming on the horizon. I have bitter memories of a defeat last season and a draw the year before when we should have won, so am hoping for revenge and taking the 3 points.
On the whole a good day out but we still look unconvincing.
Hope you enjoyed Martha’s insight, others will also be posting match reports with a difference as the season progresses.
