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Former Leeds United striker, Michael ‘Sicknote’ Bridges will not be appearing in the blue shirt of Carlisle United on Saturday, when the Cumbrians take on Leeds United at Brunton Park, …because he’s injured.

Bridges, who has just celebrated his thirtieth birthday in August, managed just 82 games (including subs) for Leeds United in an injury-blighted five years at Elland Road.

Bridges left Leeds at the end of a contract which coincided with our relegation from the Premier League. Though Bridges wasn’t there to witness the relegation as the North Shields-born striker asked permission to join Newcastle United on loan in an attempt to get a permanent deal for the next season - a sort of, “so long and thanks for all the medical bills” departure.

Ironically, not only did the Newcastle-supporting Bridges fail at the Barcodes but he signed for Bolton who then loaned him to Newcastle’s bitter rivals Sunderland for the following season! The irony continued as Sunderland, (the club from which Leeds had originally signed Bridges), were then a Championship side and Bridges’ first game for the Black Cats was at Elland Road against relegated-Leeds! Bridges was an 81st minute substitute in a 1-0 win over Leeds.

The last time Bridges played against Leeds United was in Hull’s 2-1 Championship home defeat to Leeds in January 2007, when again he was a substitute.

Now Bridges is on loan to Carlisle United from Premier League Hull City and has suffered a hamstring injury in a Carlisle United reserve match recently. So the travelling Leeds fans will not see the player whose career they saved by paying for four years of the finest medical treatment available in the world. Let’s hope he remembers to give them a wave at least.

See Leeds United v Rotherham United on Sky Sports - will Beckford get another hat-trick?

Twenty-eight-year-old Danish goalie Casper Ankergren will miss his second game in a row with a persistent ankle injury.

Casper injured his ankle in training last week and will miss the Leeds United v Carlisle United on Saturday.

“Casper has had an X-ray which has shown no real damage,” said manager Gary McAllister to the BBC.

“It may be that he goes for another scan, but we’ll let it settle down this week and see how things are.”

David Lucas will cover for Casper again. 

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The kick-off time for the Leeds United away trip to Stockport County on Sunday, December 28th has been brought forward on Gefusspo advice.

The scheduled kick-off of 3pm is now a 12 noon kick-off.

This is the sixth kick-off change for an away match for Leeds in 2008-09.

The other weaklings who have changed the kick-off times due to local police admitting they are unable to police a football match are:
Scunthorpe United (a relegated club, wow!), Yeovil Town (no surprise there from the scaredest fans in the league!), Carlisle United (arse-end of Cumbria), Peterborough United (lousy pubs, not missing owt there either) and Huddersfield Town (West Yorkshire police embarrass both teams with their admission).

Presumably at some point the Football League will step in to say that the repeated attempts to prevent Leeds United fans from attending away games is actually against the spirit of the League rules and will not be tolerated without a specific reason being given for the sudden extraordinary circumstances causing a change in kick-off time.

The fact that police feel unable to do the job that they are amply overpaid to do, is clearly not one of them.

We await the seventh change with baited breath and, actually, total disinterest, as we wouldn’t cross the road to piss on these clubs if they were on fire, let alone spend any money watching their wretched teams. Don’t want me, don’t want my money…

What a difference a year makes.

It was the news that the annual Elland Road open day (dubbed the “Sunday Funday”) will take place on August 3rd this year and that the club are hoping beat the 3,000 attendance figure for last season, that set me thinking about the changes over the last year. Beating that attendance shouldn’t be difficult considering the different circumstances that prevail at Leeds United compared to just a year ago…

Twelve months ago an unpopular Dennis Wise, seen more as an ex-Chelsea player than Leeds Utd manager, was suffering fans’ protests at pre-season friendlies. He had to put a team together in just eight days following a relegation season and weeks of legal wrangling over administration and there was a real doubt that the team would even start the season.

Finally, the club faced what many felt would be certain relegation into the fourth tier of English football following the imposition of an unprecedented 15 point penalty, by the vindictive Football League, before the club to get its “golden share” back.

Pass the valium!

Fast forward twelve months and the club achieved 91 points on the pitch and missed the championship of League One by one point. Because of the 15 point penalty the Leeds fans got to see Leeds United play at the new Wembley rather than next season in the Championship.

But off the pitch Leeds Utd fans set over twenty new League One attendance records and had the highest single attendance, average attendance and aggregate attendance in the whole Football League, including the Championship clubs - despite the police moving over 50% of kick-off times at away grounds to try and reduce the numbers of Leeds fans attending. In fact half-a-dozen Premier League chairmen would have swopped their clubs’ dismal attendances for that of the United faithful.

On the pitch a new local hero emerged, Jonny Howson and Paul Huntington rose from the reserves to shake off the Carlisle United boo-boys and keep his place through the play-offs and on to Wembley. The previous season had seen Jermaine Beckford star in a promoted Scunthorpe United side as Leeds were being relegated; this year he won the League One Player of the Season Award in the white shirt of Leeds United.

In February Dennis Wise was replaced with the surprise choice of Gary McAllister who introduced a new passing game at Elland Road and made one low-key signing - Dougie Freedman - a striker in a squad that boasted Beckford and Kandol - but it was a masterstroke and the Leeds fans got one more, unlikely, hero in one of the most incredible season’s in its history.

The reviving stature of Leeds United was demonstrated at the end of May when Andy Robinson left new League One Champions Swansea City and Championship football next season to join Leeds United back in League One. Anthony Elding rejected a summer move to Crewe Alexandra, prefering to stay and fight for his place.

Although there will be departures of Dennis Wise’s signings - Matt Heath has already joined relegated Colchester United - Gary McAllister knows that he does not have to sell our best players, as has occurred in recent seasons, and he has a reasonable transfer budget that has come from the pockets of the Leeds faithful turning up in droves at Elland Road rather than borrowed from the banks.

To paraphrase a famous saying, twelve months is certainly a long time in the history of Leeds United and I think the club can look forward to a record attendance at the 2008 “Sunday Funday” at Elland Road, and deservedly so this time.