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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.

The kick-off times for the Leeds United away games at Carlisle United, Huddersfield Town and Yeovil Town have been brought forward “on police advice”.

The Obersturmbahnfuhrer in charge of Football Intelligence (SS Division Dumbkopf) apparently found a plot amongst Leeds fans to use Weapons of Mass Destruction during League One matches throughout the country next season.

There is no reason for any of these measures except over-zealous police forces misusing their powers to avoid having to do a hard days work by letting the Leeds public do what they are entitled to do - that is attend a sporting event at the designated kick-off times available to every other club except for Leeds United.

I’m not going to bother giving out the revised times as I won’t be going and I think all Leeds fans should give the Football League, the clubs, and the police the two-fingers and boycott the matches.

If a shop keeper said he didn’t like me or want me in his shop I certainly wouldn’t spend a penny there and I make no exception for these pathetic little clubs. If you’re daft enough to give a profit to people who hate you then you get what you deserve. Until you stand up to this treatment you will get it as a matter of course, not public order. Scunthorpe, Peterborough, Rotherham, Yeovil, Huddersfield and Carlisle all think you’re gullible fools, who are you going to allow to spit in your face next?

Despite the dozen or so alterations last season, Leeds United fans attended away games in greater numbers than any other Football league side - see, the police can’t even get that right… but it doesn’t excuse either their abuse of power nor the Leeds’ fans quiet acceptance of their insulting treatment.

Regular readers of LeedsUtd365.co.uk will know that we have been outspoken in opposition to the moving of Leeds United games by police simply to make them more difficult for Leeds fans to attend. It calls into question the whole ethos of a ‘level playing field for clubs’ in the Football League and the routine use of powers by the police that were designed for use in special circumstances.

Judging by the unprintable comments we have received from police officers or their supporters we must have touched a nerve out there - see our story on Yeovil last season and the two stories earlier this week.

Finally, it seems like someone else is taking up the cudgels, if somewhat belatedly, on behalf Leeds United fans. With the number of Leeds United fixtures altered in the 2007-08 season in double figures Leeds United supporters club chairman Ray Fell has finally come out and said in the YEP,

“I understand the need for rearranging fixtures when there are good reasons for doing so, but what worries me is the fact that our games seem to get moved as a matter of course.

“The first reaction to an away game involving Leeds seems to be to think about moving the date or the kick-off time, and the feeling is that we’re getting a raw deal.

“There were very few signs of trouble last season and the fans get a bit fed up when they’re being asked to visit places like Yeovil on a Friday night for no good reason.

“I think we have to accept certain games will be affected but I’d ask the police and other clubs to show common sense and a bit of restraint when considering whether a traditional 3pm kick-off time is so difficult to stick to.”

It is time the police had the courtesy to publicly give reasons why they have advised a club to move a football fixture.

The legislation may not require them to do so, but the last time I looked I didn’t live in a police state, and as the police do police us by consent, they should explain to those affected by the use of their special powers why they have chosen to do so - unless they feel that we just have to do what they say because they wear a uniform -in which case, it is time for the independent judiciary to earn their, eye-watering, public salaries and examine the use of these powers to ensure they are not being used ultra vires by the police.

There is certainly plenty of interest from the North in tonight’s play-off encounter between Carlisle United and Leeds United, but not much material to work with. The YEP, The York Evening Press, The Northern Echo and the Halifax Courier have all published, this morning, the same long quotes from Carlisle United’s manager John Ward.

It serves no purposes to reprint it all here when all he is really saying is it would be madness to try and defend at Elland Road for 90 minutes and that his players will go forward and look for a goal tonight.

It’s a sensible view and a laudable approach to an away leg of what is, essentially, a cup-tie and it promises a treat for the fans at Elland Road and those watching on Sky.

But there was one quote from the upbeat, bullish interview with John that caught my eye and made me do a little research. In the slightly longer, York Evening Press version of the interview Ward addresses the prospect of his players playing in front of a full Elland Road, with just 2,000 Cumbrians in a capacity crowd of over 38,000:

“We’ve very much got the picture of Elland Road, so everything will be reasonably familiar to us. It was practically full when we went there last month and scored two goals against them, so we know we’re capable of doing that.”

For the record and the enlightenment of John Ward and his Carlisle players, Elland Road was NOT “practically full” in April for the last visit of Carlisle United, in fact, it wasn’t even three-quarters full. With the Upper East Stand now open and full - the largest single cantilever stand in Europe when built ten years ago - Ward and his merry men face and extra 10,000 Leeds fans, compared to the fixture to which he refers. Put another way, he faces a greater number of “extra” Leeds United fans tonight than the whole crowd that attended the Carlisle United v Southend decider the week following the Leeds Utd v Carlisle Utd clash in April!

Of course, crowds and their level of support don’t win matches, otherwise Leeds United would still be in the Premier League and Europe, but it would be foolish to assume that because your players have played in front of 28,530 fans in a league game the atmosphere will not be quite different when 38000+ fans are screaming Leeds on in a semi-final. There will be no “prawn sandwich brigade” in the Leeds ranks tonight.

After playing FOR Leeds against Gillingham in front of 38,000 fans last week Andy Hughes said,

“It takes your breath away when it is like that. I was honoured to be on the pitch in front of those fans, but that is Leeds United football club. There’s no experience like that.”

Now imagine what it will feel like to be playing for Carlisle in front of a crowd five times the size of your average home gate! John Ward may want to have another quick word with his boys before they step out at Elland Road tonight.

Still I applaud his approach to the match and I’m looking forward to some goals tonight - mainly from Leeds - but the record shows that both sides are likely to score in both ties!

My only hope is that the referee appreciates this is a cup tie and keeps his cards in his pocket. Leeds United fans will remember that we got two red cards in our brilliant, 2-0 away victory at Deepdale in May 2006 and lost Crainey and Cresswell for the 2005-06 play-off debacle at Cardiff. Let’s hope Macca has a word with the likes of Beckford and Kandol to keep their mouths firmly shut tonight.