leedsutd365.co.uk

Last season Leeds United took all three points at Huish Park on a Friday night to get themselves into the play-offs. However this Saturday they had to make do with a share of the points after Lloyd Owusu’s penalty cancelled out Luciano Becchio’s first-minute goal.

Becchio scored his first goal in a Leeds shirt with a low shot past keeper Asmir Begovic in the first minute of the game.

The referee said Paul Warne was fouled by Paul Huntington and Owusu’s equalised from the penalty spot despite Casper Ankergren saving the initial shot.

In a match that was heated at times both sides had further chances to score with the better ones falling to Yeovil.

Leeds United manager Gary McAllister ended the game disappointed. Last year Leeds started with seven wins on the trot, so far this season they have had a win, a draw and a loss in the league. They seem to have saved their best form for the Carling Cup where they beat lesser opposition Chester City 5-2 in the first round. Leeds face a tougher challenge against Crystal Palace in round two this coming Tuesday and this game was far from ideal preparation for it.

Yeovil: Begovic, Peltier, Skiverton, Forbes, Jones, Downes (Roberts 52), Way (Alcock 90), Murtagh, Schofield (Lloyd Owusu 15), Tomlin, Warne.

Subs Not Used: Wagenaar, McCollin.

Booked: Downes, Peltier, Warne, Forbes.

Goals: Owusu 62.

Leeds: Casper Ankergren, Frazer Richardson, Paul Huntington, Rui Marques, Alan Sheehan, Robert Snodgrass (Jonathan Douglas 73), Jonny Howson (Fabian Delph 86), Dave Prutton, Andy Robinson (Enoch Showunmi 73), Jermaine Beckford, Luciano Becchio.
Subs Not Used: David Lucas, Paul Telfer.

Booked: Snodgrass, Becchio, Huntington, Beckford.

Goals: Becchio 1

Att: 6,580

Ref: Dean Whitestone (Northamptonshire)

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…

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.