It’s admission time. I’m a Leeds fan. I’m not the biggest Leeds fan by a long way, but I’ve been quietly enjoying their performance in this years Coca-Cola League 1.
I don’t feel ready to count my chickens, as although Leeds are well placed, on top by 8 points with a game in hand, the season is a long way from being over. In fact I’d be a bit nervous if Leeds don’t get automatic promotion and enter the play-offs as they missed out from that position at the end of the last two seasons.
But yesterday at Old Trafford Leeds United did something magical. Not only did they beat Manchester United but they did so with great skill, determination and dogged defence. And they did it on Manchester United’s home ground.
Perhaps this team is far from being as strong or as skillful as the great Leeds team of the late 60′s and early 70′s. It certainly has a long way to go to be challenging for top honours at the end of every season; but you never know.
Apart from Jermaine Beckford’s 19th-minute goal they came close to making it a more embarrassing result for Alex Ferguson and his team. In the 79th minute, Robert Snodgrass, who has just come on for Jonathan Howson, curled a magnificent effort past the wall, beyond the reach of Kuszczak and off the cross-bar.
In the interest of fairness I think Leeds rode their luck when they defended and perhaps a penalty could have been awarded against them. But the bottom line is that for 71 minutes of normal time plus 5 minutes of extra time after Leeds scored, Manchester United failed to score at home and they lost to a team two divisions below them!
This may be the shape of things to come, or just a blip in the natural football order, but I enjoyed every minute of it.
I think the only other result that could top this would be Leeds beating Sunderland in the FA Cup Final – 1973 still hurts!
Related posts:
