Leeds have pedigree, since Revie turned them from being an uneventful set of northern cloggers into something of a stylish outfit. The kits, the name and the reputation just 'built' as did the size of the players swedes until both the FA and referees were terrified of them and they could maraud the pitch with their muscular, uncompromising methods. They didn't get the name 'dirty Leeds' for fuck all. Coupled with this was the decision to centralise everything Yorkshire on the city, with the world forgetting that Yorkshire is a big old county with as much diversity in it as Russia has. What stands for taste in Redcar for example, certainly doesn't in Doncaster or Huddersfield. So the nation just went for a median approach and made the city the county's 'capital', hence Look North and Calendar both jizzing into the same cup and other provincial villages, like Sheffield, can just fuck off.
'Course, the title win and fairy-tale 1972 FA Cup win completed the fantasy, despite the planks losing to Stokoe's Mackams the following year but the legend still endured, didn't it? They were Champions of the world according to some and seemingly still farted higher than their own arseholes, despite being able to poach player from neighbouring sides and never really achieving anything of worth. 'Big' managers, O'Leary, Wilkinson and others stil didn't really make the impact so on paper, they're no better than the pigs, or Middlesbrogh, or Hull or Huddersfield, are they? It's only the 'celebrity' status which has kept them aloft. They are football's Kim Kardashian, you look at it with a wince, know it would be fucking expensive, high maintenance hard work for little return and one day think, 'what does this actually do which forwards the good of mankind'?
And now they have a pig-ignorant, curmudgeonly, ranty manager who sits on a fucking bucket to watch the match, and who still refuses to speak the native tongue. It's a great tag-line for the media to hook into and Tifo football can't do enough episodes on him. I am expecting next one on the constituency of his faeces and how many times he knocks one out per day.
Like I say, Sheffield United under Wilder and Knill need to just approach any game with them as just another 90 minutes and bury Bielsa's Leeds United up to their necks. I still hate-Leeds-and-Leeds-and-Leeds, Leeds-and-Leeds-and-Leeds-and Leeds-and-Leeds-and-Leeds-and-Leeds, I still fucking hate Leeds ...
pommpey