By the way, here's me helping @MundialMag (and their preferred betting partner) with a short film series, in this case about #LUFC and Elland Road:
The other episodes (both Sheffield based) are here:
I thought it was all going to be one long film, so what you don't see are the three hours I spent angrily pontificating about Leeds United's right to win EVERYTHING that has been historically denied us, that didn't get used
So thank you @SamDiss and @MundialMag for putting up with that on a Monday afternoon, and using the usable parts to make this very nice talking picture
The stuff about not supporting Leeds until I moved away (I was nine) has some relevance to now. Pre-Italia'90 the football I knew was Heysel, Hillsborough, and locally Valley Parade — "dangerous", in other words. And pre-Wilko #LUFC were "shit", or so I was always told
I was lucky to move to a footie-mad school (albeit far away) right when Gazza cried and Leeds were promoted, but I've sympathised over the past few years with kids who want to support #LUFC in Leeds, but are surrounded by Man City shirts, Liverpool, Chelsea, worse
Is Marcelo Bielsa going to change that? That's one of the most exciting things. Because it's not overdoing it to say that by getting #LUFC promoted when I was ten, Howard Wilkinson changed my life
(Not necessarily for the better but, that's Leeds United for you, and we won't go into that now)
Something else, that I hoped would make the cut here but wouldn't really have fit with the vibe, was that when I was standing on that hill looking a) sexy and b) at Elland Road, I was asked what I was thinking about. First I said, 'nothing', and then I said, 'Jailhouse John'
Some of you might remember John's articles in @TheSquareBall about following Leeds from 1948 (his dad started about 1919) to the mid-1960s, including seeing just about every game John Charles played for #LUFC, the lucky bugger
He'd often write about walking to games from Lower Wortley — I *think* his family had a farm on that side of Gelderd Road. It's the opposite hill, & sometimes when I've walked that way, I've thought of him walking from the other side of the valley. And wished he was still around.
He'd have been good in this video, I reckon. Anyway, he popped into my head while I was standing there, and it was a nice thought, and as it can be hard to find nice thoughts on Twitter, I thought I'd mention it.
As a coda, in the mid-1960s John got into rock 'n' roll, moved to London, "fell instantly in love with a blonde vision in a turquoise dress", and took her to Fulham vs Leeds as their first date. They were together nearly fifty years 💛
Meanwhile, back in Leeds, John's mum had taken all his teenage #LUFC scrapbooks and autographs — and there were a *lot* — into the back garden and burned them all. I was speechless when he told me that, and I'm speechless just thinking about. So I'll end the thread there.
