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Richard Sutcliffe: Loyalty of fans pushed to breaking point
THROUGHOUT what has been one of the most spectacular falls from grace ever seen in English football, one constant has remained at Leeds United.
No matter what trials and tribulations have come their way, the Elland Road hardcore have remained stoically behind their club and continued to turn up in huge numbers.
Such devotion is why Leeds last season boasted the highest average crowd in the entire Football League and why even in this, their second campaign in what in old money is the Third Division, only four Championship sides can claim to have been watched by more fans at home.
It is also why all 16 of the club's League One games on the road this term have been over-subscribed with demand out-stripping supply for the away seats to such an extent that fans have had to resort to travelling incognito and sitting with their opposing numbers.
On Tuesday night, however, that unswerving loyalty was pushed to breaking point by the manner of a 2-0 defeat against lowly Hereford United that seasoned observers of the club described as a "new low".
Chants of 'we're s*** and we're sick of it' rang around Edgar Street in the closing stages to lay bare the huge sense of frustration that has enveloped a group of supporters who have stuck by United through two relegations, countless disappointments and even the humiliation that was this season's FA Cup exit to non-League Histon.
Among those venting their anger on Tuesday night was John Hartley, a former chairman of the Whitby branch of the official supporters club. Until this season when work dictated he would have to spend part of the year overseas, 51-year-old John had missed just two competitive Leeds games in 26 years – and even then he was only absent from league games against Charlton and Derby in 2001 due to flights home from European ties being cancelled or seriously delayed.
His devotion towards United is unquestioned but even this most loyal of supporters admits to having become disillusioned by the events of this season.
He said: "I see the same old faces at every game and people are getting really fed up. It has got far worse than it was even in the Eighties when we were out of the top division for eight years.
"The performance at Hereford was an insult to the 2,000 fans who took time off work to travel all that way on a Tuesday night. I didn't get back to Whitby until 3am and it will have been the same for the lads who were there from places like Plymouth and south Wales.
"Not one person I have spoken to since Tuesday thinks we can get in the play-offs. Not one. And I am starting to think we won't get back into the Premier League in my lifetime."
Whether such pessimism proves unfounded or not remains to be seen but the chances of Leeds's stay in the third tier being extended to at least a third year have grown markedly in the past week courtesy of back-to-back defeats against Huddersfield Town and Hereford.
What is not in doubt, though, is that United have lost 13 of 31 league games this season – a tally that serves as a terrible indictment on the mental toughness of a squad that is, by League One standards, extremely well paid and has been assembled at a reasonable cost.
When things go awry in football it is invariably the board or the manager who find themselves in the firing line of supporters but, in this instance, it is surely time for the players to question their own part in this season's travails.
The current crop may not quite be on a par with the two Elland Road squads that looked anywhere but in the mirror for reasons as to why the club were relegated in
2003-04 and 2005-06.
But there is little doubt that an eighth place standing in League One as the season moves into its final third is an under-achievement on a massive scale for a club the size of Leeds.
Changes in playing personnel are needed, even if in mid-February the most a manager can do is tweak what is at his disposal. To that end, Simon Grayson, below, – who inherited a horribly lopsided squad from Gary McAllister that contained almost a full team of midfielders but only a smattering of competent defenders – could do a lot worse than look across Yorkshire to the likes of Hull City where
right-backs such as Nathan Doyle and Ryan France are on the fringes of first team football.
If, however, he is unable to bolster the United squad before Saturday's meeting with bottom club Cheltenham Town then it is to be hoped that the existing group of players can belatedly show what the Spanish refer to as 'cojones' and start to win back the support of those who follow them up and down the country.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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