High drama following Leeds United at Aston Villa - best game series

Come the end of September, it was confirmed that Leeds’ newly crowned IBF featherweight world champion Josh Warrington would make the first defence of his title against Carl Frampton in Manchester on the Saturday evening of December 22.

But wait a minute, Leeds played Villa away the following day. How would that work then? Would it be possible to cover both?

Of course it would, hotel in Manchester booked and from there straight to Villa Park on Sunday morning. At least that was the plan.

But then came a big spanner in the works with myself and colleague Phil Hay told that only one of us would be allowed accreditation for the boxing.

Hay pulled rank but subsequently was left with double the workload and got to bed at around 4am in Manchester.

Two days before Christmas and firmly in the middle of party season, he was not the only one turning up in Birmingham rather bleary-eyed or worse for wear.

Yet after Sunday’s game at Villa Park another very long night followed attempting to return to some sort of normality and fathom a pre-Christmas miracle and Kemar Roofe’s ‘95th-minute’ winner. Any game at Villa Park will probably be reasonably high up in terms of ‘best events I’ve covered.’

There are some fantastic, historic grounds in English football and Aston Villa’s famous home is definitely one of them.

The club’s press hospitality is also rather impressive – especially for Championship level during the club’s three years in the second tier.

Yet approaching the Sunday evening kick-off of December 23, everything pointed towards Leeds finally waving goodbye to the Championship following a hugely impressive first four months of the campaign under new coach Marcelo Bielsa.

The Whites were top of the division and holding a six-point cushion in the division’s automatic promotion spots with Villa only eighth and three points off the play-offs.

Yet nobody was fooled by Villa’s league position – not with the squad at their disposal – and Dean Smith’s side looked ready to wake from their slumber when racing into a 2-0 advantage against Leeds.

Tammy Abraham’s fifth-minute opener followed by Conor Hourihane’s strike had the Holt End and the vast majority inside Villa Park in raptures and for Leeds this looked like being a long night. United are used to doing things the hard way but this looked a hopeless task.

Maybe throw on exciting young teenage winger Jack Clarke?

The sight of Clarke coming on as the second half was about to get underway gave a brief sense of renewed hope but this looked destined to end in a home victory for Villa.

But 11 minutes after the restart something magical began and it was Clarke who started it off, cutting inside from the left flank and finishing with aplomb to reduce the arrears.

Then, just five minutes later, Leeds were suddenly level with Pontus Jansson, it had to be him, powering home a header before racing away to the ecstatic Leeds fans in the corner. Suddenly anything was possible and the rest of the second half ebbed and flowed with Leeds looking the more likely to grab a winner.

As the 90th minute approached, the game looked set to end in an entertaining 2-2 draw. Report written and for Leeds it could have been worse.

Yet this new Bielsa side had other ideas and from one final attack in the ‘95th minute’, Roofe left reporters scrambling about for re-writes with Villa Park stunned as the striker blasted home the game’s winning goal. Happy Christmas indeed for Leeds. What a game, what an occasion and surely Premier League football beckoned.

Leeds were top at Christmas and every side in Championship history that had been top on December 25 had gone on to achieve promotion the following May.

We all know what happened next. It is, though, hoped in the city that the Whites’ promotion to the Premier League is merely delayed and as far as the Championship is concerned, December 23, 2018 at Villa Park will always bring back fond memories.

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