Why Yorkshire football needs a lift, by Howard Wilkinson

Wilkinson, now chairman of the League Managers’ Association, steered both Leeds United and Sheffield Wednesday into the top-flight and is also the last Englishman to manage to see his side crowned national champions.

This season, for the second year in a row, there will be no Yorkshire teams mixing it among the game’s elite.

It is only the second time during the post-war era that the county has endured a spell without a top-flight representative.

“Football in Yorkshire needs a lift. Issues have to be dealt with,” warned Wilkinson. “If not, a passing storm becomes continuous bad weather.

“I don’t want to sound disrespectful but it is in the interests of all Yorkshire clubs to have a successful club – Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United or whoever.

“It’s like a High Street needing the top shops because competition is good. If you are a retailer, it’s better to be situated next to Harrods than next to Woolworths.”

Over the coming nine months, Leeds, Middlesbrough, Hull City, Barnsley and Doncaster Rovers will be flying the flag for Yorkshire in the Championship.

After being relegated last season, Sheffield United have joined neighbours Wednesday and Huddersfield Town in League One. Bradford City and Rotherham United will again be fighting to escape League Two.

“If you look at the population league table, the biggest cities – London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham – have a fair share of clubs in the Premier League,” said Wilkinson. “Yet both Sheffield and Leeds – who are in the top 10 population-wise – are missing the boat.

“I am not saying that the Premier League is the ‘only’ place to be – but it is the place that attracts the most attention and it is where most of the money is generated.”

Wilkinson fears gates will fall unless the county’s clubs raise their game and repeats the warning he issued to club directors during his time at Wednesday and Leeds in the 1980s.

“When I went to Sheffield Wednesday, my first home game was against Carlisle United and the crowd was around 14,000,” he recalled. “When I joined Leeds, my first game was at home to Peterborough United in the League Cup and there was less than 9,000 in the ground. On both occasions, I told the directors that they were in danger of losing a generation of supporters.

“What do you mean, they asked me? So I explained that supporters of these clubs had been used to watching football in the top league – and if they continued to grow disillusioned, the club would lose their sons and daughters. When that happens, you have a problem.

“Football clubs are such an important part of the community and we are not maximising our resources. You have got to keep people in the habit of visiting their local football club,” he said. “They need to regard the stadium as the the place where they can best entertain their clients or reward their workers. It has to be a place with facilities they want to support. It is all part of the bigger picture.”

Wilkinson, now 67, says Yorkshire clubs will also lose out on more and more young players as the absence of Premier League football goes on.

“Top clubs dominate the market when it comes to youth,” he said. “And if they know where the best kids in South America are, they are certainly going to know where the best kids are in South Yorkshire.

“But when players are released by Premier League clubs, they tend to gravitate regionally,” he added. “This is another benefit to having a Premier League club on your doorstep.

“Along the Manchester-Liverpool corridor, there are a string of clubs in League One or League Two who will pick up players as they are released by Liverpool, Everton, or the Manchester clubs.

“It is a micro-climate. You don’t see many kids freed by Manchester United moving as far away as Torquay.”

Only three of the county’s clubs have not featured in the Premier League since 1998, namely Doncaster, Huddersfield, and Rotherham. The failure of those who got there to maintain top-flight status is another concern.

“To stay in the Premier League needs strong and effective leadership and continuity,” commented Wilkinson. “Even when you have money to burn, like Manchester City, it can be difficult to put together winning teams and difficult to maintain it.

“To be a success, it also requires people to keep one eye on the horizon.”

Back in 1984, it was Wilkinson and Sheffield Wednesday who put the Yorkshire flag back in the top-flight – two years after Leeds had been relegated in 1982 under Allan Clarke.

The Owls supporters enjoyed the bragging rights in Yorkshire for six years until they were relegated in 1990 and both Leeds and Sheffield United came up.

This season’s Steel City derbies will be the first played at League One level for 31 years. The two Sheffield clubs last locked horns in April 2010 (in the Championship) but have not met in the Premier League since 1994.

Asked whether it was important to be regarded as ‘Yorkshire’s No 1 club’, Wilkinson said: “As a manager, I always had small objectives, medium, and long-term objectives and I always made this point to the players: ‘It’s better to be the boss of your own backyard.’

“So while a victory in a local derby is just another three points, it is worth more than that off the field,” he said. “It establishes your brand and puts the idea in people’s minds that you are the ‘better team’ or the ‘better club’ in the area. Whatever they say about local derbies, there are very good business reasons for winning them.”