CCC - Team of the Week - Dave B

Last week's teaam of the Week, Andy's Huddersfield had former Leeds' manager Simon Grayson at the helm. This week we do the return journey back to Elland Road.  This seems particularly appropriate as in Leeds' first fifteen years the club kit was modelled on Huddersfield Town's blue and white striped shirts, white shorts and dark blue socks with blue and white rings on the turnovers, because Huddersfield's chairman Hilton Crowther (what a name!) was attempting to merge the two clubs.  He eventually left Huddersfield to take over at Leeds.

So whilst the club badge featuring the White Rose of York badge says LUFC the full name of the club is actually Leeds United Association Football Club formed in 1919 following the disbanding of predecessor team Leeds City F.C by the Football League. Apparently one of the nicknames along with the obvious "The Whites", "United" and "The Peacocks", the latter stemming from the former name of Elland Road, The Old Peacock Ground.

They are 10th in the all time average attendance figures for the Football League and Premier League but however were, allegedly, the most hated club in English football as of the start of the 2008-09.   The supporters are renowned for singing signature song Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! Commonly known as ‘Marching on Together’ – also an ideal tune to play at a wedding – if you can find some willing musicians and someone to sort out the music of course J. 

In April 1972 prior to the FA Cup Final the Leeds squad released a single, "Leeds United" with the b-side being  Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! And it reached number 10 in the charts.  After promotion back to the Championship in May 2010, the song was digitally re-mastered and re-released in an effort to get the song into the UK Singles Charts. By 4 pm on Monday, the song was already sitting 8th in the iTunes store charts and top of both the Amazon.com and Play.com singles charts. On the Sunday the song charted at 10 (for the second time in its history) and was the highest new entry apart from something else I had never heard of! "Leeds Leeds Leeds" is an original composition by Les Reed and Barry Mason purposely written for Leeds United.

Leeds United have won a number trophies including 3 first division league titles, an FA Cup and a League Cup.  After winning promotion in 63-64, between 1965 and 1974, Leeds United managed by former player Don Revie never finished outside of the top four, winning two League Championships 68-69, 73-74, FA Cup 72, League Cup 68 and two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups 68 & 71.  They were also pipped to the post a lot and runners up in the League five times, losing finalists in the FA Cup three times, runners up in the Fairs Cup once, and losing 1–0 to AC Milan in the European Cup Winners Cup final. Leeds made the final of the 74-75 European Cup, where they were defeated by Bayern Munich under dubious refereeing decisions.  This has lead to another notable song Leeds fans sing during games are 'We Are The Champions, Champions Of Europe' (more commonly known as WACCOE) in reference to the 1975 European Cup final where they were robbed of the title, and also the chance to defend the title, meaning Leeds would technically still be "Champions of Europe". It is compulsory at matches for Leeds supporters to remove their shirts particularly in cold weather and circle them round their heads whilst continuously singing European Champions, Champions of Europe. They have long memories! 

One notable match in Revie’s reign there was a 7–0 victory over  Southampton. J

By 1998 with George Graham in charge Leeds qualified for UEFA Cup but he left soon after and David O’Leary took over with Peter Risdale as Chairman.  After finishing  3^rd in the League they qualified for UEFA Champions League the following season and so started a number of trips to Nottingham, ‘working-from-home’, a drive to Leeds for the game and a late night speedy journey home when I was asleep!  They lost in the semi-finals against Galatasaray (overshadowed by violence) and the following season they were beaten in the semis by Valencia and did not qualify for it the next season. O'Leary's Leeds never finished outside of the top five, but financially they had done a Portsmouth before Portsmouth did and players were sold as success did not cover the debts.  By 2003-04 their performance saw them relegated and out of the top flight for the first time in 14 years. Three years later they were in the relegation zone for most of the season and a CVA in May and 10point deduction saw them relegated to the third tier for the first time.  Despite a 15-point deduction due to CVA at the start of 2008 Leeds made a play-off place in 2009.  In 2009-10 had an unbeaten start in the first quarter of the season but it was a nervy last match where they won 2-1 and take promotion back to the Championship in second place and be eligible for the CCC.