Just a thought, after I had an hour-long conversation with my sister (fellow Leeds fan, rare poster on JA606 [under the name of Flynn] and originally the person who posited this question), and, I hasten to add, not an attempt to wind-up the whole pro/anti-Cellino argument, but merely a question about ownership and connection of a team to its local environment, in an era where these things are up for grabs...
Would you support a billionaire coming in to buy Leeds United if he promised us Champions League football within three or four years? (At the cost of spending several hundred million to do so.) And even if they had nothing to do with Leeds and were clearly doing it as a business venture?
And if they wanted to field an entire team of imports? Or a team made up of players from other clubs? Is that reasonable, as long as we win?
What if they felt that moving from Elland Road would be beneficial, nay, imperative to our future success? Would you support it? Is our ground merely a link with a past and, hence, something we should be allowed to lose if it's in our favour, or is it an intrinsic part of us?
And if they wanted us to play in red? (Statistics do show that teams that play in red tend to do better - although the stats may also be interpreted as showing that teams that play against those in red do worse, you decide the inference.)
And if changing our name to Leeds Devils was deemed reasonable, would you stomach it?
The question isn't so much would you support these moves, but, I guess, would you carry on spending thousands to support the team? (And you must accept the proposition that there si no other choice. There is no second Leeds.)
If we assume that these changes took place over a period of, say, five years, would you still remain loyal to what once was Leeds United? Or would you find another team to support (lower league? non-league? [I can't believe any true Leeds fan could contemplate a Premier League
replacement...] or would you stop supporting football altogether?
I know it's a strange question, but then the difference between football when I started to follow in 1973 and now is so huge, that perhaps we should be thinking about where we're likely to end up.
(And, of course, I beg your forgiveness for my Friday-night, alcohol-induced, ramblings....)
How far would you go?
posted on 25/10/14
I'd prefer to build a team much as we are doing now, and as Wilkinson did before. Bringing in youth and some astute acquisitions and moulding a team in that way is, in my opinion, better than doing what Chelsea and Man City have done in recent years. It's too far removed from the real world when you have Prima Donna over paid players like that.
I'd be more proud of the team if we do it the hard way.
Moving to a new stadium could be a bad thing but it depends. What do the supporters of such teams think? Boro, Derby, Leicester etc?
Changing the name and/or colours would be a no no and unnecessary.
posted on 25/10/14
This is an interesting one but one we have debated at length before - when there were rumours of Red Bull being interested in us. At least, I think it was debated on here, if not it must have been not606
I think you are asking - would we still support this new entity, rather than do we want this to happen. But, for the record, no I don't want it to happen.
I'd support the thing called Leeds United as long as I could. Although I left Leeds 40 years ago I don't get up every day and check I still support Leeds, I just know I do. If all your list of things happen, it might turn out that one day I found I no longer did support the new thing because, apart from the word Leeds, it had no connection to the club I used to support. Things like name changes and colour changes I would hate, moving stadium less of an issue.
It's impossible for me to say now what I would stomach, if it still felt it was the Leeds I used to support, just updated, I would remain a supporter. It would depend how I felt at the time.
If I no longer supported them, there would be 10s of thousands of new fans who would, though
posted on 25/10/14
I've been a Leeds United fan since I was 4 years old in 1967. Never once contemplated supporting another club, indeed when Master Bates threatened to exterminate the club I'd have walked away from the game. Not a football fan, it's all about Leeds United.
We talk about the colour of the strip, it would be hard to accept anything but all white but let's not forget blue & gold preceded the kit that Real Madrid so famously copied off us .
A move from ER is, I suspect, an inevitability at some point in the future. The game evolves. The more successful we become, and we will rise again, together with the limitations that ER has regarding future development would lend itself to a new site where access, parking and more supporting amenities were greater. Sad but inevitable.
I hold the same "romantic" notion of others that a successful team honed on home grown players coming through the ranks is the best possible way forward. I don't see that being too far from reality but equally a smattering of world class players wanting to play for the almost famous Leeds United is also an attractive proposition.
Different era and different dynamics but the famous Revie team was a mixture of home grown and quality from elsewhere. That for me is Utopia.
The name? They can call my club whatever they like, it's still Leeds United. Look at Rugby League. Leeds Rhinos now seems universally acceptable to modern generations, still Leeds Rugby League to me.
The sport becomes ever more commercialised. Perimeter advertising, shirt sponsorship, ground renaming, it's been getting more and more each year. Not what I want to see but the onset of age and a grudging acceptance that money talks, especially where it's needed (either for survival or progression).
Stupid but the thing that has really irked me over the last few years was the size of the bloody programme!
posted on 25/10/14
Jonty. I'm sure your profile used to read that you were a Leeds fan from the 80's
posted on 25/10/14
No, Chorley, it's never said anything like that.
posted on 25/10/14
Some would say that the name Leeds United may live on, but it is a new club since Bates killed off the old one. We have already all shown that we follow the club despite this.
We also build an affinity to players who sign for us. Many who come through the ranks don't originate from Leeds - they are just players that LUFC took on.
How many of the great Revie team were local lads? I have no idea, but I'm sure someone will know.
Moving home would be a great wrench - but many other clubs have done it, none of which have seen that as a reason to lose support. The club continues. If we were to move home to Rotherham, that would likely be a different thing, but we have so many who prefer to go to away grounds, it may make no difference.
Wearing red and being called "Devils" would not be something that I could see anyone countenance. I don;t think many could stomach the eternal guffaws from the rest of the country. But it would also mean the end of the name Leeds United, which is what we all have a clear allegiance to.
posted on 25/10/14
I support Leeds United, blindly and with head in the sand and blinkers on, that will remain whoever we have in charge, whatever colour they wear and whatever part of the world the players or owner comes from.
Simple as that.
If they relocated to another city or town like Wimbledon who became MK Dons I would stop, the city is the club and the club is the city.
I have no problem with a new stadium in or about Leeds.
chorley...
Stop being naughty now.
Don't mistake attending your first game as supporting your team. I state I am a Leeds fan since 1967 when I was 10 and first went to a game, but in reality I suppose I was a Leeds fan since 1957 when I was born as the club was the hometown club and I.
That's my new supporting date.
Jonty lived in the south (I presume from birth..?) and he may quite easily have supported Leeds from afar before first attending a game, we were after all a successful football team in the late sixties early seventies when he was young. There certainly weren't any as successful in Hertfordshire so I can easily accept him going for us.
A glory hunter that we've kept..!
The only slight concern I've ever had with his profile is the list of tennis players and only one favourite footballer, David Batty (an 80's/90's player) when he must have seen folk like Bremner and Clarke, Gray and Charlton, Giles and Lorimer etc and they surely must have been the ones that brought him to us in the first place. But there you go...? I'm sure he has his own special reason for that
He's as big a Leeds United fan as the lad who became a Leeds fan this morning, same as you and I and anyone else who supports the greatest football club in the world and that includes season ticket holders.
posted on 25/10/14
Oh and five stars from me RadebeTedd, an excellent thread this Saturday morning.
Thought provoking and interesting.
posted on 25/10/14
Instead of changing to a red kit, what if a future or current owner decided we should play in yellow (or old gold) shirts with black shorts, or blue shirts with white shorts. Even better halved (ala Blackburn) blue and old gold shirts with white shirts.
All previous Leeds United kits before 'the Don' changed to all white. How did supporters react to the big change back in the early 60s? I'm too young to remember being only 3 or so at the time.
posted on 25/10/14
Apologies StefanoDee missed your comment on kit colours.