35- Monday's, Guns N Roses & Cheese Wedges
If the "Madchester Rave On" scene didn't float your boat, then you'd have to wait 6 weeks or so for Leeds to start their pre-season preparations at Harrogate Town winning 8-0 before heading to Ireland to face Shelbourne (1-1) and Cork City (W3-0)- then on August 5th Leeds made a near 12000 mile round trip to play Brazilian's Botofogo in Tokyo, losing 1-0 but four nights later, on a Friday night, we somewhat avenged the Brazilian's beating them 2-1 in front of around 14,000. Lee Chapman and Gary Speed the scorers. Those in attendance would have seen what is affectionately known as "The Cheese Wedge" for the first time, this is a section of seats in the South East Corner. For years, the struts had been in place to link Lowfields to the South Stand but lack of success and money meant the project was put on hold. It got its name as it had and still has distinctive yellow seats. The West Stand had also seen a banqueting suite annex built on to it, a sign of the times of the era of big time corporate hospitality was on its way and sadly robbing us of the famous entrance facade where traditionally the team photos would be taken.
The following day after beating Botafogo, Leeds sent a side to Huddersfield Town for another friendly. Also on Saturday August 10th, 7-year-old Angela Flaherty went missing from her home in Rawthorpe, which sat close to the Leeds Road ground. Sadly her body was found the next day. The club assisted the police in publishing an appeal for information in subsequent programmes and eventually 18-year-old Anthony Craven was found guilty of her rape and murder and was sentenced to 17-years detention.
Then came the start of the season proper, eventually! Howard Wilkinson was left fuming when Crystal Palace declared that work on their Selhurst Park ground would not be completed in time for the new season. Rather than issue us all with hard-hats, the authorities agreed to rearrange the game with no sanctions whatsoever for the South Londoners. Wilkinson demanded the fans be locked-out and the game played behind closed doors, bitterly ironic thinking back given the recent pandemic. I could appreciate his frustration, we'd built "the Cheese Wedge" as well as the banqueting suite, had thousands of e-popping Mancs in baggy jeans and bucket hats visit for a gig and hosted a friendly whilst Palace faffed about. I shared his pain too. I would have to skive-off work for the rearranged fixture as I'd used up all my holiday allowance visiting my mum's bar in Spain. So instead we played Aldershot in another friendly and won 3-1
So we finally got underway on Tuesday August 20th with a visit from Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest. It was a great atmosphere, with the added "Cheese Wedge" if not a great game but Gary McAllister again made Clough regret his decision not to sign him because of the cowboy boots he wore to to their talks when he left Leicester, with the only goal of the game. Obviously living outside the area, I only became aware of a slight change to the kit on the night itself. We now had "Yorkshire Evening Post" on the front of our shirts, the Umbro design remained exactly the same. Back then, the clubs changed their kits around once every two-seasons, there was no such thing as a third-kit, in fact our yellow away kit was entering its THIRD season. I understand it was one of Umbro's best sellers at the time.
The following Saturday, we welcomed newly promoted Sheffield Wednesday to Elland Road. According to his programme notes, this was the game Howard Wilkinson had looked forward to for years and never in his wildest dreams had he thought he'd be the Leeds United manager against the team he supported as a boy, played for as "a not very good professional" and managed. Obviously the Sheffield Wednesday old-boys network was strong in the Leeds ranks, by my reckoning there were eight ex Owls in our squad at that time (Chapman, Sterland, Shutt, Snodin, Varadi, Newsome, Wetherall and Dylan Kerr!) poignantly there was an ex Leeds hero in their side that day in John Sheridan. We gave him a rousing reception after the teams ran-out but he ignored us and I remember thinking "what a prick". Despite battering them it looked like David Hirst's strike early in the second half was going to win it for them but four minutes from time, Steve Hodge who was on as sub rescued a point for us.
I didn't make Southampton midweek, missing out on a memorable 4-0 win and j didn't make the shortlist for the visit to Old Trafford on Saturday August 31st, a red hot day. Lee Chapman put us in front and we nearly held on but for a Bryan Robson equaliser. I remember the papers were crowing that this was "United's" year. I was at Wembley Stadium attending a Guns N Roses concert, at the time I was big into rock music and seeing the self-proclaimed "most dangerous band in the world" was a decent substitute. Obviously like when dvd snow fell on the same fixture the previous year, I had no way of knowing the score. I went to the concourse between bands, I think the support that day were Nine Inch Nails abs Skid Row, then spotted this fat lad with a t-shirt with a huge Man U badge on the front so I wandered up to him to ask him the score. "One each mate" he told me in his cockney accent, then I got the usual bile inducing tirade about what a great club they were, this was going to be the end of their 25-year-wait, Bryan Robson yada yada....he then reckoned he was in charge of all the burger bars in the stadium, I think he thought he was Ian Beale, the EastEnders character who was a wannabe big shot caterer. "Good to see a fellow United fan" he said as I walked off, "Yes, Leeds United!" I told him and watch his jaw drop!
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