MARCHING BACK TOGETHER
Leeds United fans stood disconsolately in the rain at the compact Glassworld Stadium, as a postman rose highest to meet a corner-kick and deliver the moment they had dreaded.
Champions League semi-finalists just seven years earlier, now defender Matt Langston’s header had put them on course for defeat against a village team in the second round of the FA Cup. Being down in League One was bad enough, but this was even worse – Histon 1 Leeds 0.
“In the dressing room after the game, I sat there thinking, ‘What the hell happened out there?’” midfielder Jonathan Douglas recalls to FourFourTwo, 12 years on. “You’re playing on live television, you’re representing Leeds United and you should be beating teams like that. But somehow we weren’t able to. I felt really embarrassed.”
Defeat at Histon proved the nadir, the low point of an extraordinary 20-year journey for Leeds. It was one that began in Barcelona and Milan at the turn of the millennium, then sent them crashing to the depths of despair – the worst moments in the club’s long and distinguished history.
But finally, that journey has ended with redemption. Finally, thanks to the genius of Marcelo Bielsa, Leeds are back in the Premier League after 16 long years away. This is the story of how it went so wrong, and how one of England’s biggest clubs finally rose again.
AN OIL TANKER HEADING FOR THE ROCKS
Eddie Gray remembers the immense pride he felt when he watched the great Leeds team of 2000-01. Assistant to David O’Leary back then, the Whites legend had previously been youth team coach, helping to bring through an incredible crop of emerging talent.
“If we could have kept all of those players together, we’d have taken some beating,” he tells FFT now. “Jonathan Woodgate, Harry Kewell, Stephen McPhail, Alan Smith – they played for the first team when they were 17 or 18. Then we had guys like Rio Ferdinand, Mark Viduka, Lee Bowyer, Olivier Dacourt – so many fantastic players. That team was as good as anybody.”
In Europe that season, they showed how good they were.
“I just remember the Champions League music and the excitement of those matches under the lights at Elland Road, particularly the Milan game when Bowyer came up with a last-minute winner,” smiles lifelong Leeds supporter Ricky Allman, thinking back to his youth. “Some of my first memories watching Leeds were the ultimate. We were watching Rivaldo and Real Madrid’s Galacticos. I felt it was never going to end.”
Only a last-gasp Rivaldo equaliser denied them victory over Barcelona at Elland Road. They beat Besiktas 6-0 and drew 1-1 in Milan, to progress at Barça’s expense. A 1-0 victory at Lazio helped Leeds finish as runners-up to Real Madrid in the second group phase, then Deportivo La Coruna
