If there is one thing we know through bitter experience as Leeds United AFC fans, it's just when things are looking up, something normally lurks around the corner to bring you back down to earth. Its nearly 37 years to the day when one such incident took place. Back in the 1970/71 season, Revie's Leeds were flying high and heading towards the title and Inter-Cities Fairs cup double. 3 sapping away games in 4 days had been negotiated without defeat. A 1-1 draw at Newcastle, was followed by a 0-0 draw at Leeds Road Huddersfield, where over 43,000 crammed in to watch the game. When King Billy inspired the win at Anfield in the Inter-Cities Fairs cup, things were looking good and with lowly West Brom next up at Elland Road, it was all seemingly falling into place. It was a game that was to go down in folklore and add to the many perceived injustices that have fallen upon the club over the years. Trailing to an early goal from Tony Brown, Revie's Leeds were piling on the pressure. With 20 minutes to go, It was goal scorer Brown who received the ball and steamed forward. Baggies player Colin Suggett was clearly offside at this point and the linesman flagged straight away. The Leeds players stopped but referee Tinkler waved play on. Brown half stopped, waiting for the whistle, but then carried on towards the onrushing Sprake...

By this time he was joined in attack by Jeff Astle and despite Astle himself being in an offside position when he received the final pass from Brown, Astle was allowed to fire home and the goal was amazingly given. This stunning decision sent Elland Road into mayhem and Tinkler was surrounded by angry Leeds players as they demanded that he spoke to the linesman. Even after Tinkler did this, he stood by his decision and awarded the goal. Some angry fans got onto the pitch and yet again it was a clear case of Leeds being robbed once again. With 8 minutes left, Leeds pulled a goal back through Clarke, but the final result sent shock waves through the land as the battle for the title swung into Arsenal's favour. In the aftermath, plenty of people had their say, including Tinkler himself who claimed:

"I am completely sure that Suggett committed no offence. He was in an offside position and the linesman had flagged him, but he was not interfering with play"

However, Tinkler's linesman also had his say:

"Suggett wasn't just a yard off-side, he was a good five yards and in my opinion must have been influencing play. He didn't touch the ball but he set off in support of Brown so there was a clear intention of interfering with the course of the game."

Perhaps the most telling comment came from Baggies manager Alan Ashman, who told reporters:

"I would have been choked to have been beaten by an offside goal like that in any match, but these things happen and we just have to swallow them"

(More Leeds footage can be found here: www.thebeatengeneration.co.uk)

Revie's team managed to put this result behind them and go undefeated for the rest of the season, losing out to Arsenal for the title by just 1 point. With the league gone, the Mighty Whites rallied and squared up to Juventus in the two legged final of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. A 2-2 draw in Juventus was followed by a 1-1 draw at Elland Road. For the first time in the cup's history, it was won on the away goals rule. Mick Bates and Paul Madley's goals in the first leg proving vital. Fast forward to tonight and things are once again looking up. McAllister and his back room team have taken the wounded animal and nursed it back to full health with startling results and any fan witnessing the last 3 games will testify to that. So perhaps we should have foreseen that something was on the horizon, although admittedly, this time, not in the controversial way it happened all those years ago. Our last league visit to Huddersfield was at the old Leeds road ground which saw the sides play out a goalless draw back in 1987. We have however played 2 friendly games at the new Galpharm stadium, a 5-0 win back in 1999 was followed by a 2-0 win in 2000. With the rain pouring down, we would have taken any result that kept the good run we were going, especially when news had filtered through that Beckford was not going to be involved...

Given Kandol's half decent performance against Carlisle on Saturday, it didn't seem too much of a concern to many. So with Casper in goal, the same back four of Kenton, Fraser, Huntingdon and Lubo started. Midfield was again unchanged with Johnson, Howson, Douglas and Kilkenny. Freedman and Kandol led the line. For their part, Town have no manager in place at the moment and they lined up with an experimental 3-5-2 formation to counter our 4-4-2. As you would expect in a Yorkshire derby away from Elland Road, the home crowd were up for it, the home team were up for it, the Leeds fans were up for it and the Leeds side, as per usual in these games, tried there best to sleep through it. A fast and frenetic start to the game was expected, but the stop - start nature of the game was immediately frustrating. Despite this, both teams had early chances, Town managed to mess up a good move that showed Brandon wasn't on the same page as Worthington. Up the other end, Freedman smashed one over the bar. The Whites tendency to try a more direct route now Kandol was in the side enabled Town to settle. Kandol won a good share of headers, but they seldom fell to a Leeds player thus allowing Town many opportunities to clear. Town also had a master plan to disrupt what good movements we could put together...

This revolved around crashing into players and giving freekicks away at a rate of knots. Clearly the Town management team had done their homework to a tee. Give Leeds freekicks around the area and with a chance to shoot on goal, the freekick taker will become a rugby player and twat the ball over the bar. If there was no chance to give the freekick in this position, commit fouls elsewhere or concede a corner as there is fuck all chance the resultant cross will beat the first defender. It worked perfectly to plan as time and again all the good work that the likes of young Howson managed in midfeild, ended wastefully at the feet of Johnson or Kilkenny. With the Town fans to our right chanting to the beat of a god damn annoying drummer and the Town fans to our left fighting amongst themselves the game itself was becoming less of a distraction. For our part, we missed Beckford immensely. Time after time we broke through midfield, but had no runner to play a killer pass to. Instead Freedman was having to drop back to get possession and balls to Kandol's feet were bouncing away and immediately giving possession back to Town. Freedman did look to take the game to Town on his own a couple of times, shooting straight at the keeper with a chance 20 minutes in. There was little coming back our way as we dominated possession for long periods, without getting into any danger areas...

The freekicks kept coming and the Leeds players kept fucking them up. Kilkenny this time over the bar after the ref had pulled play back. Town had looked shaky and non threatening, but as time past, they were beginning to realise there was nothing to fear and intelligent breaks from midfield were beginning to damage us. As was Casper who had a nightmare period where his kicking once again let him down. We nearly paid for one such clearance which fell to Williams but his first time effort back saw Casper make up for his error. With the constant running & pace from both Worthington and Williams now causing us problems, Huntingdon was lucky to survive a penalty appeal where he was done for pace and it appeared he had clearly pulled back the Town man. The ref gave it the other way, but it looked 60-40 in the attackers favour. Moments later, another Town attack was ended as Dougie crashed in with a cynical tackle, the ref booked him and the resultant freekick was wasted. 7 minutes later, Dougie was off and the nature of the game changed. Dougie chased Holdsworth as he burst through on the right and rather than the previous cynical challenge, this was more a coming together of legs, however, the ref showed Red and the Town fans erupted. Down to 10 men in the pissing rain with a team that didn't seem overly arsed about being here wasn't the best place to be...

Freedman tried to add some urgency in a breakaway, but he just hadn't got he legs to break away from the defence and the chance was snuffed out. Town were now sniffing blood and coming forward well, but the game swung again just before halftime. Worthington went for a ball that belonged to Casper and went through him. Big Lubo went mad with him and could have got himself sent off by his reaction. There was a handbag mealy in the box, before the ref consulted his linesman. On his advice, Lubo was booked and Worthington was shown a second yellow and sent off. Not that we had noticed he had been booked earlier in the game mind. The halftime score was fair on the face of it, summed up by not a lot of football, with the ref making up for it with his entertaining decisions. With no changes at halftime, we expected that Macca would have read the riot act and bollocked the lazy set of twats for not turning up. If he did, it had little effect as after Kandols first shot on goal was deflected for a corner, we managed to hit the first man and immediately set town on the attack. It set the tone for what was to follow. With only Howson covering himself in glory, the rest of the team just could not seem to cope with the endeavour and determination shown by Town, along with no little football it has to be said. Collins ran half the length of the park to beat Casper with a stunning shot, only to see it come off the bar...

The rebound was cleared, but you sensed something was in the air. The Leeds players tried to respond in a fashion, but with Kandol now getting flagged for offside every time Howson tried to play him through, it was 1 step forward, 2 back. Booth was the next to miss a great chance for Town, heading wide when he should have done better and just when it looked like Town may take a strangle hold, we broke. We broke well, Freedman fed Johnson, who up to this point has been anonymous. He ran clear on the left of the area and with Kandol unmarked, he tried to pick out a cross. He managed to pick out the corner flag when in reality, any sort of half decent ball would have set up the big man. Johnson held his head in his hands and as well he might because the let off galvanised Town. Johnson was soon subbed for "Jesus" Prutton as Macca looked to change things. Prutton immediately tried to at least put his foot on the ball and give us a bit of stability, but it was short lived. Now, the best player on the park in a Leeds shirt was, by a country mile, Johnny Howson. He was wearing the skippers armband and fighting for everything. So when Macca, for some reason, decided to take him off, the reaction from the Leeds fans told its own story. On came Hughes and within a few minutes, we were 0-1 down. Holdsworth racing in to head in off the post and send the Town fans into ecstasy. From then on the constant drone of that fucking drum was accompanied by "We all hate Leeds Scum" as they partied like it was 1999...

It could have got worse, a great move set Skarz free and he tried to lob Casper, only to loft the ball just over. It was 81 minutes before we forced the Town keeper into any kind of save Hughes let fly from distance and it was tipped round the post for a corner. No prizes for guessing what happened to sub Carole,s corner. Seb did add something to the side, he skipped past his man a couple of times in the final moments of normal time, but our last chance came in the 5 minutes stoppage time. Freedman had a half hit shot cleared off the line and any chance of a get out of jail card was gone. The final whistle sent the home support into delirium and they left us in no doubt how long they have waited for a night like tonight. With news filtering through that Walsall had lost, we had escaped with regards the Play Off position, but it was no anaesthetic to the pain of defeat in yet another Yorkshire derby. So, we move onto Millwall and hope to god that Beckford is fit to rejoin the team. Many fans criticise Beckford and call him lazy at times and whilst that may be the case, tonight showed us what life would be like without him, or at least a player of his type in the side. It wasn't the most appealing alternative. Talking of appeals, with the arbitration for the 15 points beginning this week, we await the outcome with interest, and fingers crossed of course for something to finally go our way off the park...

Leeds United AFC..."And Leeds will go mad and they've every right to go mad"... Keep Fighting...