Grumpy Young Man……………..2 Days to go

OK, so in between various domestic chores I just about have time to present a final post.

Off to the cricket in a bit and I make no excuses for indulging in relaxing pursuits in the run up to Saturday. Indeed if I had the opportunity to lie on the sofa drinking beer and taking full advantage of my iPad’s many wondrous qualities, that is all I would do for the next five days.

That said, I am not exactly stretching myself and it is fair to say that any fatigue or mental inertia I experience in the next few days will be entirely self-induced.

So, yes, I have had my hair cut, I have got my Astro Wars down from the loft, I have ironed and sorted my clothes, I have fully charged my camera and iPod, I have downloaded a film for Ruby to watch in the car, I have finalised my playlist, I have printed off directions for all as we are a family of Sat-Nav non-believers, I have refrained from drinking all the bottle of Tanqueray, I have ensured my mate is bringing his cocktail shakers, I have ensured we have adequate medical supplies …………..

The rest is out of my hands.

So cheers for the 632 views this Blog has had in the last few months, sorry for the over-indulgent melancholy I have gratifyingly thrust upon you, and most of all sorry in advance for the photos and whimsical ramblings that may or may not appear over the next few days.

This blog may reappear in a different guise at some point, but in the meantime………………it’s been emotional.

Grumpy Young Man…………………..10 Days to go

“I could write this!” I thought as I yawned my way through Ruby’s bedtime story. “Room on the Broom” it was, a clever tale of a witch dropping things off her broomstick then picking them up again, along with some friends. It doesn’t really go anywhere, no twists in the plot, no deep character building, no beginning, middle or end, but it rhymes and kids love it.

So what’s the magic formula? Think of a character, something sweet and cuddly, add a couple of minor characters, think of a setting or a scenario, something that can be repeated on a routine basis and developed with other characters, think of the potential for marketing, branding and image rights. Before you know it…………global phenomenon, series repeated on Nick Jnr with nauseating regularity until the end of time, pencil cases, board games, iPad apps, Wii games, t-shirts, pyjamas and the endless love and gratitude of a nation of parents and children.

This has to be a winner. All I need is an idea based on the above and probably the help of an artist. I could try my hand at animation but art has never been my strong point, and I am not sure the world is ready for Sammy the Stick Man with his one Club Foot.

So this is where I am at the moment. I am contributing to each issue of the Leeds United matchday programme, I have other irons in the fire of a very exciting nature relating to Leeds United, and I have several other ideas and projects just waiting to be afforded the honour of my time and attention, to be developed and unleashed on the world. I am navigating through the fulsome arenas of parenting, music, lifestyle, food & drink, culture and sports in general. Plus I am sure other areas will spring forth and demand my consideration.

But first and foremost, surely I can write something as good as what I read to Ruby every night? Surely it is not beyond me to captivate the nations children with tales of love and friendship and mildly scary made-up monsters?

In ten days time the laborious journey that started with a mountainous ’299 days to go’ reaches its’ beery climax in a cottage in North Yorkshire. A fitting end to the primary stage of life.

If I get time to post again before I turn 40, we will engage again in the good times. If not……………………everybody………………. good times.

Grumpy Young Man…………..1 Month to go

Arduous as the trek has been, we have covered a lot of ground in the last few months; my ailing memory, crisps, pubs, school, CD buying, the weather, getting home drunk, Christmas, fashion, buying a house, parties, cooking, Leeds United, driving and gig-going. So as the sands of time flow freely we reach the end of the road. Gone are the days of idly passing time in any way I choose, here we stand on the precipice of a new beginning where I will need to account for every second I am awake in some form or another.

Approaching 40 is something I have always done, it is nothing new. I’m just a bit nearer now. So I’m not about to go feint at the thought of the clock striking midnight because I don’t expect to feel any different. I will also be absolutely trolleyed no doubt, so emotions may get the better of me but in an artificial, gin-soaked sense.

That said I am taking the opportunity to make a new start. After 16 years I will be leaving work in September, but this is purely a coincidence fuelled largely by Ruby starting school, plus maybe an overwhelming desire to seriously harm a number of work colleagues, something that can only be suppressed for so long. It has long been a desire to have my own options and choices and this I will certainly have, and it seems appropriate that now is the time to conclude that life is too short to be doing something every day that doesn’t fill me with at least a modicum of pride and fulfilment.

Becoming 40 does make you look at yourself and analyse what’s important, whether you want to or not, and whether this is the right time to or not. I wonder whether I should address the way I look; would an unshaven look make me look cool or considerably older than I actually am? Whilst I know I can be grumpy, is this becoming more prominent to the point of being my most well-known characteristic? I wonder whether Gin really is a healthy substitute for Lager, should I set the tweezers on hairs in my ears more often or will that make them grow quicker? It is a slippery slope and not something I can easily seek guidance on.

But each stage of life offers different conundrums. Now I feel more at peace with my awkward appearance than I ever have done, and that is not because it has improved, if anything time teaches you to just let it be.

Many people compare themselves to a fine wine that matures with age, but I feel more like a block of cheese. In similar fashion, as time passes there is notable improvement with significant and increasingly tangible qualities on the inside, but outwardly it looks cumbersome and graceless, visibly ageing with growth in conspicuous places and blissfully unaware of its’ mild odour. Yes, cheese is an acquired taste and deserves the chance of a crack at mass popularity, and maybe that’s where I stand in life. Agreeable and cordial but only to a select few.

It is nearly seven years now since I turned the corner and saw the light. When I met Liz everything suddenly became very simple, and every major decision felt trivial and inconsequential. Suddenly I had no worries, everything made sense and I felt like I had jumped on the merry-go-round half way through its’ cycle. I had joined the human race.

It took me 33 years but I guess it takes some people even longer, some never get there. Where is there? Everyone has a different perception of there, but I finally arrived at mine.

Now it seems I can bob along on a different plane, enjoy being 40 and be thankful that I got here when I did because life can be very difficult if you never get there…………..

“…………I wandered up a cul-de-sac and then I came back“

Grumpy Young Man……………………..50 Days to go

Morrissey and I go back a long way. He doesn’t know it, but we do. Our paths have crossed on a few occasions and it seems somewhat fitting that the last gig I attend before I turn 40, will be his. Before that I’ve got Arctic Monkeys in Sheffield, and it appears that the last leg of my rollercoaster journey towards middle age involves an agreeable sprinkling of the sort of heart-stopping recreational spectacle that liberally flavoured my teens and twenties.

Not for me the premature acceptance that a hermit-like reality beckons, though I have tapped on the window of this existence for a few of my more recent years. No, it is time to awake to the realisation that many of my favourite artists are actually older than me and still treading the boards, and those that aren’t would prefer to engage with someone sharing my more sophisticated palette than the willing adolescent droves that worship them, and I am only being half-sarcastic when I say that.

Gig-going for me started in November 1985, when I saw Madness at the Sheffield Octagon. Prior to this there was basically no other band I was interested in seeing, and the strange surge of dithering excitement when I saw the tickets bought for me was almost nauseas. Obviously at your first gig you spend all night stood in the same spot, sweating your ‘nads off, daring not to go anywhere for fear of missing the start and not quite understanding why it took so long for the main act to appear.

Gigs until I was around thirty involved the obligatory rush to the front, until I gradually realised that this was not worth the two hours or so being pushed about for no reason. I could get this on the Lowfields at Elland Road, and usually there was actually something to watch. The last front row view I can remember getting was in order to get close and personal with Tracy Tracy from the Primitives, and I still maintain that was arguably justified.

I have stood at the back of gigs where I have not been too bothered about the artists or where we needed room for engaging in the insane and unwise amount of dancing involved (three brilliantly identical Chemical Brothers gigs spring to mind) , but nowadays I take a respectable middle of the room position, on the periphery of the action but with a decent view of proceedings. A metaphor for life maybe?

As with most extra-curricular activities I have enjoyed, gig-going has also involved entire evenings dissolving into an alcoholic daze. Having paid good money and often queued long hours for tickets there are a number of significant gigs I have frustratingly no recollection of, even the next morning. Most notable in this number are the first time I saw Morrissey in 1991 at Doncaster Dome, the Pogues at Sheffield City Hall in 1988 and Arctic Monkeys at Old Trafford in 2008. Great nights completely ruined by blackout-inducing over-indulgence.

So the all-out assault that gig-going used to be has subsided into more sedate affairs. Gone has the next day awakening to mysterious-coloured stains up to shin height on your jeans, gone has the wanton fleecing by pirate merchandise scumbags, gone has the walking home drenched in sweat with blatent disregard for appearance and general health.

God bless the Pixies in 1989, god bless The Damned in 1986, god bless The Housemartines in 1986 (supported by The Proclaimers no less). I bless the good fortune I had to see the then unknown Stone Roses in April 1989, a week before their eponymous, classic album was released, not so much when I saw them in 1995 about to implode. I bless the good fortune I’ve had to see Morrissey seven times, and an eight next month, every one a deeply personal event and every time I think it may be the last time I ever see him. God bless you all for thrilling me in my formative years and instilling a barometer of good taste and satisfaction. 

The ‘other’ gigs are too numerous to mention, some you stumble across by accident, some you stumble through, some are barely even ‘gigs’, but nonetheless I am thankful for the majority of the live experiences I have had. 

And as I stand aside and contemplate the slings and arrows of outragous fortune, I look at what lays before me in the forefront of life’s endeavor. Whilst that doesn’t scare me one bit, it is comforting to know that Arctic Monkeys will lend a pillow and Morrissey will offer a blanket to rest my weary limbs before I re-assess, address, energise and return standing tall. 

The passing of time
Leaves empty lives
Waiting to be filled
I’m here with the cause
I’m holding the torch
In the corner of your room
Can you hear me ?
And when you’re dancing and laughing
And finally living
Hear my voice in your head
And think of me kindly ……………………………….

Grumpy Young Man …………………..66 days to go

You would think providing music for your own party would be a simple exercise. Y’know, grab a handful of CD’s as you run out of the door; Complete Madness will always go down well, bit of Paul Weller for the ladies, The Pogues for when it gets a bit lively later on.

Whilst other people have a series of tasks based loosely on their specific skills, I have a task based on mine. However, selecting music for any party can be fraught with risks, but quadruple the hazard factor for your own party.

Here’s the rub:

• in my mind every track is a classic, however, it ain’t necessarily so
• every track is perfect for the occasion, not
• in terms of age I am providing music for the full spectrum
• it’s all about me

The temptation to plough ahead on a single-minded offensive to fully indulge myself in my own tunes is overwhelming, to the point where guilt sets in and all rational thought is lost. Before long iTunes swallows me whole and I am consumed by a desire to wallow in pitiful nostalgia and a liberal sprinkling of fanciful dalliance.

As things stand, I have three playlists. Yes, three. This primarily came about through a need to find a compromise, something that was becoming painfully apparent as expectations of my Father-in law tapping his toe to the Prodigy grew wildly unrealistic.

The first playlist currently clocks in at 142 songs and 10.9 hours. It is a soothing soundtrack to ease the pain of an early morning hangover. Nothing too urgent, nothing too loud, some 9 minute epics, some ballads, some Al Green. Just enough rhythm to slowly envelope the brain cells in a silky gloss as you sup a brew, background music to rouse the delicate matter and tranquillize a body ravaged by decadence and excess; for three nights running.

The second playlist currently stands at 163 songs and 11.2 hours. This is probably my most personal one, and where I have taken a “sod it this is my birthday, like it or like it a lot” approach. This is for milling about times, nights other than my party, afternoons playing scrabble, watching the kids cause havoc, bickering over what to have for tea,  general chatting and mild drinking. This is where I have selected what I would class simply as  ”tunes”. Classics in my eyes, but maybe not party tunes for the masses. Tracks that people will listen to and think “Yes, haven’t heard that in years……tuuuuune” . Tracks that stir memories, have an edge, mean something. For the last few months I have been tapping track details into my phone when I have heard them and building up 11.2 hours worth. Believe me, it’s easily done.

The last playlist is the party playlist, and clocks in at 89 songs and 5.9 hours. This is for the Saturday night party, and is where I have struck a chord between my tracks and general favourites, a delicate balance that could go either way depending on the mood.  But essentially it’s important that everyone loves it, and even in my most blinkered and selfish moments I have come to realise that this is what it’s all about.        

The hardest thing about building a playlist is attempting to gauge not only everyone’s tastes and potential mood, but how much better each track will sound when you are on the outside of a skinful. There is no doubt that beer can effect your perception of a song, but usually for the better, it is rare for a great track to sound shite when your sober, but I think I have managed to build to a suitable crescendo, and frivolities will end in a raucous spot of Yorkshire Dancing just at the right time.

Ruby has had a say in proceedings, to the extent that whenever the Oakenfold mix of “Hallelujah” comes on I have to play it a minimum of five times in succession. I have to confess I am delighted she is picking up my taste in music, but I am in danger of growing a violent dislike for songs I once held dear, which is an uncomfortable position to be in, particularly when my dying wish is for her to inherit my record collection.  If she carries on like this I will have palmed them all off to her long before I am wearing a wooden overcoat.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       So the quest goes on, and soon enough I will need to refine and conclude my playlists, and to hell with it. Sure enough I am forming a strong desire to make the most of my one and only opportunity to play what I like, when I like, and I’ve a funny feeling I might just get away with it.

CD’s will be available in the foyer as you leave……………………… 

Grumpy Young Man……….81 days to go

I do most of my best thinking whilst driving. Some of my most earth-shattering, empire-crumbling moments have come whilst idly tailgating a BMW on the fast lane of the M1. For many people driving is a chore, a necessary evil, simply an everyday means of getting from A to B. For me, it is largely escapism.

For the last few years I have spent a decent percentage of my life driving. Bombing up and down the M1 in a tediously routine manner, 34.8 miles there, 34.8 miles back. No Sat Nav required, thanks, I know exactly where I’m going. Whilst the distance takes a chunk out of my day it does allow me time to wake up before I get to work, it does allow me forty minutes of solitary peace between leaving work and getting home, and probably of most significance, it allows me the rare pleasure of playing my own music as loud as I want.

Many journeys to and from work pass me by completely. A hazy fuss of daydreams, thoughts and wonderings. I arrive at my destination, check back into the real world and consider the fact that I have made not one single, conscious driving decision. My journey is as close to Auto-Pilot as it is possible to get, and it is fair to say I really should concentrate a bit more. It is not so much ‘Mirror-Signal-Manoeuvre’ , more ‘Mirror-skip track on CD-wow, look a pregnant cow! – Signal – ponder Grayson’s reluctance to give McCormack a run upfront – change CD altogether – consider what to have for tea- manoeuvre’.

Whilst zipping in and out of local or city centre traffic is an art in itself, often accompanied by an urge to attack and seriously hurt members of the public you have never encountered before, motorway traffic is a whole different ball game. I am not an aggressive driver by any means, but motorways are chock full of people who are.

Every trip features an incident where a brief sojourn into the fast lane solely for over-taking purposes becomes an intimidating white-knuckle ride, as a balding sales rep in an oversized car steams up my arse at 110 mph. He thinks his job places him on some kind of rock star pedestal and he behaves accordingly, but deep down he is in torment over his shite career and lonely, single existence, and to make up for it he takes his aggression out on me. I have the audacity to be driving at ten miles over the legal limit rather than forty, and he is so important that he simply has to bully me into the middle lane to let him pass. He has a meeting he simply cannot miss, with a Ginsters Pastie at Woolley Edge Services.

Another pet hate is the trend that seems to have emerged over the last ten years or so; people flashing you when you change lanes. I just don’t get it and I’m sure people never used to do this. It’s not something you learn in your Driving Lessons, ie. don’t change lanes until somebody flashes you. There are tight situations where you need another cars acknowledgment and their permission to whip infront of them, but far too often I change lanes with no car or lorry within 100 yards and I see a flash in the far distance of my rear-view mirror. Cheers mate, but I can drive thanks. I can make basic decisions relating to lane discipline and I don’t need your assistance, I have indicated to tell you what I’m doing, that’s all, I don’t need you to tell me it’s safe. There must be some drivers with their finger permanently half-cocked over their indicators, on a hair-trigger, eyes darting around the road waiting to flash other cars, and they spend their entire journey concentrating on blinding, alarming and unnerving other drivers and nothing else. They must spend a bloody fortune on bulbs and no doubt Halfords love this modern obsession, but I find it almost offensive.

Listening to music in my car is the best chance I get to indulge my love of music without interruption. I have fallen in love with many albums whilst coasting at 70mph on the M1, and this is another art that you don’t learn before you pass your test. To be completely absorbed in a great album whilst navigating around a catalogue of drivers with varying degrees of skill is a calculated risk that is only mastered with age and experience. I’ve had great times rediscovering old albums, the steering wheel adopted as snare, bass and tom-tom, upper body movements with startling  fluidity and tempo, and the redundant “clutch” foot does some bootboy stomping as my car rocks along on the crest of a colossal, euphonic soundwave. I would consider a shoe appropriate for my left foot alone, just to amplify the rhythm of the foot-well, such is it’s stupendous effect.

Talking to other people, particularly kids, is something else you only learn with experience. Ruby and I have enjoyed mammoth eye-spy championships and discussed the origin of chickens and other passing farm-stock whilst coasting along, and it is difficult to recall a more dangerous activity you would carry out with such little attention. A bit like painting your guttering whilst watching ‘Come Dine With Me’, or playing Swingball with the kids whilst re-wiring the kitchen.

In truth I could go on all day about driving, and I’m not alone in having an unusual amount to say about something that is essentially a cold, functional day-to-day activity. But I have pet hates that I dare not delve into for fear of turning this into another epic blog posting that you will doubtless lose interest in.

In brief:

• petrol prices rising by 1p per litre almost every week for the last 15 years
• people having sat nav’s when all they really do is go to the shops
• ‘hilarious’ , borderline sexist/racist window stickers purchased in Blackpool
• drivers who seemingly find indicating a tiresome activity
• motorway drivers who seem to think it is beneath them to use the middle lane and certainly the inside lane
• people who lose all semblance of common sense in even the slightest bit of bad weather
• cyclists who moan about not being shown respect as a normal road user, then mount the pavement and circumvent traffic lights so they don’t have to wait like a ‘normal road user’.

Thankfully, my regular motorway expeditions are soon drawing to a close, and I will not miss the daily grind, or the money I spend on petrol, or the blind hatred I feel towards other drivers that I don’t show in any other walk of life.

But I will still drive. I will still think, I will still listen to music, still check out my hair in the rear-view mirror, still un-wrap Ruby’s lollies from the drivers seat and pass them back, just in very slightly less dangerous circumstances. Respect.

Grumpy Young Man………..100 Days to go

Dreams of Beauty and Dirt ………Part 2 1992 – present

Being a Leeds fan in 1992 was finally an invigorating thing to be. Having bobbed up and down in a sea of mediocrity for all of the 80′s, dodging plankton and killer sharks, the arrival of Howard Wilkinson had heralded a rapid incline in fortunes, so much so that somehow it didn’t seem real.

Of course you don’t need me to tell you that the twenty year dynasty that should have followed failed to materialise, and before you could say “Lukic…………..noooooo!” we were back amongst the also-rans, albeit established in the top division.

For me, the 1992 League title was made all the sweeter by the fact that nobody wanted us to win it. This was the year that media darlings Manchester United were supposed to finally claim their first title in 25 years, and the coverage following our party-pooping triumph was more about Man Utd losing it than Leeds winning it. I will never forget opening the Daily Mirror the very next day and reading a double spread by Emlyn Hughes on “Why I hate Leeds United”. Cheers guys……but stop it, you’re making me blush.

But such coverage and popular opinion is water off a ducks back. It merely feeds the hunger to build a bigger, stronger wall around ourselves with turrets at the top so we can stick our heads out and flick the V’s at the rest of the football world, because that’s what we do best.

I managed to get to quite a few games in the title season and the one afterwards, but it was a struggle money-wise because I was a student, so I had to become a bit more creative. For the 1993/94 season my middle brother Mike got his first season ticket and I cracked onto the ingenious idea of becoming a turnstile operator at the club itself. This meant I got to every game but just had to miss the first ten minutes each time. You could go anywhere in the ground to watch the game, and not only that, I got paid for the privilege! I couldn’t understand why everybody wasn’t doing it.

That said, it quickly became a bit of a chore. I did it for two seasons, but I missed the pre-match pub ritual and basically I became weary of our penchant for scoring early goals whilst I was racing back to the office with a bag of ticket stubs ready to be counted. No, being paid to watch Leeds United for 80 minutes rather than 90 was not enough. As soon as I was working full-time I fulfilled my life times ambition of becoming a season ticket holder. I took the plunge on 31st July 1995 and I have never looked back.

This was it, I was fully paid up. I had my stripes, I had graduated. It had been a long, rocky road, often frustrated by my desire to go to a match not being equalled by those who could take me. Now there was no stopping me, I was free as a bird. For the next few years Mike and I were on a rampaging pursuit of all things Leeds United and the atmosphere that surrounded it. Drinking before games was almost as important as the game itself, and often much more enjoyable. Home and away games became a ritualistic quest for the comfort in tribalism that comes with following Leeds. Many a Saturday night was spent drunk on a train singing Leeds songs with complete strangers; win, lose or draw. It was as if we knew this was our moment, this was our stage. Not forever would we have the time, disposable income or lack of responsibility to travel the country in this way.

The trip to London in March 1996 was a case in point. Leeds had got to the League Cup Final at Wembley. The game was on Sunday at 5.00pm but we travelled down on Friday evening after work and set about a hedonistic weekend with insatiable gusto. The day of the game was amongst my greatest Leeds supporting memories as we arrived in Stanmore, north of Wembley and found a huge pub packed with hundreds of Leeds fans. For about two hours we sank pints with relentless appetite and bellowed out every song in the Leeds repertoire. The whole pub was bouncing, everybody was on top form. This was a special occasion, it almost didn’t matter that there was a Cup Final to watch, this was what everyone had come for. Drinks, camaraderie, bonding and unity, in huge numbers. The tube journey from Stanmore to Wembley was just as buoyant and truly unforgettable. The singing continued and the train had to stop en route for an announcement asking us to refrain from bouncing up and down because of a genuine fear that the train would become de-railed. We didn’t see a single Villa fan until we got inside Wembley. But that’s where the fun came to an abrupt end.

This was my first Cup Final experience as a Leeds fan, and each one since has been exactly the same. Heart-warming and fiercely proud beforehand, stunningly bad for the ninety minutes of the actual match, and then a vacant post-mortem on the crushingly long journey home, where sobriety kicks in, and the gargantuan anti-climax finds you questioning everything you have ever known.

We have lost comfortably and without a sniff of a goal in all three Cup Finals I have attended. The pain is indescribable. Despite being acutely aware that there is a 50% chance of this very outcome, the reality is it has been the meek fashion of each defeat that has multiplied the throbbing torment. Regardless of this, nothing would stop me attending the next Final, which is hard to explain to someone on the outside. I will put up with the misery just to one day experience the joy of a Cup Final win; to see a rainbow, you have to put up with the rain. I couldn’t possibly miss it by watching on telly, because my god I have paid my dues.

It doesn’t seem necessary to rake over the recent history of Leeds United. You all know the story, and despite this the media still rejoice in how incredulous it is that ‘blah blah years ago Leeds were rubbing shoulders with Valencia in the Champions League Semi-Final, and here they are being humbled by Histon/Hereford/Cheltenham’ delete as appropriate. For how long we are supposed to remain amazed by this degenerating journey is known only to ITV and Sky executives; five, ten, fifteen years? But they seem to forget that we have lived all the way through it. We have stood in the rain in Exeter, we have held our head in our hands hoping to wake up back in the Premiership , we have been abused by Chavs from the safe distance of a segregated stand in every godforsaken outback town in England. ‘We’re not famous anymore’ apparently, but the full away ends at Elland Road and the sold out signs at every ground we visit suggest otherwise.

I am well aware that Leeds are up there amongst the most disliked clubs in the country. Much of this may be warranted, but a lot of it isn’t. Nevertheless, the vitriol received does nothing more than feed the beast within, and after years of being kicked on the ground by all and sundry we are fighting back. We have suffered enough blows to floor a bronze-plated Robert Molenaar, but we have survived. We stared into the abyss of a 15 point deduction the day before our first ever season in the 3rd Division commenced. This followed a summer during which our financial plight left us facing the very real prospect of not having a club to support at all, and having to find something else to do on a Saturday. At the time, it was quite an attractive prospect.

A Leeds fan knows that life is all about riding these blows and moving on. We have had a plethora of star players over the years who have rightly taken the plaudits and served up trophies and famous occasions that live long in the memory. But being a Leeds fan is as much about embracing Alfie Haaland, Neil Aspin and Peter Haddock, as it is Bremner, Strachan and Viduka. It is about recognising kindred spirits when all is not well, and digging in, marching on together.

Leeds fans seem to revel in a sadistic pleasure brought about by our misfortune. Our last home game in the Premiership in 2004 when relegation and financial oblivion was already certain, was not a morose funereal affair, but a joyous occasion involving beach balls in the Kop and a celebratory atmosphere. At the end there wasn’t booing, tears or despair as the enormity of our capitulation began to sink in. No, there was a good natured pitch invasion, singing and dancing, twisted humour in the blackest of circumstances, as we made sure everyone knew we were down but not out.

In 2011 most fans of my generation would agree that the Elland Road atmosphere is nothing like it used to be, but that is much the same anywhere you go. We can occasionally hit the highs of yesteryear, but generally the atmosphere is a diluted and sterile version of what used to consume you whole.

So I have been a season ticket holder now for 16 years, and what was once an isolated and giddy experience is now a way of life. Every game I attend home or away is still something I look forward to, but it is a routine, something I do, a part of me that everyone, to their eternal credit, just accepts.

People say that football, and in particular following a specific football club is like a religion; I disagree. I am not a religious man, but I know that following a specific religion requires commitment, faith and effectively blind devotion. Commitment and faith goes without saying, but I fall short on the blind devotion, because there are many things about Leeds United I don’t like.

Many of our fans are idiots, no different to most clubs I expect, but I spend a lot of time shaking my head at some of the ill-informed and mis-directed comments I hear at matches, from people with clearly a very poor appreciation of the game of football and the mechanics that surround it. We have employed several players that I disliked even before we signed them; Jody Morris and Lee Sharpe spring immediately to mind, and I feel somehow dirty and uncomfortable at the thought that I have actually applauded them. There are many more players that I once loved but now hate with a passion, not just because they left but because of how they did it; Aizlewood, Hasselbaink, Ferdinand, Kewell, Smith, Nicholls, Kewell, Kewell, did I mention Kewell? I was never wholly at ease with Dennis Wise having any connection to us either.

But ultimately I don’t see Leeds United as a religion because they let me down. They disappoint me, frustrate me, build me up teasingly with the weekly potential for recapturing golden moments of yore and then abruptly leave me hanging in suspension. They have provided the most euphoric moments of my life, but on many, many more occasions they have left me speechless and disillusioned. As time goes on my recovery period is reduced to just a couple of hours after a match, but entire weekends have been thoroughly ruined in the past.

But all this will continue, and I accept that the upset is worth it because when they come along the highs are incomparable. The bruises on my knees from the Kop seats, suffered in the chaotic tumble of celebration, are worth it. The miles and miles of lonely, unsociable travel are worth it, the financial outlay that I dare not calculate is all worth it.

It is true that one day my time will come and I will no longer inhabit this earth, but Leeds United will continue, and the one conundrum that I find hard to contemplate is that Leeds United games will take place after my death. There will be new heroes, new villains, new types of pies on sale, historic victories, relegations, Cup Final failures, and raging controversies that I won’t experience or have any knowledge of. Everything about Leeds United currently demands my attention, but one day they will continue without me.

But that is how it should be, keep on being strong, keep on keeping on. Life will go on, Leeds will go on…..at least until the world stops going round.