From Gray to Glory: Leeds United

Leeds and sport. United and the city. When one thrives, so does the other. Their shared ecosystem dictates that without one of those key components, the other fails to reach its full potential. That’s why it’s not just fans of Leeds United who understand what this season’s promotion means. The non-footballing onlookers, who likely exhale a giant humph at the Elland Road matchday traffic as it snakes back from the M621 through the tunnels and beyond, also understand the value of what the Mighty Whites have achieved in gaining their status as a Premier League club once more.

Football is a strange pursuit; I’ve always felt it was a game of eking out as much optimism as you can, for as long as possible. Regardless of how your team is shaping up ahead of a new season, on day one, as tens of thousands flock to a sometimes-sunny-sometimes-not-so-sunny August afternoon at Elland Road, you can’t help but feel and taste the enthusiasm for what might come permeating through the air. The question is… how long can that feeling of optimism stay alive?

Some seasons, you only need to watch your team for the first 90 minutes to know the torrid 9 months that lay ahead. Sometimes, you start well and it’s the curse of Christmas fixtures where the team’s form cracks. Sometimes, like last season, the excitement remains until the final possible moment, only for Wembley playoff dreams to be dashed in the most heartbreaking and devastating fashions on a sun-drenched May afternoon (can someone please pass the chaise longue for my next therapy session?).

Then, once in a blue moon, the magic happens. The initial optimism… never fades. As all the fans of other football clubs fall away like dominoes, our team, our city’s team creates a legacy that will be talked about for years. And that is what just happened for Leeds.

By the way, you can forget your other big cities; Leeds is a one team city. It means more. It hurts more. And every so often, like now, it rejoices more.

I was broadcasting outside the stadium’s East Stand for Leeds United TV when promotion was secured. The place erupted. Thousands of fans, so cruelly denied the chance to celebrate the last Covid-hit promotion (See the WTL video from the last promotion), descended to Elland Road. Scarves. Flags. Fireworks. Flares. The yellow bucket hats that young and old alike wear to matches. The fear of failure dissipating through the yellow and blue smoke that rose high towards the top of the main stand.

Leeds United is a family affair, make no mistake. The parents I bumped into with children experiencing this moment for the first time. Young’uns on shoulders. Old’uns with walking sticks. And how fitting that the family theme would be replicating what we had seen in the stadium just a couple of hours earlier. 16-year-old Harry Gray, receiving the biggest of ovations as he stepped onto the Elland Road turf for the first time, adorning the same grass that Great Uncle Eddie so famously played on during the team’s most successful era in the 1970s, as Eddie watched on in the West Stand, smile beaming from ear to ear.

That’s what football means to this city. And with its success, the city will grow culturally and economically.

Extra hotel rooms for football fans travelling here, with a tourism bump that comes alongside its status as a top tier team, as matches beam worldwide to an audience of billions in over 190 countries. A proposed stadium expansion to generate more footfall on matchdays. Major brand investment in Leeds and the wider area. The possibilities are endless.

Of course, we already know how great the city is. The nightlife, the food, the shopping, the arcades, the independents. Now, Leeds United can be the conduit through which the eyes of the world see the same as us.

The job now for the club’s hierarchy is clear; those tens of thousands of fans will turn up in August for the first game of the new Premier League era full of vigour; how long can they keep the optimism running through our veins…