Champions League 2001: Besiktas vs Leeds United
O'Leary's babies had not, yet, dug into and ground out one of their Champions League matches. Travelling, working and getting the result were signs of maturity as long as you remember that growing up is boring.
2025/26 season marks 25 years since Leeds United were playing in the Champions League, and even if it does feel like yesterday, it's worth going back to check what happened.
Throughout this season I'll be writing about the Champions League campaign game by game, roughly around the anniversary of each match.
So far Leeds have battled through 1860 Munich, home and away, then in the group stage played Barcelona, Milan and Besiktas.
It should be easy to want to visit a team you've just beaten 6-0, but Leeds United were not welcoming their return trip to Istanbul. Christopher Loftus and Kevin Speight were murdered there before United's UEFA Cup semi-final in April. Now it was October, so there had been no time for the passage of time to do anything. Everything hurt just as much as it had and always would.
Leeds chairman Peter Ridsdale, who had acted decisively amid the trauma, was determined in his club's handling of their trip to play Besiktas. "It's the one game in my life where I am considering all aspects of safety, security, how the fans will react and whether they will be safe going there," he said. And, "We have made no extra security arrangements. We discussed it but decided that to do so would be potentially provocative, and we believe that, with all the goodwill we've received from Besiktas, there will be no requirements." Leeds were going to treat it like a normal European trip.
But UEFA, Besiktas and the local authorities wanted to show their contrition. When the Leeds squad arrived at the airport they were met by a cordon of 100 armed officers and Ridsdale was given an enormous bouquet of flowers. Instead of Besiktas fans, hordes of camera crews followed Leeds' coach to their hotel. One police officer told a British journalist it was Istanbul's biggest security operation since a visit from Bill Clinton.
This was a full 24 hours before the 150 Leeds fans making the trip met a similar smothering of security and were escorted by helicopter on an alcohol-free pleasure boat cruise, up the Bosphorus to the stadium. The fans took a banner with them, 'LUFSEA', and sang 'Sailing on Together'. They would not encounter trouble in the city this time because, after the game, they'd be taken straight back to the airport. This was wise, as not all Besiktas fans were feeling peaceful. A banner at their stadium read, 'England are shit'.
It was a tense and perplexing week. David O'Leary said the only thing his players were managing to do consistently this season was get injured, and his opportunity for managerial choice kept shrinking as the price of Jonathan Woodgate being available for selection was Michael Duberry's achilles, Olivier Dacourt's foot, a second concussion in two weeks to Lucas Radebe and, with twenty minutes to go of the weekend's match at Charlton, Nigel Martyn's groin.
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