Derby County 1-3 Leeds United: Sixteen Tons
⭑ This might be the stupidest thing I've ever set out to write ⭑ There are 15,600 words ahead ⭑ But I felt like this had to exist ⭑ If you're still high off the title, don't let this disrupt your buzz
A game at Bolton's Reebok Stadium on May 2nd 2004 was Leeds United's last chance of staying in the Premiership but their best striker Mark Viduka swung his elbow through Bruno N'Gotty's chin and was sent off and Leeds lost 4-1. Their manager, Eddie Gray, had raised many of the team from boys. Now he watched them in tears. "It will not be the end of the club," he said.
Young talisman Alan Smith was defiantly embraced after the final home match of the season. Gray said, "There has not been a bigger hero here." Smith flicked two fingers at Leeds fans at Chelsea chanting that he should keep his promise never to play for Manchester United. Eddie Gray had been sacked before that game.
The Adulant Force consortium that had recently taken over the club, led by chairman Gerald Krasner, wanted Gordon Strachan as manager. They agreed to give the job to Kevin Blackwell, former assistant to Neil Warnock at Sheffield United who had been no.2 to Gray, but a new consortium led by Steve Parkin wanted to takeover the club and wanted Ian Dowie as manager, and director Simon Morris vetoed Blackwell, while other directors told him he'd get the job in the end.
Parkin withdrew from a takeover and Blackwell was confirmed as manager. Former chairman Peter Ridsdale resigned as chair of the city's education board. Leeds United appointed a new chief executive, Shaun Harvey, who had been managing director at Bradford City and taken them into administrations twice. "The be all and end all of football clubs is football, football clubs are the eleven men who make up the starting line-up on a Saturday afternoon," he said.
Smith and Viduka were sold, Middlesbrough insisting that Leeds take Michael Ricketts as a condition of their buying Viduka, while they signed Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink from Chelsea at the same time. Former England international Ricketts scored two league cup goals for Leeds in the next two seasons. Goalkeeper Paul Robinson was sold to Tottenham, Stephen McPhail to Barnsley, Ian Harte to Levante, Dominic Matteo to Blackburn, Danny Mills to Manchester City, Nick Barmby to Hull. Leeds hoped to herald a new era in the Championship by making eighteen-year-old James Milner the poster boy for the new kits. Chairman Gerald Krasner said, "Maybe James Milner will be the new Mr Leeds United." He was sold at the start of July.