Forthcoming Attractions

Leeds United at home to Middlesbrough, in the early weeks of a Second Division promotion campaign, evokes memories of 1989/90, our last promotion season.

And you can call it a campaign right from the start, until you know for certain that it is a promotion season, or not. As Marcelo Bielsa said this week, if we read anything into league positions at this stage we make a mistake, because "the goals are definitive ones, not partial ones." In other words, you only get promoted at the end of the season, and that's the only goal.

But to do that it helps if you start winning promotion from the earliest stage, and that is an advantage Bielsa has already taken over United's last Second Division promotion winning manager, Howard Wilkinson. In 1989 he had the euphoria, and he had the definitive goal, but when Leeds played Middlesbrough, he didn't yet have the promotion winning start.

What he had was a bit of a shambles. Wilkinson saw enough of 1988/89 — in person, not on video, as he was already manager — to know that his play-off near-missers were not good enough; he extracted a couple of million from Leslie Silver, and sent Bill Fotherby out shopping. It's often assumed that was enough; meticulous Wilkinson drilled the new players in his methods, put them on the pitch, and promotion was won: the end. History often records the destination, not the journey.

But that misses much. Pre-season veered between average and poor; Doncaster Rovers were beaten, but a draw with Rotherham United and defeat to Halifax Town were thin fare, and a 5-1 defeat to Anderlecht at Elland Road was a disaster. The season itself opened at Newcastle United, and what happened there is often remembered; the big-spending optimists of Leeds were beaten 5-2.

It didn't dull enthusiasm for the first home game, on a Wednesday evening, against Middlesbrough, but Elland Road didn't feel like a place that had a grip on itself. With capacity cut due to the post-Hillsborough Taylor Report, the Kop was filled in eighteen minutes, and as the club had done a poor job of advertising that entry to the South Stand terraces would require a membership card, chaos developed on Elland Road; fans with cards couldn't get past fans without cards, who were trying to argue or force their way through the turnstiles. Kick-off was delayed for half an hour; despite room available for 6,000 more fans inside, 3,000 were locked out, and either clambered up Beeston Hill for a view, or wandered off to smash some windows. Vinnie Jones concentrated on the fans he saw on the hill. "I just could not believe it," he said. "If you cannot put in great performances for supporters like that, who can you do it for?"

But first you have to be playing, and Vinnie Jones wasn't. The price of pre-season wasn't just a couple of embarrassing results. Headline signing Jones picked up an injury, as did reliable centre-half Chris Fairclough; unreliable centre-half Noel Blake picked up a red card against Anderlecht and was suspended for the start of the season. John McClelland, a free transfer expected to provide experienced cover, started in central defence at Newcastle; longer-serving Peter Haddock, expected to provide back-up to new left-back Jim Beglin, played alongside him. Then Beglin was injured in that game, ruled out until February, so Mike Whitlow came in. At least summer signings Mel Sterland and John Hendrie were fit.