Daniel Farke has made some very reasonable, fan-friendly requests and pegged them to 49ers Enterprises' ambition. Any failure to agree now will be interpreted as the owners' ambition falling short of the manager's — and the fans'.
Highways issues — getting more people to and from a bigger stadium — were always going to be the most difficult part of a redevelopment that every key stakeholder seems in favour of. And highways issues seem to be the biggest problem there has been with Leeds United's planning application.
This is what you get for buying a football club in the 2020s. Your key performance indicator is now the most rotten of metrics, social media vibes, and you owe your livelihood to Fabrizio Romano tweeting something positive.
2024 was going to be the Niners' big year, but they swung and missed. Oh wait, that's the other thing isn't it. Um, they dropped the puck? Does that sound right?
The single-minded objective is to get promoted. That sounds good. But that single-mindedness increases the pressure, turning this season into an inflection point, or as we used to call it, shit or bust.
Let's catch up with our favourite pigskin guys as they get hitting those pucks for some big homers this fall.
Outsiders might ask what the fun would be having a Premier League ready squad in the Championship and winning it by Easter while breaking records on easy mode. Leeds fans would answer that you shouldn't knock it until you've tried it.
The advantage fans have is that everything in football, whether it's comms or money or community, must ultimately be expressed with high visibility on grass.
Things may not actually be that bad. But they're bad enough to have me thinking about Peter Ridsdale, Professor McKenzie, Ken Bates and the parallels. So that is bad enough.
To look at Archie Gray playing for Leeds was to see a golden era come back, to forget all the market forces crushing modern football and feel the glorious 1960s and 70s again. A smiley badge on the away kit next season won’t do that the way Archie Gray could do that.