The magic of the cup part two...and Capt Birdseye.

It's 5 years since Cuddly Ken took over Leeds United from Gerald Krasner & his cronies. At the time the club and fans were suffering from a great deal of "feeling sorry for themselves" after relegation from the Premier League and the unseemly fire sale of all our best players for a relative pittance. Kevin Blackwell was in charge of the team and we were lurking with intent in the higher echelons of the Championship. Things couldn't get any worse could they? Well as we now know they definitely could and did as on the field we followed the massive disappointment of the play off defeat to mighty Watford with relegation to Division 3 whilst off the field the ice cold reality of the clubs financial Armageddon finally came home to roost with administration and a 15 points deduction. Just how close our great club was to extinction during that time will never be really known but one thing I'm sure of...................love him or hate him Capt Birdseye has managed to steer Leeds back to a position of relative financial security and on the field we finally look like we've turned the longest corner in the world and are on our way back up the league. So whilst accepting he is never going to win any popularity polls at ER history will probably see Ken Bates as the saviour of Leeds United in years to come. You definitely wouldn't have seen that coming 5 years ago!

Just when you thought the Beckford saga had come to an end with his announcement that he has come off the transfer list and is committed to firing Leeds to promotion there are more twists. The more cynical amongst us, what moi?, suspected that deals had been done behind the scenes and sure enough tales of a pre transfer agreement with the blue side of merseyside soon filtered out of ER. David Moyles was at ER on Tuesday to see our capitulation to Carlisle. Now if he was there to watch Becks I'm sure he will have been impressed with our strikers ability to lose his marker and get on the end of chances..................5 good examples before the half time orange proved that..................not so sure he would have been that impressed with his chance conversion ratio though? At the end of the day money still talks and I wouldn't be surprised if a deal is done to keep him in the summer......................and next year at this time I'm still speculating on Mr Beckford leaving ER in the transfer window after already scoring 20 goals in the championship!

We make the trip to White Hart Lane tomorrow to continue our FA Cup fairy tale. After beating the Salford Yanks in the last round.................for those who may have forgotten (I know nobody's forgotten I just like to keep mentioning it, lol) a Jermaine Beckford goal knocked the media's favourite team out, Rooney, Berbatov, Neville et al............................... a trip to play the Spurs shouldn't hold any fears for Leeds. We've now played 4 Premier teams this season and only lost once and never looked out of place in such exhalted company. Strange though the "we've nothing to lose" approach to the Manure game seems to have disappeared from some fans and been replaced by a mixture of expectation and thinking that the cup is too much of a distraction.

For me tomorrow is just the same as our trip to the Theatre of shite.........................we shouldn't really have a chance so as long as we're not shown up and we score at least one goal I'll be happy...............................but it is 11 against 11 and the way Spurs defended against Liverpool must give Mr Beckford a glimmer of hope, especially on the wide acres of White Hart Lane. So we could just sneak another win and get into the velvet bag for the 5th round? If we're still in with a shout come half time you never know? Funny old game isn't it?

MOT.

In Grayson We Trust.