Happy Grayson Day

Happy Grayson Day everyone.

That's foxed you hasn't it? Today is the second anniversary of Simon Grayson's tenure at Leeds United beginning and thus has been decreed (by Thom Kirwin, Yorkshire Radio's Leeds commentator) Grayson Day.

It's been a remarkable two years for the young manager and his team, having taken over a team that was struggling badly under former Leeds captain Gary McAllister, Grayson guided them to the play offs in his first half-season in charge. Promotion followed in the second and now they sit second in the Championship on a run of nine games without a loss.

It was an easy choice for Grayson in the winter of 2008 to take the job. Born a Leeds fan in Ripon he started his playing career at the club but would only manage to make two starts before leaving for a successful career at Leicester. When Ken Bates came calling Grayson was at Leeds before they and his former club Blackpool had managed to sort out any form of compensation. The fee for his services wasn't agreed until April of 2009.

Nine straight defeats and a first game against the league's runaway leaders, and the club Grayson had captained into the promised land of the Premier League, Leicester meant he was thrown in at the deep end straight away. 1-0 down and looking increasingly likely to take their losing run into double figures Grayson threw Robert Snodgrass on for the last 14 minutes and the scott repaid his manager with a last minute equaliser.

In the next 20 games the whites only lost four and charged into the play-offs on top form. Grayson had moved quickly to shore up an increasingly leaky defence with the loan additions of Richard Naylor and Sam Sodje. While big name loan of Lee Trundle never paid off Naylor and Sodje formed arguably the best defensive pairing in the division.

The play-off defeat to Millwall was a hard pill to swallow for Leeds fans but, rather than wallow in a common post-play-off slump Leeds charged out of the blocks at the start of the next season. It all looked so good for the man they call Larry and his team. Top of the league, long unbeaten run and a cup tie against their most hated of rivals Manchester United.

It was that cup tie that started the hardest part of Grayson's tenure at Elland Road. The team had ridden the wave for over a year, nothing could stop them. The feeling of injustice at the play-off loss had urged them on yet again into the new season. The addition of Patrick Kisnorbo proving to be yet another astute signing by Grayson. Then came the day out at Old Trafford. In the 19th minute Jermaine Beckford latched onto Jonny Howson's long ball forward and the rest was history. After years in the wilderness Leeds fans were ecstatic, their closest rivals out-played and comprehensively out-sung by a team from the third division.

Then came the transfer request. Higher teams had long coveted the striking talents of Jermaine Beckford. The striker, plucked from a life repairing car windows, had scored more than 20 goals in every season Leeds had languished in League One. Newcastle were sniffing around and Beckford's agent knew there was more money on offer than Leeds were willing to pay. The next match against Wycombe should have been a celebratory day, a day when the fans and players rejoiced in the previous weeks victory. Instead a stunned and quiet Elland Road watched a dispirited team trudge to a 1-1 draw. Beckford may have withdrawn his request soon after but the wheels were already in motion. Leeds proceeded to loose to the likes of Exeter and Swindon, no real signs of the old team could be seen.

Then, when the wheels were seemingly completely off Grayson pulled it out of the bag again. Since his transfer saga the talismanic Beckford's form had nosedived. It got to the point where the unthinkable happened and Grayson dropped his lead scorer, preferring to pair the energetic Max Gradel with the ever present Luciano Becchio. The two struck up a good partnership and the ship was steadied to an extent. By the time Beckford returned the team was limping its way to promotion. A 4-1 demolition of MK Dons, in which Beckford showed he was truly back, put them in pole position for the final game.

It came down to one game, one game where four different clubs could all seal the second automatic promotion spot, each would occupy that spot at some point during the afternoon but it was Leeds who came out triumphant. Max Gradel lost his heat late in the first half and was sent off, having to be dragged from the pitch by his team-mates. Then, the moment all Leeds fans dreaded. Bristol Rovers took the lead. Another season in the third tier of English football beckoned. Grayson threw on Jonny Howson, dropped because his impact on games had diminished over the previous few months.

In the 59th minute Becchio layed the ball off to Howson, the young Leeds fan, 25 yards out and he hit it. Thirty-seven thousand people watched as the ball flew beyond the desperate grasp of Rovers' keeper Mikkel Anderson and into the net. The comeback had started, the noise inside Elland Road went up dramatically and exploded 5 minutes later when, captain for the day, Beckford bundled the ball home for a second goal. Leeds had finally made it back into the Championship.

The summer was a tricky one for Grayson, Beckford left for a contract at Everton, Kisnorbo was out with a bad injury suffered in a home loss to Millwall a few weeks before and his only usable left back was a central midfielder by trade. Come the start of the season a much changed side lined up against Derby in a new 4-5-1 formation. It was an up and down start to the season. Victories against Watford and Sheffield United were sandwiched between collapses against Barnsley (5-1), Cardiff (4-0) and an embarrassing 6-4 loss to Preston having been 4-1 up. There was no real problem up front but the defence was leaking far too fast.

Loanees were brought in in the shape of George McCartney and Andy O'Brien, another who had been a Leeds fan growing up. But the real change was a change in formation. With the defence leaking so badly Grayson decided to shore it up with two defenders in an anchor role. The 4-2-3-1 formation also allowed Howson, Snodgrass and Gradel license to attack with the free-scoring Becchio.

These four players have played a huge part in Grayson's time at Leeds, repeatedly being the players he can turn to if he needs inspiration. And thus a the current nine-game unbeaten run came about. Leeds now sit above their tormentors Cardiff in the automatic promotion spots in the Championship. The highest position they have held since relegation from the holy-land of the Premier League in 2004.

The work is far from done, but Grayson's job has never been easy. It would be far to easy to say right now that he has been amazing and done nothing wrong, but that would be untrue. Loanees like Trundle, Lee Dickinson and Peter Capaldi have simply not been up to standard. A continuing problem with a leaky defence still troubles Leeds and the job of getting back into the top tier is far from done.

Today he can look back at what he has done with pride, a far bigger task than the one he faced when he took over at Blackpool. The pressure of the Leeds job is immeasurably bigger. Grayson has taken Leeds a long way. The ever-faithful Leeds fans can only hope this continues.

Want to run a football club?

Do you feel you could do a better job than your current chairman? There are a legion of fans of various clubs that believe that the fans should own the club they support. Over the years I've managed to experience this at Rushden when Max Griggs (who formed our club) could no longer afford to run the club and handed it over to the Supporters trust, along with a generous donation to keep the club running for the next couple of seasons.

Safe to say it was a bit of a disaster. The fans had hoped for a more openly run club, but it ended up feeling like a closed system, the people who ran the club did not communicate well with those they represented. Even worse the club proved not to be financially viable in the state that it had been inherited and those who were installed on the board did not have the knowledge to bring the club onto a more steady footing. This lead to the club teetering close to the brink after relegation out of the league. Fortunately for us we had a saviour come along in the form of Keith Cousins and the club is now run better and in a better state financially.

Billy Sharpe: One of the few good things to happen under the trust at Rushden

While those who had a go at running the club obviously did a valiant job it showed that unless you have the knowledge to run a football club you shouldn't rush into owning one. A large group of Liverpool fans wish to purchase their club believing they would be able to turn into into some kind of fans utopia, with a completely transparent system of running the club. Problem is nothing in football is transparent. In fact it probably goes for every sport but most prominently Football is a closed community, dodgy dealings with agents occur every season and we don't truly know the extent of how deals are hammered out. Some deals need to be kept secret at least for a period of time in order to stop those involved pulling out, and in the case of some high paid players to avoid them the embarrassment of their true salaries becoming public.

In Spain many of the top clubs have been owned by the fans for a long time, but they have well established ways of running the clubs and those who are elected to run the clubs have helpers around them and are mostly used to running businesses thus allowing them to integrate into running a club easily. Even at those clubs there is little transparency for the fans, all transfers end up surrounded by huge amounts of secrecy and the finances of the club are not fully known. It's all necessary in the world of football. Even the latest football club run by members of the public, Ebbsfleet United, is now struggling. They were taken over by MyFC last year and are run in a revolutionary way, with members having a say in the running of the team as well as they club, but this is now unraveling as those who paid their £35 initially seem to be reluctant to renew their subscription and the club is struggling to get a budget for the next year together.

MyFC looked to revolutionise the way clubs are run

The idea of creating a club truly for the fans is a far fetched one these days, even those who believe that FC United of Manchester is truly open are living in denial. One day it may happen, but in this day and age the idea is just not realistic.

The sadness of 9

Your football team doesn't win 9-0 very often, I can guarantee that no matter who you support. The last time it happened to my memory was Dagenham's humiliation to Hereford back in the 2003/4 season. In normal circumstances I would be using this blog to lord it over any readers who's club failed to score more than a paltry six goals over the weekend. This time though the situation does not allow for that. On Friday night Weymouth informed their first team players that they were free to look for other clubs if they had an offer, they also could not afford the insurance to play those who remained. This forced them to field their youth team, and unfortunately answer those who on clubs message boards question whether fielding the youth team would do better than the uncaring overpaid Prima Donna's who are under achieving in the first team.

Man of the match Domo Pulls off another save

Weymouth's youngsters will have walked out onto the pitch at the Wessex stadium full in the knowledge that they faced the seemingly impossible. To describe what followed as men against boys would be unfortunately apt. Rushden found the target 16 times, with nine of them finding their way past man of the match Domo. The very fact that the 16 year old Domo was man of the match said it all about the Professional way the Diamonds went about their task. It almost seems cruel the way it ended but had, as some have suggested, Andy Burgess and co got to three goals and then spent the rest of the match passing it around it would have been surely worse for their young opponents. Despite the cruel scoreine Weymouth fans had a lot of praise for all but one of the visiting team. Dale Roberts; Rushdens young keeper, applauded every save that his opposite number pulled off, and ran over to congratulate him at the final whistle. The fans all gave the youngsters a standing ovation come the end of the match.

This was a sad moment for the home fans, but there is always a good side to everything. For Rushden this should give a much needed confidence boost after the upheaval of Garry Hill's resignation, and having not won since the game against Northwich in 2008. For Weymouth it has highlighted their plight to a much greater audience than before, their messageboard has been inundated by football fans from all across the country wishing them well and their appeals to raise money have had their takings dramatically improve. The youngsters will learn from this, they will gradually get stronger as the games pass and shouldn't lose by that margin every week.

Weymouth fans are trying to help raise the 300k needed to pay off debts

There is nothing pleasurable about a football club going out of business, and there are all too many clubs in a perilous situation in the Blue Square premier. Northwich have just got back into her ground having been locked out two months ago, York are in a lot of debt and rumours abound about many of the other clubs. People focus on those league clubs going into administration, but drop out of the league and you can see that clubs are in much much more trouble. Action needs to be taken, the result yesterday sparked interest, I just hope it can spark action.