Welcome back to Leeds, a city with the wow factor
Elland Road looms over anyone approaching leeds from the south. Both railway line and motorway are dominated by the sight of this symbol of West Yorkshire.
The ground will also be heavy on the mind of Gareth Southgate as it is the last calling point on England’s journey to the World Cup in Russia.
Tomorrow night’s game against Costa Rica at the ground could also point towards the future.
The proposed sale of Wembley to billionaire Shahid Khan has provoked some criticism, but a chance to put the team on the road is not one of them.
England were on tour for seven years as Wembley was rebuilt, with ‘ home’ games at derby, Ipswich, Middlesbrough and Sunderland among others.
Elland Road was used then (a 2-1 loss to Italy) and also in 1995, when Terry Venables’ attacking line-up including John Barnes, david Platt, Peter Beardsley, Teddy Sheringham and alan Shearer drew 3-3 with Sweden in the Umbro Cup, a pre-Euro 96 tournament. Southgate will arrive here looking for England’s first win at the stadium.
The locals are clearly excited about this welcome return — tickets, barring hospitality, sold out on Monday evening, although it is not unusual to draw a big crowd. The capacity is 37,890 and the average attendance for a team who finished 39 points behind Wolves in 13th place in the Championship was almost 33,000.
leeds’ loyal fanbase still come in hope. There are signs of life. The club own the ground again for the first time since 2005 and through the contacts of their owner, the Italian TV entrepreneur andrea Radrizzani, they recently welcomed a 10 per cent investment from american football powerhouses the San Francisco 49ers which will ‘strengthen the commercial, operational and sporting capabilities’.
all funds invested, they say, will go into the team and they are now in a position to attract Marcelo Bielsa — a man once described as ‘the best coach in the world’ by Pep Guardiola — as manager.
He will need all of the experience obtained at Marseille, lazio and the national teams of argentina and Chile as he injects his personality on a team who finished closer to the bottom six than the top six in the season just past.
There have been other big attractions heading this way. a raucous audience watched as leeds’ Josh Warrington beat lee Selby to be crowned IBF world featherweight champion last month. and in 2014, the city hosted the Tour de France’s Grand Depart. Sir Gary Verity, a British businessman and sheep farmer, was a key player in that achievement. The Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive, recalls: ‘What we wanted to do with the Tour de France was to deliver something for Yorkshire that we thought would be a gamechanger, that would have the same kind of effect that hosting the Commonwealth Games did for Manchester. It gave the city a renewed sense of belief, ambition, drive. ‘leeds is a city on a roll at the moment. For anyone who has not been to leeds for 20-25 years, the city has changed beyond all recognition. You would probably see it and go “Wow”.’ a shopping centre called the Trinity was the first new arrival. and John lewis also popped up in the city last year. Michael o’Hare’s restaurant The Man Behind the Curtain became the first in leeds to be awarded a Michelin star in a decade. ‘It’s a really desirable place to live, and I’m not sure that was always the case,’ says Freddie Hall, programme manager at the restaurant, which will set you back around £225 for dinner for two with wine. o’Hare has been described as the ‘ Heston Blumenthal of the north’ and dishes including silky foam of potato laced with puffed wild rice on a chocolate dessert have earned rave reviews.
‘If you fancy a prime-time table, they’re taking bookings six months in advance.
‘It’s a hub of the north really,’ says Hall. ‘Manchester is in many ways like london. leeds has its own identity. There’s less chains. There’s less big businesses.’
not that the city is now all airs and graces. a two-minute walk across Briggate, the high street, from The Man Behind the Curtain is the angel Inn, which manages to sell a pint of beer for under £2.
Back at the stadium and you can’t think about leeds and England without recognising Jack Charlton’s exploits. He played 629 games in a one-club career and won 35 caps for his country, including the 1966 World Cup final where he provided the power to the poise of his captain, Bobby Moore.
now 83, Charlton struggles with memory loss and doesn’t speak publicly any longer. His son John says he has his good and bad days — although England coming up on the radio always gets the former centre half chatting.
and John believes that his dad, who also starred in leeds’ 1960s and 70s pomp under don Revie, is delighted to see England playing away from Wembley again.
‘He’s always liked the idea of playing around the country, because there are not a lot of people who can get to every England game,’ John says. ‘He gets invited to every England game, but it’s not easy for people around the country to get to Wembley on a regular basis.
‘There was a period where we went to Sunderland and Middlesbrough to watch England play, and he quite enjoyed the fact that he didn’t have to go to london.
‘People elsewhere don’t really have a connection with England, because they never have the opportunity to see them, except for on the telly.’
nigel Martyn, another former favourite at Elland Road, was in goal when England faced Italy in leeds, with Southgate in front of him in defence alongside Sol Campbell.
Martyn collected 23 senior England caps during his career, and although he admits there was a special feeling to playing at Wembley, he can only see the positives from the game against Costa Rica.
‘It’s a great thing,’ said Martyn, speaking in leeds at the launch of Goals’ Football Revolution, a campaign to get more people active by playing five- a- side football during the World Cup in Russia.
‘obviously it has been a disappointing 15 or 16 years since the Premier league, it’s been so up and down along the way.
‘This is a set of fans who deserve better than that. Hopefully this will give them a lift, England coming to town, and them getting to see the top players playing at Elland Road again.’
It is something leeds fans hope will be happening on a regular basis soon. The city is ready for it.