It almost feels like this football season hasn’t got going
yet, but here we are approaching the halfway point. The blistering start from
Leeds swiftly turned into a stutter and in recent weeks it has levelled out a
bit, but add in the numerous international breaks and it has all been a bit
stop/start and it is hard to draw any conclusions. Yet as I write, Leeds have
played 20 games and will soon be facing the home straight to the end of the
season once again.
December is traditionally the time when the league table
really starts to take shape. The inhabitants of the play off places at the turn
of the year are quite often the same ones at the end of the season; unless one
of them is Leeds of course, but it’s up to us to change that. Right now we are
two places and five points outside the play-offs zone and face a pretty
favourable run of games in December, so you could conclude that Leeds are quite
well placed for an assault on the top six in the second half of the season, and
December could see them send out a message to the rest of the division.
The last month has seen a bit of a turnaround in the club’s fortunes after a pretty horrific October. While there were two away defeats at Brentford and Wolves, Leeds won their only home game against Garry Monk’s Middlesbrough and also notched a rare Yorkshire Derby win at Barnsley. This has stopped the rot and instilled a bit of belief in both the team and the management, something that had gone badly AWOL and left us all a bit confused after such a brilliant start to the season.
It seems that almost every game is either live on Sky or on
a beamback at Elland Road at the minute, so we are certainly feeling a part of
the action at the pub, as fans can’t resist the urge to pop in for a pint
before and after the game, to savour that matchday atmosphere they know and
love. Naturally we will always welcome this and whenever and wherever Leeds
United are playing there is always someone at the Old Peacock cheering them on.
November has been a pretty quiet month at the Old Peacock
though, with just the one home game against Middlesbrough, and that on a Sunday
lunch time. We had to forego our usual pre-match live band in the beer garden
due to the early kick-off time, and of course we couldn’t serve our traditional
Sunday lunch either, but it was all worth it as the lads came straight out of
the traps and secured a much-needed 2-1 victory. It was great to see a big
crowd again and the club’s efforts to re-engage the fanbase certainly seem to
be paying off. We have always welcomed families at the Old Peacock, but more
and more we are seeing the younger generation coming to the games with parents
and it is fantastic to see.
We are hoping this continues into December too, and for once
the fixture computer at the Football League has been pretty kind to us. Okay,
Sky Sports are responsible for the Aston Villa game being moved to a Friday
night, but after that we have Saturday 3pm home games on two successive
weekends, all in the run-up to Christmas. It’s to be hoped that you guys are
doing all your Christmas shopping online, because there won’t be many trips to
the shops with Leeds being at home two Saturdays running.
Norwich City are the visitors on Saturday 16th
and then Hull City come to Elland Road on the 23rd. With Leeds
seemingly back in the hunt for the play-offs these are sure to be big occasions
and we will certainly have the welcome mat out for the 30,000-plus crowds
expected. Leeds then see the year out with away games at Burton Albion and
Birmingham City, before Nottingham Forest come and visit on the first day of
2018. But let’s not worry about that for now. With two Saturday 3pm fixtures
lined up, we are busy getting stocked up and all our staff prepared for what
are sure to be two mammoth occasions in the run-up to Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas, as usual, our Christmas Day menu sold
out in no time at all and we are now fully booked for the big day. We have
always felt that the festive season is about more than just getting together on
the 25th however, so we designed another Christmas menu for the
run-up to Santa coming and this has proved really popular in recent years. More
and more people use the festive season to get together with friends and family
they perhaps don’t see too often, and of course there are numerous works
parties at Christmas time, so we designed our Christmas Fayre menu specifically
with this in mind. Now you can sample a flavour of Christmas at your favourite
venue and with your favourite people. It will save you washing up and it
certainly won’t cost you the earth. At two courses for £13.50 and three courses
for £15.50 you will be hard pushed to find better value anywhere in Leeds. There
is a choice of traditional Christmas dishes mixed with some old classic
favourites and over the years we have hosted some memorable evenings with
people who keep coming back year after year.
Please call in and speak to us in person or phone us up (0113
2715962) to book a table for the Christmas Fayre menu and we will make sure we
can accommodate your party.
So another year at the Old Peacock comes to an end. It has
certainly been a busy one and we wouldn’t have it any other way. We hope to see
you for the Norwich and Hull games and again at some point over the festive
period, but we would also like to take this opportunity to wish a very Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year to all Leeds United fans and to all our
customers everywhere.
