Everbody's Making Plans

Our stained glass ‘Peacock’ window above the back door is getting a dose of Windowlene, our ‘Peacock’ floor mosaic is being given a scrub, our beer garden picnic tables are getting a coat of varnish and even our pub sign in the car park might get a lick of paint. That’s right, we’re getting ready for the new season at the Old Peacock.

With the Euros nearly out of the way, we have a clear run-in to August and preparations are well under way while we await the pitter patter of quite heavy feet as thousands of thirsty Leeds fans return to the pub. The fixtures for the new season are out and although Leeds aren’t at home for the first game, we don’t have to wait long until the feel, taste, sounds, smells and sights once again signal the reverberant commotion of a Leeds United match day at the Old Peacock.

Leeds have a home friendly against Atalanta planned for Saturday July 30^th, and we will certainly be expecting a healthy influx of fans for that occasion, but Leeds’ first home game of the new season is scheduled for August 13^th when Birmingham City are the visitors. We will have to make sure we are well stocked up behind the bar because another home game will follow hot on its heels, Fulham are stopping off at Elland Road on Tuesday August 16^th, but then that’s it for the month of August.

It is not hard to summon up a sweeping wave of optimism for each new season, particularly for Leeds fans. I think we are quite keen to wave goodbye to last season and agree to never mention it again, indeed, much like the previous four seasons before it. But it is quite easy to look forwards and presume that the new campaign must surely be a better one.

Certainly Leeds are quietly getting their house in order over at Elland Road; with a young, forward-thinking and professional coaching set-up in place and some key backroom appointments also made. Of course, there is much work to do in order to build a squad capable of making inroads into the top six, but there is still time to do that before the end of the summer transfer window, and right now there is at least a more ‘collective’ feel about the squad. With certain ‘characters’ having departed the dressing room, let’s hope there is a lot more unity and togetherness next season at the very least.

There have been some incoming transfers so far at Leeds, and we warmly welcome Swedish striker Marcus Antonsson, defender Kyle Bartley and French winger Hadi Sacko to Elland Road. Long gone are the days when the players would inevitably cross our threshold and share a drink with us at the Old Peacock on a regular basis. But like any of the players and staff at Leeds United, our new signings are more than welcome, and as the longest-standing establishment on Elland Road it really should be part of their initiation ceremony.

For those that have missed their football and were hoping the Euros would fill that gap, England didn’t help us out very much in that respect, unless it was the perpetual feeling of being let down by your football team that you were craving. And who would have thought Wales would be the team carrying the fight? All of England’s games were very well-attended in the pub, but there were plenty of furrowed brows and shaking of heads, certainly after three of the four games in the tournament. The obligatory post-elimination inquest took place amid many more pints being served and for a minute it could have been any Leeds United match day, except for the fact that, for most of us at least, we have the new season coming around very soon to distract us from England’s never-ending travails.

Currently Leeds United are in Dublin on their pre-season training camp, and while, for the players, their holidays are well and truly over, many of us are planning to fit in a quick trip away before the season starts. Frankly it will do us all the world of good to forget about football completely before August comes around, and I would certainly advocate a week away in the sun to cleanse the mind, body and soul before we get back on that rollercoaster again.

In the meantime, we will be here at the Old Peacock, as ever, making sure everything is in order to welcome you back. The old place takes a bit of a hammering over the course of the season, but with some gentle TLC over the summer it is back and refreshed, and like all of us, just can’t wait to get back into the swing of things.

Enjoy the rest of the summer and we will see you back here for the friendly on July 30^th and in early August for the first home game of the new season. Meanwhile, keep up with our activities on our Twitter and Facebook pages until we meet again.

All the best
Jon Howe

Football's Coming Home...To The Old Peacock

To people like us, football people, who measure time in two blocks of five months bisected by Christmas and New Year rather than in calendar years, June is one of those months where literally nothing happens. June is just an aching chasm of DIY chores you have repeatedly put off while Leeds steamroll towards 15^th place in the league again, or trawling around the shops for holiday clothes while checking your phone for transfer gossip even though every man and his dog connected to Leeds United is already on holiday. June exists only to coax us into an unnatural, but mercifully brief, interest in tennis, and furthermore, it usually works.

June represents a time when footballers are supposed to unwind and re-charge themselves, but for fans, while it might offer some precious respite from the emotional drain of following Leeds United, it drags like the last school day before the summer holidays and leaves little or nothing to remember it by. That said, every other year there is an international football tournament to look forward to, and if England have anything about them, they have sailed through their qualifying group with ease and are nicely poised to offer a reliable substitute for that comforting sense of crushing disappointment and anti-climax that all us Leeds fans need in our lives.

Yes, Euro 2016 begins this week and there is even more interest than normal this time around with England joined by Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in the group stages. This rare feat has perhaps been aided by there being 24 teams in the finals rather than the usual 16, but nevertheless, there are unprecedented levels of interest and excitement with household names parading around in almost every match.

International tournaments are quite literally a feast of football. Even though the games prior to the knockout stages are sometimes a bit of a let-down, we are quite prepared to take that chance as we settle down for wall-to-wall football that doesn’t involve traveling up and down the country at all hours of the day and standing outside in the freezing cold shouting obscenities at Scott Wootton. It is almost like international tournaments are a release from the everyday travails of being a Leeds United fan, and we can enjoy football for just being football; sport for sports’ sake, with none of the political, legal and financial farce that regularly engulfs life at Elland Road. Not that England, or whichever of the home nations you are following, don’t have the ability to let us down of course, but with international football the sense of expectation and emotional intensity isn’t quite the same, and you can enjoy the games more as a regular football fan.

Needless to say, having three games live on TV every day for a fortnight during the group stages doesn’t always go down so well at home, and there will doubtless be some domestic ructions when Iceland v Austria clashes with EastEnders. While you can attempt to pacify this impending breakdown in family relations by lamely pointing to your ‘Euro 2016 match-by-match TV guide’ and explaining that you didn’t select the fixtures and this particular conflict was a known possibility many months ago, it is perhaps wise to avoid a season ticket for the dog house and plan ahead a little. So we have the perfect solution for you.  Avoid family disputes and hostilities altogether by spending almost every afternoon and evening for the next month in the Old Peacock, but this time with your partner’s blessing. Possibly.

Yes, we will be showing every game from Euro 2016 on our big screens, so you don’t have to worry about being absent for a single minute of any game. In truth, we’re missing the action at Elland Road ourselves, and we kind of long for your company over the summer, so while this is an inferior substitute for the real thing; a bona fide match day at Elland Road, we are hoping to see as many familiar faces in the pub over the next month as possible, and hoping that the heady mix of beer and football will rouse a familiar match day atmosphere.

Dates to look out for include England’s first game on Saturday June 11^th (8.00pm) v Russia – when we also have a 50^th birthday party in the pub, so the atmosphere should be particularly lively when Roy Hodgson’s men kick-off. Wales are also playing their first game on Saturday afternoon (5.00pm) before the England game, while Northern Ireland start on Sunday 12^th (5.00pm) v Poland and the Republic on Monday 13th (5.00pm) versus Sweden. National Sicknote Day has been declared for Thursday June 16^th when England play Wales at 2.00pm and a nation grinds to a halt for a couple of hours. England’s final group game is on Monday 20^th June against Slovakia (8.00pm) and after that it would be foolish for us to predict when England might be playing again or to plan too far ahead.

There are certainly parallels between following Leeds United and England, except that where Leeds United are pretty much stuck in a rut at the moment, England are caught in a continual cycle of nagging inevitability.

Each major tournament ends with an early exit, following which we tend to write-off the next tournament in two years’ time and work towards having a team ready for the one after that, even though the media will never actually allow that to happen in reality. Having breezed through qualification we then hail a team with a nice blend of youth and experience and usually champion an individual as the best thing since sliced bread. But then in the weeks before the tournament we are ravaged by self-doubt, still experimenting with new players in the final friendly and have no idea what our best Xl is. While other teams have a settled side working to a familiar pattern, England approach their first game still arguing about which formation to play. And while flags are still hauled out of storage and proudly stuck on cars, more in diminishing hope than expectation, the inevitable early exit comes along and we are back at the first stage of the cycle again.

But perhaps we should be more hopeful given England’s 100% record in qualifying? And certainly with a lot more interest in the home nations this time around, we are looking forward to the next few weeks and hopefully some busy afternoons and evenings in the pub. The combination of a cool refreshing pint, football on the TV and maybe a bite to eat to keep you going, is a traditional winner and we definitely have plenty of all of those to keep you out of mischief during June. So you can blame us if the family don’t recognise you by the time July comes around.

In the meantime, we’d like to extend a warm welcome to Garry Monk as the latest incumbent of the head coach position at Leeds United. While we can joke about the revolving door at Elland Road this is almost definitely the best appointment we have seen in recent years, and we just hope that Garry can keep his position for many years to come. Good luck Garry and you are welcome to stop by for a pint any time you are passing.

There will be all the normal food and quiz events going on throughout the Euros tournament, but for any special announcements, log in and check out our Facebook and Twitter accounts for all the latest news.

All the best,

Jon