By Gary Edwards

Leeds pre-season began with a little jaunt north into Bonnie Scotland.

We made Glasgow our base for the games at Falkirk and Motherwell. Our cousins north of the border are a friendly bunch really, except for one morning at breakfast when one of our lads came down a bit bleary eyed and worse for wear, and asked the waitress for a ‘Full English’.

A nice little 2-1 win at Falkirk got the pre-season schedule underway thanks to an own goal and one from Snoddy. The day before the Motherwell game we attended the Leeds on the Road event at Stirling, where to be honest no encouraging team news became apparent and there was much smoke and mirrors, if you get my drift. A 2-0 win, courtesy of Alex Bruce and Ramon Nunez (one of the few shining lights of the pre-season) at the rain soaked Motherwell, brought the curtain down on the trip to Scotland.

The heavy rain followed us to Rochdale a few days later where another shining light of the pre-season, Max Gradel, sealed a 1-0 win. Adam Clayton was possibly the only other shining light of the pre-season.

The mighty Sheffield Wednesday lay in wait next.

The referee, Mr Haywood, stood idly by as incessant fierce tackles by the Owls culminated in several Leeds players having to retrieve limbs from the empty seats of the Hillsborough stadium. To be fair, I don’t think it was the ‘real’ Mr Haywood who was officiating. His decisions were too preposterous to be taken seriously. The tight shirt failed to hide the large paunch of the impostor as the real Mr Haywood lay bound and gagged in a nearby car boot.

As yet another Leeds players went to pick up his leg from the front row, former Leeds star David Prutton put Wednesday ahead with quite a good goal really. It was encouraging though to see Prutton refuse to celebrate his strike.

In the closing stages Gradel was felled quite atrociously in the box, and the Impostor had no choice other than to begrudgingly point to the spot. Gradel replaced his head, left arm and right leg before coolly slotting home a much-deserved equaliser.

Next up was a hop, skip and a jump over to Norway for a hastily arranged game with Sandefjord. Two LUSCOS Leeds fans had paid £33,000 out of their own pockets to bring the team over, but the game was a big disappointment. Overshadowed by the tragic events in Norway only days earlier, the game never really got going. The massive Norwegian Leeds contingent wore armbands and readily handed some out to us travelling Leeds fans. The two teams also wore armbands as a minute’s silence was held prior to kick-off. A brilliant equaliser from Nunez in the closing stages was the only highlight of the game.

The first team pre-season was brought to an end with a thrilling 3-2 win over Newcastle United. Goals from Kisnorbo, Sam and a long overdue finish from Billy P saw off the Premiership rivals, but the main talking point was the total disappearance/non appearance of a certain Alan Smith.

I rounded off my own pre-season with a cool pint of Strongbow whilst watching the Under-18′s triumph 4-0 at Knaresborough Town.

I have to admit that overall, I’m feeling a little apprehensive about this season, but then, Leeds United have a habit of surprising us don’t they?

Marching on Together.

Gary Edwards is a lifelong Leeds United supporter, and has missed just one game since 1968 (And that was only because of a Spanish air traffic control strike!). Gary has released 3 books, with his latest book ‘No Glossing Over It: How Football Cheated Leeds United’ has just been released! It is worth a read and you can order from Amazon now! CLICK HERE! Also, the tour of Gary Edwards’ play ‘Paint It White’ is going on a nationwide tour, and you can get more information about that HERE.