I love my job sometimes, last November I spoke to my boss about arranging some meetings in the North West, spending one day in Leeds and the another in Manchester. The day I chose to spend in Leeds and visit various media agencies and kit suppliers was January 27th, hmmm convient? I call it good planning!
So armed with an overnight stay in Leeds and train fare paid for I set off not entirely confident. Well, let's be honest, not confident in the slightest, but happy to know I'd be there to cheer our boys on.
I got into Leeds at lunch time rushed around my various meetings including one fella who had the decency to have gone home for the day despite the fact I'd travelled all the way from Grays to meet him and preach the FourFourTwo gospel. All finished by 5pm meant I could get back to the hotel and sort myself out before enjoying a cheekie one or two in town.
So I ended up in the Old Peacock, which I'd visited on a couple of occasions, the last when West Ham played them. On that occassion there were around 150 Northerners wanting to rip any Southerner eyes out but were being nicely marshalled onto buses by the Yorkshire Police and another where I went in and there was a burnt out car in the Beer Garden, oh how the other half live! This time though nothing more than a quiet pint with Sky Sports News on in the background, listening to the locals views on the night's game. They were confident and let's face it they weren't wrong, we hadn't won in 6 games and an away trip to Leeds wasn't a likely place to start.
When the game got underway our performance in the first 11 mins not only had me watching through my eyes but completely backed up the locals opinions and it was more of a case of keeping the score down. With Theo Robinson cutting an isolated lone figure up front it was always going to be a struggle but to then starve him of the ball made it almost a training match for Leeds who looked impressive in my opinion.
Mildenhall made some quality saves from Delph, Beckord and Douglas and the whites knocked it around whilst we ran around like headless chickens. It got worse before half time when James Walker who had impressed me against Orient darted into the Leeds box only to pull his hamstring, he was replaced by Damian Scannell and it was only the fact that I'd never done it before that stopped me from leaving there and then.
In the second half, Beckford turned Mr Southend inside out but was denied by Midenhall who we had to thank for keeping the score down. Then came our two chances chance when Theo burst through and from a way out hit his shot at the outside of the post. This was before Craig David from Bo Selecta went through and his attempted chip was thwarted by Ankergren's body at the edge of his box. To cap off a quality nights work Midenhall made a point blank save from Becchio who from inside the 6 yards box. It finished at 2 and I dread to think what it could have been as Leeds toyed with us like a cat would a ball of wool.