‘What are you doing on Wednesday night?’ asks Ben, about half an hour after we got in from the Boro match on Saturday.
‘Wednesday? I’m going to -’ begins Liz.
‘Well, change those plans’ says Ben, not listening, ‘because I got us tickets for Leeds!’
What follows is a pair of conflicting emotions for Liz. On the one hand, that rush of endorphins that only the prospect of a surprise trip to West Yorkshire’s largest settlement can produce. On the other hand, a moment’s hesitation. She has BAD MEMORIES of Leeds, involving relegation, misery, feeling slightly unsafe and a fair amount of hatred between both sets of fans over the last 25 years or so. There’s also several nerve-jangling trips involving the Leeds Ring Road to consider. But nevertheless we’re Leeds bound.
We’ve just got to get there. We’re both at work during the day on Wednesday, so it’s a quick turnaround and straight out of the door in order to get there in time to find somewhere to park - and luckily Ben knows just the place. We manage a speedy getaway, but there are roadworks everywhere. Despite it being the height of the summer holidays, rush hour traffic still exists and makes everything worse. But our spirits are high as we travel down. In fact, Liz’s excitement boils over and she starts talking nonsense.
‘Twaffic!’ she suddenly declares. Not unlike Donald Duck, if he was off to watch Boro away at Leeds.
‘I’m sorry, what?’ Ben asks, puzzled.
‘I mean, there’s a traffic jam lasting twenty minutes just up ahead. I just kind of…conflated the words accidentally.’
‘Can we avoid the … er … twaffic?’
‘No.’
‘Gweat…’
The sat nav takes us into Leeds ‘via Pontefract Lane’ to avoid the congestion. Further detours involve the rather unglamorous Domestic Street and South Accommodation Road1 leading Ben to wonder if Eddy Grant would still have had a hit on his hands if he was rocking down to Domestic Street rather than Electric Avenue. Amidst this labyrinth of banal road names it’s busy, confusing and we’re thinking that this was possibly NOT the most straightforward way to reach Elland Road. But it feels like we’re nearly there when the satnav nonchalantly instructs us to ‘Do a U turn,’ as we enter a slip road to the M621. We decide to not do that, and instead take our chances on the motorway.
To cut a long story short after some swearing, praying, further detours down roads called things like ‘Vending Machine Boulevard’ (or similar), we arrive at the place Ben was aiming for, only to find that other people had already parked there, which was very inconsiderate of them. So instead we try to find “somewhere else”. Having had enough of the satnav, Ben decides we’ll do this unaided by technology - like at the end of Star Wars when Luke decides he doesn’t need to use the targeting computer to blow up the Death Star - he’ll just use The Force. In the end we find a space at the end of a long road, near a big industrial unit containing something called ‘Brain Works’ (or BRAIN WORLD as Ben will insist on calling it), which will surely be easy to spot on the way back.
Parked, alive, and with The Force flowing through us, guiding our actions and instincts - it’s time for tea. Liz pulls out ‘the pretentious cheese and onion rolls’ (feta and red pepper rolls, technically) and Ben fortifies himself for the ordeal which is no doubt ahead with a can of Irn Bru (he’s returned from Scotland with an addiction to it). Fortified with cheese and irn, we get out of the car. The road is quite narrow and very busy. We ponder as to whether we will still have both wing mirrors when we get back. If we find our way back. To BRAIN WORLD. That’s if we even make it to the ground. Maybe we will be recognised as Boro fans and chased down Vacuum Cleaner Avenue by some militant Leeds fans.
In fact, we make it to the ground in one piece, but there’s no time for the club megastore. We’ve both already been to Elland Road before so it’s not a necessity, but Ben is keen to revisit the source of the Leeds United Christmas Crackers he nearly bought last year (for some reason). Liz is quite keen NOT to, in case Ben decides to buy Leeds United Christmas Crackers.2 And then, we’re in the ground. Liz changes from an inoffensive pink checked shirt into her Boro shirt and it’s up into the stand. We’ve got a great spot - not close enough to the front to get hit in the face by a football, and right in the middle, a long way from the home fans. One of the stewards even offers to take our picture for us.
It’s loud today. The low, flat roofs over the deep stands trap the sound, and the Boro fans are in good voice. We hear a full repertoire of favourites. Liz is particularly taken with a rousing chorus of ‘Cry on the telly, we saw you cry on the telly …’3 and ‘Jimmy Saville, he’s one of your own.’4 But the best is possibly a variant of an old favourite: ‘Sit down, if you love Boro, sit down.’ It isn’t as easy standing for 90 minutes as it was 25 years ago.
It appears we’ve written several paragraphs of drivel and we haven’t even got to the bit where the game kicks off yet. But now it does, and Leeds come out strongly. We brace ourselves for the home side grabbing an early goal, but some exceptional defending ensures it doesn’t happen. At about the quarter of an hour mark, we start to breathe more freely and the team starts to settle. And by the end of the first half it feels like we’ve possibly had the best of it. We’ve certainly done most of the singing. ‘Where’s your famous atmosphere?’ sing/ask the Boro fans, and the home crowd can offer no response.
When half time arrives goalless, Ben reminds Liz about the possibility of penalties (of which Liz is not a fan). The Leeds subs come onto the pitch to warm up, but there are no signs of Boro players doing the same.
‘Carrick must have them all in together to talk tactics!’ declares Liz. And indeed, it appears that he did, because it’s a different Boro that come out for the 2nd half. Focussed and determined, they monopolise the early possession and take the game to Leeds. It’s confident stuff. They’re on fire! Blazing down the pitch towards the Leeds goal like a flaming comet of football, it’s breathtaking, it’s unstoppable it’s … Anfernee Dijksteel cutting in from the right hand-side, beating 8 Leeds defenders (approx) and curling a cracker into the bottom corner of the Leeds goal. The away end erupts!
Despite the fact that the Leeds defence parted as if to make way for an approaching ambulance, it's a fantastic goal for Middlesbrough. As we’re recomposing ourselves, Boro continue to dominate possession, and Delano Burgzorg (who’s looking strong and hungry) nearly grabs a second - twice. Then, you know what they say - third time lucky. A perfectly weighted through ball from Josh Coburn puts Burgzorg through on goal and he makes no mistake. The away end goes ballistic, as does the goalscorer. But the Boro are not done yet, and only moments later - before we’ve even had chance to consider the possibility of sitting back to defend a two-goal lead - A THIRD goal, this time from Coburn after Isiah Jones’s initial effort is deflected into his path by a lunging Leeds defender. It’s fantastic stuff. It’s what makes you fall in love with the game. It’s liquid football. Whatever that is.
The Leeds fans are, unsurprisingly, leaving in droves. The majority of the ground empties out while 4,200 Boro fans party like it’s 1999. [Footnote: Not literally. In 1999 Leeds beat us 2-0, I just looked it up. Liz] ‘Leeds are falling apart again’ reverberates around the stadium, but in truth most of us are just delirious with the joy of watching a Boro team play like magicians and sweep the opposition aside. This is the opposite of ‘twaffic’ - twenty minutes of perfect, free-flowing football, the like of which we don’t often get to see. It’s worth any amount of logistical nightmares getting here, this is the inherent joy of the game that transcends … everything.
It’s strange - Liz had dreaded the nasty atmosphere that she associated with this particular fixture (from both sets of fans) but it really wasn’t there this time. There was banter, but no trouble from either side, and it all felt reasonably good-humoured - all things considered. Whisper it, but Ben has always said that Leeds fans deserve more than they’ve had over the last couple of decades. It's a huge club - a top-flight side in all but name. It might ‘just be a league cup game’, but beating Leeds at Leeds is always something to be proud of. And anyway, they can tell themselves they ‘don’t care about the cup’ all they like, but it's an odd type of fan who doesn’t want their team to win a football match. The fans heading for the exit looked a bit shell shocked. They’ve now shipped six goals at home in the first two games of the season following last Saturday's 3-3 draw at home to newly-promoted Portsmouth. Both of these will have been games that they will have expected to win.
But it’s over. Leeds 0-3 Middlesbrough. And now it’s back to BRAIN WORLD, via a very narrow path and tunnel where we witness no bother at all, not even a hint of aggression though the two sets of fans are mixed together. We make it safely back into the car (both wing mirrors are still intact!) and to our beloved satnav, who informs us with a cavalier approach that there may be some slight, trivial delays heading out of Leeds.
Fifty minutes later, we’re still in Leeds.
Then half way up the A1 the satnav smugly reveals that the northbound A1 is shut, but that we’re ‘still on the fastest route.’ 5
‘Twenty minutes of queues again?’ Ben asks.
‘Probably. But twaffic doesn’t really matter, does it?’
‘It doesn’t. But please…stop calling it that.’
We could queue for twenty hours and still not feel hard done by today. We reach home in the early hours, knackered, with sore throats and aching knees, but with a rare feeling of elation that comes from not often winning matches like this. It must be different for the big teams - they can only lose. If you’re never the underdog, you never get to feel this incredulous, disbelieving joy that comes with an unexpectedly glorious win like this one. There’s no other feeling like it.
But it only lasts until the next game - which will be Derby, on Saturday.
Bring on the Rams!
You probably don’t really want to know what happened next. We don’t really want to write about it. But when we do, find out about our trip to Derby by subscribing to 376 miles.
We’re not far from the legendary ‘Cavalier Approach’ either. When at a Romantic Novelists’ Conference in Leeds, a friend once took me to visit ‘Cavalier Approach’ because she was so taken with the name! Liz.
I mean, he said he wasn’t going to buy tickets for the match and look what happened. Liz.
A reference to Leeds’ defeat in the playoff finals last year.
Kudos where it is due for the Leeds fans’ retort of ‘Jimmy Saville, he’s probably your Dad.’
At this point if I could have physically wrenched the built-in satnav from the innards of the dashboard and crushed it with my bare hands, I would have done so. Ben.