Cardiff Blues...

Millwall at The Den are similar (there’s bad news around every corner there, and would be even if Bermondsey was located in a circle!) and I’d argue that Preston and Stoke are in the same, uncompromising mould, making it even more satisfying that we converted last season’s defeats there into a draw and a win this season.

Of course, we play the return match against The Bluebirds this weekend. After the struggles against Burnley on Monday – a small team whose ambition extended to playing for a home draw right from kick-off – many are expecting us to overrun Cardiff. Well, we’ll certainly outrun them, but they are a far better team now than the one we saw in South Wales - unbeaten in their last eight matches (seven of them in the league).

We have history with Cardiff: quite a lot of it, going right back to our origins. Leeds United were first elected to the newly expanded Second Division of the Football League on 31 May 1920 along with… Cardiff City.

Don Revie’s team never lost to them in league or cup competitions, although, naturally, they were in different leagues once we got promoted in 1964. Just before that golden period, though, they certainly had the evil eye over us. On 7 January 1956, we met them at Elland Road in the third round of the FA Cup. 40,000 fans saw Cardiff win 2.1. It ended an unbeaten home run of 32 games at Elland Road. Leeds had wanted to turn on their floodlights, but Cardiff refused, considering it an unfair advantage as they had never played under floodlights before. Incredibly this was the first of three consecutive FA Cup wins for The Bluebirds against Leeds at Elland Road – each in the third round, and each by the same score: 2.1.

The two teams met in Cardiff on 6 January 2002, again in the third round of that year’s FA Cup. Leeds, top of the Premier League at the time, went ahead through Mark Viduka after just 12 minutes. However, there was an ugly, hostile atmosphere at Ninian Park that day - and, yes, we did visit the plaque back in September commemorating the old centre circle of that ground, to make sure it hadn’t come back to life again! Alan Smith - merely acting as peacemaker - was sent off just before half-time and Cardiff came back to win 2.1 (again) with a winner just three minutes from time. I think that defeat represented not just the turning point in our season but also in our history. Doom and gloom quickly followed and blocked out the light in West Yorkshire for far too many football seasons. Between 2004 and 2015, in second tier matches, we failed to win one of the 14 fixtures against them: losing ten of them.

The most gut-wrenching match against Cardiff that I remember from recent times took place at Elland Road on 14 December 2019 in the Championship. We were two-nil up after eight minutes, and three-nil up after 51. We were beginning to wonder why we’d been so apprehensive beforehand. Football history? Bah humbug! Cardiff promptly pulled a goal back on the hour before, in the 82nd minute, Sean Morrison scored another to make it 3.2. The excitement was much too much for him though, as he got sent off four minutes later. Surely, against 10 men and with just four minutes remaining, we would see it out now... Of course not. We are Leeds and this is Cardiff we’re talking about. They scored an equaliser two minutes before the end and that was that.

And they are that: a bogey team that could well come back to bite us again on Saturday. At least we’ll be prepared…

Check out Mark's latest book: The History of Football - The Leeds United Story. https://www.markrasdallwriting.com/history.html#leeds