Taproom Network

By Ross Bell

There was a time when football felt more like a chore than a passion. A time when watching Leeds United was less about excitement and anticipation and more about frustration, disappointment and wondering why I continued putting myself through it every week.

If you support Leeds, you will understand that feeling. We have had more than our fair share of dark days, false dawns and people who promised the world but left us wondering what on earth we had just witnessed.

And then came Steve Evans.

I am not going to pretend that every manager before Marcelo Bielsa was terrible, or that every season was a disaster. But there was a period when my love for football was genuinely disappearing. The Steve Evans era, for me, was a particular low point. Watching Leeds had become something I endured rather than enjoyed. The football, the atmosphere around the club and the seemingly endless cycle of disappointment had drained so much of the joy out of supporting the team.

I hated football. Not just Leeds United, but football itself.

I still cared about the club, of course. That is the problem with being a Leeds supporter. You never quite escape it. But the excitement, the magic and that feeling of looking forward to a match had all but disappeared.

The arrival that changed everything

Then, in the summer of 2018, Marcelo Bielsa arrived.

He wasn’t just another manager walking through the door at Elland Road. He came with a reputation, a philosophy and the promise that things could finally be different.

He did not arrive with the swagger of someone who believed he was bigger than the club. Instead, he seemed to understand the weight of Leeds United, the history, the expectations and the extraordinary passion of its supporters. He treated the club as something worthy of his full attention, not simply another job on a CV.

And then the football started. A week before the season, newly relegated Stoke’s boss Gary Rowett had dismissed Leeds out of hand as a threat. Then came that fateful opening day, when everything changed.

Suddenly, Leeds United were exciting again.

We pressed with an intensity that seemed almost absurd. Players chased lost causes as though their lives depended on them. The team moved with purpose, attacked with ambition and played with a level of energy that made watching football feel thrilling again. There was a clear identity, an unmistakable style and a sense that every player understood what was expected of them.

It was not just about winning games. It was about how Leeds played them.

For the first time in years, I found myself genuinely looking forward to Leeds playing.

That might sound like a small thing, but it was enormous to me. I had gone from dreading matchdays to counting down the hours. I wanted to watch the games, talk about the team and see what Bielsa would do next.

And it was not just the players who seemed transformed. The entire club felt different.

There was a connection between the team and the supporters that had been missing for far too long. Bielsa seemed to understand that Leeds United was not just a football club. It was an identity, a community and a source of pride for people who had spent years carrying the club through disappointment. He gave us something to believe in without asking us to abandon our expectations.

The 2018/19 season was a rollercoaster. Of course it was. This was Leeds United, after all. We experienced the exhilaration of the promotion chase, the agony of missed opportunities and the heartbreak of the play-offs against Derby County. That semi-final defeat hurt. It hurt because we had come so close, and because we had dared to believe that the long wait might finally be over.

But something had changed.

Even after that disappointment, I did not feel the same emptiness I had felt during the darker years. I was gutted, frustrated and desperate for another season, but I was still invested. I still cared. I still wanted to watch Leeds United.

Bielsa had brought the emotion back, even the painful bits.

Promotion in a world under lockdown

Then came 2019/20.

The Championship campaign that finally delivered what we had been waiting for. Leeds were relentless, and when promotion was secured, it felt like the release of years of pent-up frustration. Sixteen years away from the Premier League had come to an end.

And if you’re to believe current Strictly Come Dancing champion Karen Carney, the Covid-enforced break had given Leeds the respite they needed to get promoted.

Promotion arrived in the middle of the Covid lockdowns, when football was being played in an atmosphere none of us recognised. The celebrations were real, but they were also strangely distant. There were no packed streets, no full stadium and no chance to share the moment in the way Leeds supporters had imagined for sixteen long years.

Instead, football returned to empty grounds. Matches were played behind closed doors, with rows of vacant seats where supporters should have been. The familiar roar of the crowd was replaced by piped-in sounds, artificial chants and the occasional echo of players shouting instructions across the pitch. Even so, the pride remained. Bielsa’s team still played with courage, intensity and identity.

More than a promotion

It is easy to say that football is about trophies, promotion and results. Those things matter. Anyone who tells you otherwise probably has a trophy cabinet full of medals and a very convenient memory.

But football is also about anticipation. It is about the feeling you get when the weekend approaches and your team is about to play. It is about watching a player give everything for the shirt, celebrating a goal with people you have never met and feeling that strange mixture of joy and despair that only your football club can produce.

It is about having something that matters to you, even when it makes absolutely no sense to anyone else.

Bielsa gave me those feelings back.

And perhaps that is why his legacy will always mean more to me than simply being the manager who got us promoted.

He was the man who made me care again.

A widow of Bielsa, with hope for the future

In many ways, I am now a widow of Bielsa. That may sound dramatic, but anyone who experienced what he gave Leeds will understand what I mean. When someone changes your relationship with football so profoundly, their departure leaves a genuine sense of loss. Bielsa will always be the great love of my Leeds life: unforgettable, irreplaceable and forever woven into the story of why I support this club.

But being a widow of Bielsa does not mean being without hope. Daniel Farke is doing a wonderful job in his own way. He is not trying to be Bielsa, and he does not need to be. He has brought his own calmness, intelligence and authority to Leeds United, while building a team capable of marching forward with purpose and belief.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that Farke may not only be continuing Bielsa’s success at Leeds; he may even be surpassing it. That is not said to diminish Bielsa’s legacy, but to recognise how special the present can be as well. Bielsa gave us the football that made us believe again, while Farke is showing us that Leeds can keep growing, keep competing and perhaps achieve even more.

So I can remain a widow of Bielsa while still embracing what Farke is creating. One gave me back my love of football; the other is giving me new reasons to believe in the future.

Gracias, Marcelo. You gave us our Leeds back. And you gave some of us our love of football back, too. And thank you, Daniel, for carrying that belief forward in your own remarkable way.