ioncetalkedtotrevortainton

Leeds Town Hall is in my top five favourite English buildings. Along with Clevedon Pier. All the same, I'd pick Sheffield as the place to live over Leeds, unless I was going for a city centre apartment. Arts scene as strong as Leeds, equally as green, retail is why God gave us the internet, and some hugely western suburbs of big Victorian houses leading into the Peak District. Admittedly I choose to live in one of the Derbyshire villages, just outside the city boundary, but you get the point. Anyway, enough. I am sure City will be ok. As to Wednesday: five home wins last season; first goal in open play at home was scored on 29 Nov. Eyebleedingly dreadful. More than anyone else in the division, we are a completely different team. A better team. In a few weeks time we'll get a sense of how much better. Until April. x

I am sure you would have brought more. The two City fans I am in closest contact with stayed away: one on affordability grounds; one on principle. We'd have had a few more too. So quite possibly the crowd could have got to around 30k. But: from the owner's point of view, the game is to get the non-ST ticket holders to take out memberships. He's also going for highly differentiated price banding (City a higher category than Boro: you stand flattered), which is a sensible approach, but needs some calibration. On balance he'll be happy enough. The stayaway predicted by the mardier (local dialect) elements of our support didn't materialise. I don't care for any of this. But all of us are up against FFP rules which are about anything but fair play, and give massive advantages to incumbents.

I hope you don't mind a Wednesday fan barging in. I spent much of my childhood in Bristol and sometimes stood in the Enclosure to watch City in Division one. (A 3-2 against Leeds comes to mind. And names! Merrick! Drysdale! Sweeney! Fear! And - heartbreaking - Paul Cheeseley). Subsequently have always kept an eye on their results. I can't comment about individual players: it was bad enough trying to identify our own. But: I was struck looking at the programme by how small the squad seems to be. Obviously that's not an issue that bears on today, but you guys really are going to need more bodies. It really is a big step up. When we came up in 2012 we had had an immense run from mid-Jan, and I really thought we would be competitive. Not so. So take a goal like our second: you can say it was a nice quick punchy counter, and you can say that City's defending was naive, and both are true. But: the point is you seldom have to cope with anything like that in the lower league. At the most general level, I would say that players who looked fine in league one can often just look slow and clumsy in the championship Until the first goal, I thought it was a reasonable well-organised defensive performance was City, esp in the middle. From time to time you were ripped apart down the flanks, but to be honest Mattias, Wallace and Hunt (all making debuts) are more challenging than you'll normally face. The main worry would be a lack of creativity and a lack of strength upfront. I couldn't quite see where the goals were coming from. Tho' possibly you should have had the penalty near the end: I thought not, but both my kids thought it was. But the upcoming home matches will be the better test. I wouldn't by any means think of pressing panic buttons, and unquestionably you'll learn. But Mr L does I think need to authorise some spend..