I grew up just down the road from 'Elland Road', so it was a done deal. My City, my team, my neighbour, but it wasn't always easy in the early days when we had no history except yo yo ing up and down between 1st and 2nd divisions. I was so close to becoming a Spurs fan after seeing them destroy Athletico Madrid in the cup winners cup final, 1962 I believe. What an impression on 12 year old boy, anyway loyalty won through and here I am.I still look for their score right after our games.
First time I remember seeing Leeds play was as a small boy early 1950's. One Saturday morning my dad took me up to the training pitch on Fullerton Park to watch the juniors play. Afterwards we walked home for lunch then went back to Fullerton in the afternoon to watch the reserve team play an early afternoon kickoff. During the game one of the coaches said to my Dad, "I saw you here this morning, are you going to the first team game at 3o'clock?" Money was tight in those days so my Dad says "No we don't have any money". "Come with me at the end of this game " says the coach. He took us through the players entrance, out the tunnel onto the touchline, game had already started, so here we are walking the touchline in front of a big crowd.'Find somewhere for these people to stand' he says to a steward, so we jumped into what was the paddock near the players bench.God bless that coach.
I relayed this story as a submission in our Centenary celebration competition, it was called something like 'Your greatest Leeds United Memories', thought I might have got a shirt or something.