One of the joys of being a fanatic is the constant thirst for information about Leeds.
When I was older and a driver, I always used to try and time any deliveries or errands run from work to coincide with the local radio sports desks. Once when they sent me to Newcastle and I found a spot where I could just barely pick up the signal on full volume and parked up for a quarter of an hour for fear of missing the news. I was rewarded when it was announced that Leeds had unexpectedly signed Australian winger Steve Morris.
Prior to those days, the chief source of information was the evening paper and there was almost as anxious and tense a wait for it to drop through the letterbox after school as there was during some actual matches. There was the ritual of unfolding of the back page and thrill of seeing if the headline was rugby or football. Lead paragraphs were read three or four times so as not to miss the slightest detail and then all the digest columns for snippets of information about ‘A’ team games or off-field news. Once devoured, the paper had to be neatly folded and returned to pristine condition so that Dad thought he was the first to get his hands on it.
Unlike today, when nothing is really an exclusive anymore, then there was always the chance of opening the back page and finding a major announcement or even more gut wrenching if the billboard mentioned something about the Loiners.
For no good reason I can recall picking up a Green Un one Saturday on the way home from a game at Headingley expecting just to read the match report of the game I had witnessed that afternoon only to find that we had signed Graham Joyce and Ian Slater from Bradford Northern.
We had only been at the ground an hour or so earlier but no one had mentioned it there. When you are young and you can read reports from exotic faraway places where Great Britain were touring and eagerly scanned the details for Leeds players on the scoresheet, it fired your imagination. Or if we signed an overseas star we would want to find out all about the team they played for or the part of the world they came from before they arrived.
Tea or homework couldn’t start before the news had been gathered.
Steve Marshall
Originally published in 'Headingley Rugby Voices' Recollections of supporters, compiled by Phil Caplan.
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Memory added on September 16, 2012
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