Ghosts of Leeds past return to haunt us

God but these are dark days. Gloomy, dismal, bleak, cheerless days that leave your aching heart wondering what it was you did to so offend the gods above that they would condemn you to a mood not unlike the one that enveloped popster Morrissey when he penned Heaven knows I'm miserable now.

Thursday morning hosted the depths of this despair. Melancholy city. Largely because Wednesday night had offered only fitful sleep, disrupted by vile, repugnant nightmares. Like the one set in Milan on May 23rd, 2001.

"Ah sure, as I say, we're only babies - barely walkin' at this stage," said the bogey man in the winter coat three sizes too big for him. "So of course we'll be stuffed in the, as I say, final because they're magnificent and rich and colossal and, as I say, world class. Unlike ourselves who, as I say, are tiny and small-time and barely-worth-mentioning babies."

The night was pierced by a blood-curdling scream. Car alarms were stirred from their slumber. They woke the dogs. "Who let the dogs out," asked the startled neighbours. The startled neighbours blamed me. I explained about the bogey man in Milan. "What else did he say," they asked, wide-eyed and petrified.

Well . . . cue traumatised sniff . . . he said: "But it's a big adventure for all of us - especially me because I'm still in my managerial nappies, you know - a learning experience and, as I say, if God is good - and I'm 110 per cent sure he is - we'll be back again in 12 years when we've learned the basic skills and are all grown up and shaving and such like. Thanks very much - love you Sky Sports, as I say, you're doing a marvellous job for football. Marvellous, as I say."

The neighbours trudged back to their beds, frightened, dejected men and women, each and every one of them. I superglued my eyelids open and left the lights on so that I would never see the bogey man again.

Thursday morning. Settled down for my usual breakfast of fried eggs, peanut butter, tomato sauce and marmalade but this time mixed it with blackberry, borage, gentian, mustard and scullcap flowers because I'd read they're great for depression. Vowed to stay indoors all day and not to turn on Sky News even the once but then the ghost of John Wayne spoke to me. "Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway," he whispered. So, inspired, I girded my loins and opened the front door. And closed it again.

No use. I could see them from my window. A big chunk of an entire generation of the Irish population (84 per cent, to be exact, of them between the ages of 28-and-a-half and 41-and-three-quarters) strutting down the road like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, with big cheesy, insufferable grins plastered on their faces, whistling It's a Beautiful Day and winking at the bin men, 16 per cent of whom snarled back "d'you wanna slap". "Go on -

kill 'em," I shouted, but we were outnumbered, the other 84 per cent were winking back.

I invited the 16 per cent in for brunch - blackberry, borage, gentian, mustard and scullcap flower sandwiches - and we emoted together. "B******s," said one and we all nodded. "D'you know the final is in Milan, on May 23rd," I said. "Really," they said. "They won't . . . save us and guard us . . . reach it, d'you think?" asked one. Fear had gripped us.

THEY left. I tried to take my mind off things. Decided to send a belated birthday card to my pal Ciaran's daughter. "Dear Billie Jack Paul Norman Paul Peter Eddie John Trevor Allan, hope you had a great 12th birthday and thank you for the invitation to your 18th in March, Love Mary."

Billie Jack Paul Norman Paul Peter Eddie John Trevor Allan? I remember the row. "Christ Aidan, I know you were fond of Bremner, Charlton, Reaney, Hunter, Madeley, Lorimer, Gray, Giles, Cherry and Clarke but mother of God, you can't name your daughter after them." "Who says?" "Your wife, surely - Catherine?" "Well, yes, I am angry - I wanted her christened Norma." "After your Ma?" "God no, after `Bite Yer Legs' Hunter."

Finished card. Turned on Sky News. The bogey man filled the screen. "We're not going to win it so I'm not fussed where we finish in the group, I'm just, as I say, glad we're through." Riverdanced on remote control.

Look, it's not, of course, that I resent Leeds United beating Anderlecht 4-1 away from home on Wednesday night to reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League after just four of their group games, it's just that I'm not entirely happy about it because just as they were when we were young they're still the sons of Satan.

The prospect of them reaching the final on May 23rd in the San Siro in Milan is now slightly less implausible than it was at 7.45 p.m. on Wednesday night and as Ed Burke once put it, "the only thing necessary for the triumph of Leeds United is for good men to do nothing". I beseech, then, whoever they are drawn against in the quarter-finals to do the decent thing and defeat them. Soundly.

The alternative, as I say, isn't worth thinking about. I mean no offence to 84 per cent of the Irish population between the ages of 28-and-a-half and 41-and-three-quarters but we really don't need a whole new generation of Irish girls-to-be christened Harryette, Davo, Nigel, Rio, Lucas, Oliver, Dominic, Gary, Alan, Marc. As I say, enough is enough.

Marching on together? Towards the San Siro in May? There are some things even blackberry, borage, gentian, mustard and scullcap flowers can't cure.