Image is nothing says the advert, obey your thirst. Over the next month those with an appetite for all things Elland Road should find enough liquid Leeds United to slake a drought. Barcelona, then AC Milan, followed by two encounters with the Turks of Besiktas, images of Leeds will pour through our screens in September.

The focus will be intense and the football should be everything, yet even among Elland Road traditionalists few will think that this is purely about trophy-quenching. That is the priority but in this city, in this time, how Leeds do something matters almost as much as what Leeds do. It may not sound very Yorkshire, but image counts.

Leeds United, like Leeds the place, want a new one. Both feel they deserve it and both are working feverishly to that end. At this point the city is a goal up on the club. It has, after all, managed to convince a lot of people that Leeds is a boom town, that it has leapt above Edinburgh in terms of finance and jobs, hopped over Manchester in terms of retail and shopping and piggy-backed over Newcastle with its vibrant nightlife.

The city's movers use buzz phrases like: "Fast-track city", "24-hour city", and the ubiquitous: "Second to London". Even taxi drivers boast of growth. New jobs, new shops, it is an overwhelmingly positive image. There is some substance to it. Some.

Leeds United, meanwhile, have O'Leary's beautiful babies and an exciting future, both immediate and long-term. Young players, young manager, young chairman, United fit Leeds city's desire to be seen as young and coming.

But Leeds United also have the ongoing hooligan problem, the Istanbul murders and the Woodgate-Bowyergate incident hanging over them. It is far from overwhelmingly positive. As club chairman Peter Ridsdale lamented: "It always seems to be one step forward, two steps back."

Ridsdale gets annoyed because he knows how much Leeds United are trying to lose a reputation forged in the '70s and retained since. Let's face it, Leeds United are not widely liked and when Christopher Loftus and Kevin Speight were killed in Istanbul in April, you can be sure that outside Leeds there were plenty of unsympathetic responses.

Take Leicester, for example. In Leicester they remember that Leeds fans chant: "You're Just A Town Full Of Pakis" on very visit to Filbert Street. It is not the sort of image United want to covey, especially to Leeds's large Asian population. And yet Leicester City is the only Premiership club where the community relations manager has an influential role within senior management. Other than at Leeds United.

Shortly after the club was taken over by Leeds Sporting Group plc in 1996, there was a recognition at the club that in order to progress in tandem with affairs on the pitch, hard work polishing Leeds's image off it was also required. Corporate theory dictates that it is no good having a winning product if the local, never mind the wider public do not buy into it. Successful football for football's sake is not an option in the game's new economic climate. United have to be profitable.

Consequently over the past two and a half years United have put together a community development department of 19 people whose difficult task is to alter perceptions of Leeds United at grassroots level. At the same time Leeds City Council was keen to push Leeds as a modern, redeveloped city with a regenerated people-friendly centre. The two organisations shared a common purpose.

They decided to co-operate - for example, among the 19 at Elland Road are three council-funded full-time teachers working in bright internet classrooms at the stadium. The furniture comes free from IKEA, the computers come free from Packard Bell. Sponsors like what Leeds are doing.

As part of the government's "Football as a pathway to learning" project the council sends groups of children from various schools to Elland Road every day. So far it has been visited by 10,000 students. Education is one strand of the work, playing football another, anti-racism initiatives and general community work a third.

It is easy to yawn at such community activities, particularly in today's professional football, and to distrust them as a distraction from the real story, but at Elland Road this is an important part of the main story - growth. This may be the non-profit side of the business but Leeds know that today's children are tomorrow's customers.

As Emma Stanford, head of the department, said: "Employing 19 people is not paying lip service. The financial commitment from the plc is unprecedented. At board level there was a need and a desire to become more involved with the community. At council level they wanted us to be seen as an emblem for the city. It is now an integral part of the strategy of the club."

Leeds need the strategy to succeed. While other northern clubs from Liverpool to Manchester United to Sunderland and Newcastle have expanded their capacity recently, such an idea is barely whispered at Leeds. A population of 750,000 makes Leeds the sixth biggest city in England, and it has just one club, yet the commercial director Adam Pearson revealed to the club's magazine: "It is still quite rare that the ground is full."

That's some admission and shows why the community groundwork is being pushed so hard. Moreover, as Stanford acknowledged, merely creating goodwill does have financial benefits: "A good image helps the share price."

STANFORD said that when two new sponsors arrived this summer both mentioned the community scheme. The new shirt sponsors, Nike, confirmed this. Nike will put £8 million into Leeds over the next four years and the company's UK football sports marketing manager, Brian Marwood, said that Nike had indeed been influenced by Leeds' community work.

Marwood, once of Arsenal and England, saw many such schemes as a former chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association but said of Leeds': "It's the biggest and the best, a programme of real substance. It's not just saying: `Hello, we're Leeds United', there are worthwhile activities for boys and girls to connect with the club. We took a different, holistic approach to this deal. It was something we wanted to work with in partnership."

As sportswear manufacturers, Nike know all about brand loyalty - each of us remembers our first trainers or boots - and by getting involved in Leeds' projects as they are doing, Nike also know they get decisive access to young children. Capitalism never rests. For their part, Leeds get Nike's High Street credibility - the right image.

The businessman's fondness for jargon means that this is "Synergy". It was a term used by a former Leeds player, Lee Chapman, when discussing the club and the city. Chapman played in the last Leeds team to win a championship, in 1992, and is now a successful restaurateur. His premises are in London and, in the last three months, Leeds.

He left Leeds in 1994 and said: "It's certainly been regenerated since then. There is still some way to go but when I played there no one went out in Leeds, now there is a whole new image. It's the capital of the north, there is a lot of affluence. If anywhere is going to get close to London then it is Leeds."

The football club is playing its part, said Chapman - Leeds Sporting has a 25 per cent stake in Chapman's Teatro restaurant. "With the council, the club and business there is a lot of synergy," he said.

A couple of doors down from Teatro by the gentrified canal is the new Malmaison hotel. It is a small chain part-owned by the singer Mick Hucknall, fashionably minimalist, reassuringly expensive. Sitting in its restaurant on Tuesday afternoon eating his pre-match meal was one David O'Leary.

Food, fashion, football and money, all together. That's the image they want for Leeds and United. Pity about the Manchester City result.