speak with the zeal of a convert and must freely confess that, early in his reign, I found the Doctrine of Davo Infallibility a little hard to swallow.

I strayed, in thought and in deed, and went so far as to announce before Christmas that leading the babies from the Group of Death into the Group of Death would be the high point of Davo's pastoral mission for this year. I was wrong. I have come home. I am born again in Davo. He is King. I am happy clappy in my disciplehood. It feels sinful.

What I mean is this. A basic tenet of our faith is the duty to whinge. Morning whinge. Evensong whinge. Moments for quiet, reflective whinges in between. You follow a team, man and boy mind, man and boy, and after a while you realise it will never be the same as when you were a kid.

There won't be gods like Gary Sprake (the god of buttery fingers) or Paul Reaney or Paul Madely or Sniffer Clarke lining out week after week in the same reliable and virtually unbeatable eleven. You will have Richard Jobsons and worse thrust upon you. You will get managers you dislike and team kits which make you nauseous.

You whinge. It is what life as a follower is about. Football teaches us that life is filled with good days, bad days and the odd humiliating cup exit to Colchester. And after a while what your team will mainly provide you with is the right to whinge. It will confer on you a moanier than thou attitude, giving you the solemn duty to parade your misery as a sort of public flagellation. Everyone except Everton supporters will be impressed by what you are going through here on earth and will know that divine qualification will be yours in return.

But what happens if . . . your team is managed by a Dubliner, has five Irish internationals knocking around the first squad, is, in the majority, home-grown right there at Elland Road? What happens if they play good football, have a cracking youth scheme, are kind and co-operative with journalists, are in the middle of a romantic adventure through the Champions League and on the cusp of some seasons of great success? What happens if they keep doing good things against the odds, if they put a little romance back into the business?

What happens if, even during what should be the most difficult and painful scandal in the club's history, the team begins putting together some of the unlikeliest results in that history, if the ugliness of one thing is almost outbalanced by the outrageous romance of the other? If what goes on in Hull Crown Court can be overshadowed by the babies beating top European teams away from home?

What happens? Does it mean we will all go to hell? Is George Graham coming back? Did the cheque for Cantona bounce? Just how will we be punished for these days of contentment?

I am sure Davo is a wrathful god. I could argue with him for hours about the inconsistencies of his views on international availability and the rights of clubs and countries to their players, but I'm sure it would do no good. Managers aren't there to see both sides of the argument, they're not supposed to wonder what the full back will feel like if he is substituted with his girlfriend watching.

Managers are supposed to have big, fur-lined blinkers on their snozzes and heavy chips on their shoulders and a need to keep on proving things to people. Managers have to have a little devil in them. They have to speak reverentially about Alex Ferguson all week long, but then make Brian Kidd their first team coach 24 hours before they play Ferguson's little team. Just because it might get an edge.

I listened to him on the radio with Olivia O'Leary early in the week. Butter wouldn't melt, I tell you. Olivia is such a girlie and referred to the young but godlike £18 million centre half as Ferdinand Rio. Davo, complete silver-tongued charmer, played along and made the deal sound as reasonable as buying a loaf of bread for a hungry family.

What impressed me besides the content of the interview and the seemingly well-balanced homeliness of its subject was the fact that with four players on trial, a European campaign in full eruption, the charge for Europe belatedly under way and a few key players still in the infirmary, Davo has the serenity to be giving long, thoughtful radio interviews to non-sporting outlets. Of course, that's how the season has been run at Elland Road. More wounded writhing around than the Somme, a rap sheet of charges pending, everyone else having had a chance to suss out the way O'Leary likes to play. Before Christmas many of us pessimists had our ears to the floor waiting for the creaking noises that would signify the whole place starting to come apart. Great and devout would have been the moaning then.

Yet it's been whistle-while-you-work time at Elland Road, and if the allegations made against certain players in court have been frightening in what they might tell us about the intellectual capacities and thought patterns of modern footballers, O'Leary's old-fashioned views on making the big stars carry the bags of balls and lay out the pitches, etc., have provided a smidgin of reassurance. Leeds have a problem, but it's not about to become footballing Babylon around there. Me? I've learned to stop worrying. I'm lying back and enjoying it. This Wednesday it's the Bernenbeu, with nothing at stake! Any wonder we're the happiest fans in foot-and-mouth-land? Yeah, sure we only sing when we're winning, but pretty soon I'm going to be hoarse from it. Roll on the Leeds United superstore and the Gary Sprake duvets.