Trouble Dogs Leeds

‘THE leader who turned grown men into babies is back in the biggish time. The Star reports that David O’Leary has been appointed as the new boss of Aston Villa.

Oink! Oink! Pigface is back

And he’s a changed man. ”I’ve learned a lot and I’ve made mistakes,” says O’Leary. ”The biggest one I made was that I became too opinionated in newspapers and you won’t be getting that any more.”

Readers will also recall how O’Leary became too opinionated on television and in his book, Leeds in Trial, and on radio and the Internet.

But he soon gets back to talking the usual stuff, about how he plans to make Villa into a top six club – ”where it belongs”.

It really seems that O’Leary has learned from his time at Leeds, chiefly that miracles cannot be worked over night and that ambition must be tempered with reality.

The situation at Leeds comes under more scrutiny in the Express, where we hear that ”Peter Ridsdale’s reputation as a football chairman sleeps with the fishes”.

Using a phrase borrowed from a gangster film would seem to suggest that not all is what it should have been at the Leeds Ridsdale built.

The club’s news chairman, Professor John McKenzie, is pretty damning of his predecessor’s regime. ”There’s been irresponsibility and indulgent spending,” he says.

”In my view, the place has been managed in an indulgent way,” he says, going on to criticise the ”frivolous nature of the expenditure”.

And so it seems to have been as the Express mentions the nearly £6m spent on paying off managers O’Leary and Terry Venables, the fleet of over 70 company cars, which cost £600,000 a year to run, and private jet travel for executives.

There is also the matter of the tank of tropical fish, which Ridsdale rented for a princely sum of £20 a month.

These are said to have been the first casualties of McKenzie’s purge on waste.

Meanwhile, the Mail gets ready for the final of the Uefa Cup, and Celtic’s chance to relive the glory of 36 years ago when they lifted the European Cup.

”I’ve told my players this is once-in-a-lifetime chance and they must grab it,” says Celtic manager Martin O’Neill.

Celtic play Porto tonight in Seville. We wish them the very best of luck.

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Posted: 21st, May 2003 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink