Chapter 9: League Opener

Mention Leeds United, and one name comes with it whether you like it or not: Don Revie.

Under Revie through the sixties and into the seventies, Leeds were about as feared as any side in England with two league titles, an FA Cup, a League Cup, a Fairs Cup, and a squad that dominated headlines as much for its ruthlessness as its results.

For a certain generation of Leeds fans, that era is still the measuring stick against which everything since has fallen embarrassingly short.

Revie left, the club aged out of that golden squad, and Leeds spent years drifting before a brief, thrilling revival in the late nineties and early 2000s; a Champions League semi-final, real European nights, real belief that the giant had woken back up.

Then came the collapse. Leeds gambled on future income that never arrived, debts spiralled, and the club went into administration, shedding players, staff, and status all at once. Relegation from the Premier League in 2004. Another relegation, to League One, by 2007. A club that had once dined at Europe’s top table was, for a stretch, playing in England’s third tier.

New ownership eventually stabilised things, and by the time Villa faced them this season, Leeds were a solid, dangerous Championship side again, never quite back to Revie-era heights, but far too proud a name to write off.

2–2. That was the final score when the referee blew for full time.

Leeds broke the deadlock inside two minutes, a striker called Dobbs finishing sharply from close range. Villa levelled through Delgado in the seventeenth, only for a nineteen-year-old Leeds academy graduate named Curtis to restore their lead barely two minutes later.

For a while, it looked like Leeds might steal all three points on the opening day. Then, deep into stoppage time, Whitmore rose above his marker and headed home, sparing Villa a defeat nobody in claret and blue wanted to start the season with.

Not the perfect opening, but given the opponent, a draw was no disaster. Leeds had finished fifth the previous year, outside the automatic spots, in the era before the play-off system existed in its later form, one place short of a route straight back up.

Their squad had turned over considerably that summer, but the quality underneath hadn’t gone anywhere; most pundits still had them down as genuine promotion contenders.

Villa hadn’t controlled much of that match, if Saint was honest with himself watching it back. The same shape of problem showed up again the following week, away at Bolton Wanderers. Villa were the better side on paper and mostly on the pitch too, but couldn’t find any real fluency, only a goal from Okoro kept the game from finishing goalless.

A win was still a win, though, and English football has never been shy about ugly points counting the same as pretty ones. Ventham was, by instinct and history, exactly that kind of manager; pragmatic, results-first, unbothered by the shape of the performance as long as the scoreline cooperated.

For a club trying to escape the Championship, three points by any means was the only currency that mattered.

Game three brought a 1–0 win over Coventry City, a club that hadn’t sniffed the top flight since dropping out in 2001, and showed no obvious signs of climbing back anytime soon.

Two wins and a draw from the opening three games. Best start in the division bar one, only Forest, level on points but ahead on goal difference, sat above Villa in the early table.

"Whitlock’s Boldest Gamble Yet Looks Like Paying Off," ran a piece in the Midlands Sports Gazette after the third match.

"Ventham Delivers Again — The Man Who Got Villa Up Once Can Do It Twice," the Villa Express agreed, with no shortage of enthusiasm.

"For God’s sake." Not everyone was thrilled. Sallow, alone in his office, had a stack of clippings thrown across his desk and very little patience left for any of them.

It wasn’t the results themselves bothering him... Sallow loved this club properly, the kind of love that doesn’t fade just because your job title shrinks. He could have walked away entirely by now, taken his experience somewhere that valued it more visibly. But he hadn’t.

What had actually put him in a mood was Pedmore, who’d walked in that morning with the same clippings tucked under his arm, purely to enjoy the moment.

"Derek. Take it easy." Saint was still in the room, the only other person present was a dark-haired figure, unmistakably out of place among the framed photos of old Villa sides on the wall.

"Uncle, to you," Sallow said, glancing over.

Sallow and Saint’s father had been proper friends, once; Sallow had been the restaurant’s most loyal regular, long before any of this. That history was exactly why he’d been willing to bring Saint into Villa in the first place.

"Fine. Uncle Derek," Saint said, shrugging.

"Truthfully, if you look closely, this run is a bit of an illusion." Said out loud to anyone else, that sentence would have sounded unhinged.

"Two wins and a draw looks great on paper. But the underlying performances haven’t been good. Take Whitfield; our biggest signing of the summer, played every minute so far, and he’s been genuinely poor. Midfield’s been the weakest part of the pitch, not the strongest."

All four goals across the three matches had come from the same source: established forwards. Delgado. Whitmore, twice. Okoro. Not one had come through Whitfield, the player the entire system was supposedly built around.

"And Whitfield’s not even the only issue. Loach’s a serious talent, but he’s not a natural fit as the deepest of a back three; his instincts pull him forward constantly, and in a back four you can cover for that with a holding midfielder dropping in. In a three, he’s the furthest man back. There’s no cover for it."