“DAVID O’Leary is arguably the most charismatic football manager in Britain today,” according to the back cover of his book, although we think that particular argument would be a fairly one-sided one, and these days ‘football manager’ is a bit of stretch for a man who now has plenty of time to spend his days watching Cash in the Attic and Loose Women since he was told to do one by Aston Villa in 2006.

His departure from Villa was preceded by supporters displaying a brilliant banner proclaiming “We’re not fickle, we just don’t like you,” in response to comments O’Leary had made about the fans.

Today in 2002 O’Leary was sacked from his first management job when Leeds United gave him the old heave-ho. His sudden departure, which Leeds at first painted as one of those strange ‘mutual consent’ situations but later admitted was a plain old-fashioned sacking, caught everyone by surprise. O’Leary’s team were the young pretenders in the Premiership and in Europe playing good football and even famously getting to the Champions League semi-final in 2001.

Buoyed by O’Leary’s early success Leeds chairman Peter Ridsdale took caution and hurled it full-pelt into the wind to fund a lavish spending spree which he hoped would ensure European football (and money) for years to come.



When the Irishman’s team just failed to qualify for the Champions League in 2002 the only person who knew this meant disaster for the club was Ridsdale. While the fans were disappointed, they were still in the Uefa Cup and were heading towards the Premiership summit. But Ridsdale had gambled on Champions League income, and now he didn’t have it. The game was up and O’Leary’s flagship signing, £18m Rio Ferdinand was being lined up for transfer by Ridsdale to keep the Elland Road ship afloat.

He also presumably thought another manager would have got the team into the Champions League and avoided all these problems so gave O’Leary the boot in favour of Terry Venables.

O’Leary’s decision to bring out a book entitled Leeds United On Trial just after the trial of Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate for the assault of Sarfraz Najeib probably did not help his cause either.

Since O’Leary left and Leeds went into the most of catastrophic meltdown since Chernobyl, he and Ridsdale have traded blows through the media but just six months before his sacking they were bestest mates - O’Leary’s book which was published in January 2002 is dedicated to his former boss: “To chairman Peter Ridsdale, the board of directors and all genuine Leeds supporters.”

Before you go, have a look at this little clip of a regional TV news reporter relishing the chance to call Peter Ridsdale incompetent, and come back tomorrow for more from us as usual.

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...