Good Morning. It's Thursday 11th November, and here are the latest headlines from Elland Road Couldn't happen to a nicer club Derby County's bid for Championship survival took a massive nose dive, after it was revealed last night that they would receive a further 9 points deduction for financial irregularities, taking the total loss to 21 points for the season. Upon entering administration, the FA had already slapped the Rams with a twelve point deduction, but further investigations into their finances have prompted the powers that be, to impose further restrictions on the stricken club. There's not much Derby County as a club can do about it. Whilst in their financial state, they are being run by administrators, who make all the decisions; not that fighting the FA has done them much good in the long term. They have long memories! Without punishment, they'd have accumulated eighteen points by now, and would be six points above the drop zone. The further nine point penalty will give them a minus three aggregate, leaving them fifteen points behind Hull in 22st place, a point more than Barnsley in 23rd. Would it be a Leeds fans dream to see Hull, Barnsley and Derby all relegated? Does anyone feel sorry for the Rams? please log in to view this image Is Premiership survival enough this season There's not many of us that would have anticipated that Leeds would be languishing in the bottom half of the table with just two wins on our belts after eleven games, but that's where we are! Saying that, we have seen a vast improvement on the pitch as well as plenty of fight from the players. Is Premiership safety all that matters this term? If they finish their campaign lower than 14th, would you label that a disastrous season? please log in to view this image Will Bielsa be around next season? With the Leeds squad going through a transitional stage, and major developments on the cards in the foreseeable future, do we expect Bielsa to be at the helm orchestrating things next season? He'll be 67 by the time next season kicks-off, and whilst he has dedicated more time to West Yorkshire's finest than in previous roles, his CV and age suggests that his tenure will come to an end, sooner rather than later. We have been told of major changes in our personnel next Summer. What is the point of bring in Bielsa players, if in all likelihood he won't be around in a couple of season's time? please log in to view this image
Morning all. Couldn't care less about Hull and Barnsley. Would rather Derby, Forest and Millwall go down, maybe Cardiff too but we can't have four. But as long as Derby do I'd be more than happy.
Morning all Loving the Derby news as I hate that club thanks to Morris and Lampard. I do however feel for the fans as it was Morris who broke the rules and it should be him that gets banned from ever holding a directorship in any walk of life, not just football. So Derby fans watch the club drop into L1. I shouted the same when we got -15 and Bates was allowed to carry on shafting the club and anyone else. I shouted the same as the twat got his job as head of the EFL after taking a football club into administration 3 times and eeven being called a serial liar by a selecet committee and a high court judge, just how did he get that top job in football. Lets also remember the way he ran away very quick when the Derby affair came to light because it was he who gave Morris the green light to cook the books. I also shouted out when Luton fans were shafted as the EFL gave them a -30 point deduction and all because of another bent owner. They fell out of the football league and have taken 16 years to climb back into the championship. Lets also remember that Morris was an EFL Board member and allowed to sanction Leeds for not breaking any rules but given a £200k fine. i would prefer Yorkshire clubs not getting relegated I believe Bielsa will leave next Summer and hand over to a coach already lined up. I believe Bielsa will go down in history as the best manager we ever had and I was around when Revie did his thing, I just believe that in todays football which has a few clubs who can buy the best players and buy cups and titles, its a tough ask for any club in mid table in the 2nd tier and in real terms thats actually the 6th tier in reality as the Premier League has 4 tiers and the Championship at least 2 tiers and Bielsa beat all the clubs who had parachute payments and cheats, and got promoted, and then took us to just outside the top tier in the prem. he will keep us up this season and be heavily involved in the new players the club will buy in the summer
Morning all, Bielsa leaving next summer, for me, depends so much on where we finish this year. A comfortable lower mid table, 12th -16th, and I see him going and passing the baton to somewhere else. 11th and above and I can see him sticking round for one more year, especially if investment is guaranteed. If he still thinks he can improve the team and make us more competitive he will stay. When he feels he can't anymore is when he will go. I honestly believe that his desire to improve the team/club overrules his want to go home to Argentina and his family.
A copy of the letter sent by Ken Bates to League chairmen... The following is the copy of the letter sent by chairman Ken Bates to the respective chairman of all Football League clubs ahead of United's appeal against the 15-point deduction imposed by the league.... Aug 8, 2007 Dear Chairman, Re: Leeds United Lord Mawhinney was kind enough to send me a copy of his letter to you dated 3rd August. As you know our appeal against the deduction of 15 points will be heard on Thursday and I felt compelled to write to all the Chairman of Football League Clubs to set out the true facts relating to the administration of Leeds United Association Football Club Limited and the subsequent purchase of its assets. I am disappointed but not surprised to have to say that the standard of reporting of the process has been appalling and in the main has been based on guesswork. First of all let me confirm that the administration of the Club was not pre-planned. My staff at Leeds fought tooth and nail to get Leeds through to the start of the coming season when the last of the contracts that remained from the days of "living the dream" would have at last expired. We had procured external funding of approaching £25m in our attempts to keep the Club alive. We spent 9 months looking for external partners but as our playing fortunes declined during last season investors waited to see what would happen and this combined with falling gate receipts meant that by the end of the season funding had run out. We had paid HMRC some £25m during the period from January 2005 to April 2007 but the Revenue would not allow us more time to pay the outstanding arrears and whilst acknowledging our efforts issued a winding up petition due to be heard on 1st June 2007. Following the issue of the petition administration or liquidation was really the only option. We approached one of the leading insolvency practices in the world, KPMG, to advise. They were concerned that with the close season upon us there would be no income to run the Club and advised that administration followed by a sale to a party willing to fund the Club during the Administration process was the best approach to adopt. We have attracted some criticism for going into administration before the end of the 2006/07 season, and thus triggering the 10 point deduction during that season when we were almost certain of relegation. I think this criticism is unfair. Lord Mawhinney has stated publicly that the approach we took was completely within the rules. As directors of the Club we had a duty to act in the best interests of the Club and we believe that in taking the actions we did we discharged our obligations properly. The supporters of Leeds United would have rightly been appalled if we had been relegated and then have taken a ten point deduction that could have been taken during the 2006/07 season. Lord Mawhinney's letter to you highlights the fact that the Football League have imposed, "a fifteen point sanction" "sanction" is defined in the Oxford English dictionary as meaning "a penalty for breaking the rules". We believe that Leeds have broken no rules and have complied with the regulations of the Football League to the absolute extent it was in their power and control to do so. We have no reason to think that KPMG have acted other than in accordance with the law of the land in conducting the administration. In these circumstances we believe that no "sanction" is appropriate. KPMG put a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) to creditors of the Company on 14th May and this was approved more than 75% of the creditors of the Company as required by the Insolvency Act 1986, only just, but a win is a win. Following approval there is a 28 day period during which creditors can appeal against the conduct of the CVA. During this period various parties made threatening noises but did not appeal. I think the reason for this was that KPMG had sought the advice of two independent counsels before admitting any claim to vote in the CVA. It is difficult in such circumstances to see how the Administrators could be said to have acted unreasonably. The Revenue however were still making demands and in an attempt to placate them we increased the sum payable under the CVA. Creditors were now being offered circa 8.5 pence upfront with a further 30 pence if the Club attained Premier League status within the next 10 years. Despite the improved offer the Revenue appealed at approximately 15:00pm on the last day for appeals. Their appeal was based on the acceptance by the Administrator of three debts upon which the Administrator had taken independent advice. In our view the appeal was a sham. The Revenue could have appealed against the admission of the debts on day one but it chose to wait until the 28th day to do so. It is our view that the decision of the Revenue was vexatious, and I think that this is confirmed by what happened next. At a directions hearing for their appeal on the 6th July a representative of the Revenue told the Administrator's lawyer that they would withdraw what they described as a protective appeal provided Leeds put all sums into the CVA immediately and instead of paying "Football Creditors" paid the sum set aside for "Football Creditors" into the CVA for the benefit of the unsecured creditors generally. At last the true motive of the Revenue had been revealed. Their appeal was yet another attack on the "Football Creditor Rules" something the Revenue had sought to attack since their preferred status had been withdrawn in September 2003. The Revenue knew we could not and indeed would not want to break the Football Creditors Rules, but I think they were surprised when we agreed to do the next best thing. We met their demands by increasing our payment into the CVA by an additional sum equal to the sum being set aside for Football Creditors. We put the unsecured creditors of the Company in the position that the Revenue had required, but we were still paying the Football Creditors, which was unacceptable to the Revenue. The question of the Football Creditors Rules has been litigated to the Court of Appeal in the Wimbledon case. For the Revenue to over turn that position the case would have to go to the House of Lords and whilst the Revenue have our taxes to pay for that litigation, the Club could simply not afford it. In these circumstances we approached the Administrator and offered to purchase the Club unconditionally and take our chances with the Football League, we felt that the Revenues position represented an attack on football generally and on Leeds in particular. The circumstances seemed to us to be the "exceptional circumstances" referred to in the Football League Insolvency Rules. On Tuesday last week Leeds meet with the Administrators and the League. Initially the League expressed the view that "exceptional circumstances" did not exist, a position that frankly we found unbelievable. The League did not dispute that the offer we had made was the best offer on the table but wanted it put to a new creditors meeting. Because we had paid the players wages and some players had moved on during the close season the "football debts" had reduced meaning the Revenues votes as a proportion of the whole had increased. The Administrators were of the view that the Revenue now represented 24.4% of the debt and this would enable them to block any CVA. It was agreed to approach the Revenue to seek to persuade them to withdraw their objection. Their response was catagoric. They stated on the record that if a revised CVA was presented "as a matter of policy, HMRC would vote against any CVA that resulted in Football Creditors being paid in full". If the CVA was passed they would appeal again and would litigate all the way. Their position means that unsecured creditors generally including themselves will get a lower payment than they would have done under the CVA. In the face of this intransigence by the Revenue the Administrators said a further meeting was futile and the League eventually agreed that "exceptional circumstances" existed and agreed to transfer the League share subject to the sanction now under the appeal. So exactly what rules have been broken? 1. Lord Mawhinney has acknowledged that going into administration as and when we did, broke no rules. 2. The League press release states: "notwithstanding the manner in which this administration has been conducted the Club should be permitted to continue in the Football League" If that is a criticism of Leeds then it is misplaced. The Administration has been carried out by KPMG if the League have complaints about the process they should be addressing them to the Administrators not the Club. The Club could have had no influence over the Administrator who was independent. 3. Finally the CVA was approved by the requisite number of creditors but completion of it has been blocked by the Revenue for what can only be described as political reasons. Leeds should not be punished because the Revenue are intransigent. We have broken no rules. The "exceptional circumstances" rules were introduced to cover exactly the situation that exists today. We can only speculate as to the reasoning behind the imposition of a sanction when no rules have been broken. We believe such a sanction is wholly unfair and a breach of natural justice. On Thursday we will be asking you to overturn its imposition. If we can clarify any aspect of the matter for you, please feel free to contact my fellow directors Shaun Harvey or Mark Taylor. With Kind Regards Yours sincerely, K. W. BATES
I hated Bates, but what was interesting is that he has great points about the administration we went through. He could have paid the players or paid the tax man. The taxman took priority, but the league said otherwise, and were charged with acting properly whilst in administration, resulting in our minus 15 points.
The don for me he built the club up from nothing in a city dominated by rugby league and cricket at the time and made only a few significant signings in a decade and made us a powerhouse at home and abroad where we should have won more titles than what we did some down to sheer bad luck, some to dodgy decisions....bielsa has been excellent admittedly but the same could be said for Sgt Wilko.....the don still keeps the top podium at least for now
In terms of the way they all transformed a club in the doldrums and the levels they subsequently achieved they all should rightly be held in the highest of esteem. No other manager comes within light years of these three. Obviously Revie will always be number one because of the trophy haul but all three are Gods in my eyes. Let's hope that when the day comes for Bielsa to move on we can find a fourth.
Do we put DoL into this pot because remembering the Champions League we attacked was an awesome season with those kids, but he took his tracksuit off after that and let that Manc twat infect the players and then we had the Majestyk and then the book, but for a couple of seasons we smashed it and had our kids as household names again? So Revie and Bielsa followed by Wilkinson with Hart and then DoL?
Personally I wouldn't Doc, simply because he took over a well established premier league club and had a seemingly never ending pot of cash. He'd probably be top of the also rans outside of the holy trinity though.
Agreed he just tapped into the conveyor belt created by Paul Hart under Wilko, and then convinced the idiot Ridsdale to buy some “Silver players andd then within weeks asked him to buy him some Gold players” fk me we did have a couple of brass standard at gold prices too
Kelvin Etuhu: ‘I watched from prison as my old City team-mates won the FA Cup. I felt broken’ Oliver Kay Nov 11, 2021 There was no fanfare when Kelvin Etuhu retired last year. One minute he was a player at Carlisle United, trying to work out his next step with his contract about to expire after a year out injured. The next a specialist was telling him his hamstring would no longer stand the rigours of professional football. It was over. He was 31 years old. He had been a teenager when he played and scored in the Premier League for Manchester City, an all-too-brief taste of the big time that every player longs for. Since then he had been to Cardiff City on loan, Portsmouth, Barnsley, Bury and Carlisle and enjoyed some good times — winning promotion with Bury was a particular highlight — but his career had fizzled out, the way most football careers do. Now it was goodbye to all that and hello to the real world. You might be starting to wonder where this is going. Another cautionary tale of a player falling into misery, penury or worse once the floodlights fade? Happily not. He has enrolled on an electrical engineering course and is widening his business and investment portfolio. “Life,” he says with a smile, “is good.” This is not a straightforward story, though. And the thing about falling away from the big time once he left Manchester City is that he has never felt the compulsion to tell it in depth before. He was persuaded to do so by a friend who works for the Professional Footballers Association (PFA), who joins him as he sits down with The Athletic at a restaurant near his home in Altrincham. There are things he wants to explain. We start at the beginning. Not the very beginning because he doesn’t recall the first two years of his life, which were spent in Nigeria, but his early memories of growing up in Peckham, South London. “My mum brought us over because she wanted to give my brothers and me a better life,” Etuhu says. “Nigeria is a beautiful place, but we came from a really deprived area and a very poor background. We were staying with my auntie when we first came over. There were quite a lot of us and my mum worked really hard to provide for us. My dad wasn’t in my life. He stayed in Nigeria, so it was all down to my mum, really. “Peckham was a really tight community. Everybody looked out for each other. There was a lot of love within the estates. But there was a lot of crime too. I lived on the Southampton Way estate, just over the road from where Damilola Taylor, God bless his soul, was murdered. I knew him by sight, but not to speak to. That was a horrible shock for everyone in the area, to hear of a boy of ten years old being brutally murdered. His poor family. “There were a lot of gangs. I can’t shy away from that. It’s a very gang-afflicted area. But gangs at that time weren’t the way they are portrayed now, where a lot of people are going out to inflict crime. It was just kids who were from an estate, growing up together. That was it really.” Etuhu had two brothers, Dickson and Michael. Dickson, six years his senior, was a promising footballer and was offered an apprenticeship at Manchester City. At the time Dickson made his first-team debut, playing in the team that won promotion to the Premier League under Kevin Keegan, Kelvin had no thoughts of trying to follow in his brother’s footsteps. “I played football on the estate, and I was playing football for my school, but I was more into athletics at that age,” he says. “I was doing 100, 200, 400 metres. The 100 metres was what I was really good at. I was seriously quick. I got scouted for South London and then London and I went for trials for Great Britain. And it was really my speed that got me taken into football when I was 13 or 14.” He was invited to join Millwall’s centre of excellence and, from that point, his football went from strength to strength. He was at Manchester City’s academy one weekend, visiting Dickson, when the club’s youth coaches saw him kicking a ball around. They liked the look of him and eventually a dispute between the two clubs ended with Millwall receiving a compensation payment and Etuhu joining his big brother in Manchester. It was quite a culture shock — “coming from Peckham, which was all high-rise flats, and moving to Bramhall, which was a beautiful area with cleaner air” — and he and his mother initially found it hard to adapt. But he had a goal, something to strive for. As well as his older brother, he was in awe of players like Nicolas Anelka and fellow south Londoner Shaun Wright-Phillips. It was inspiring. He was part of an excellent Manchester City youth team, which included Micah Richards, Nedum Onuoha, Michael Johnson and Daniel Sturridge. They reached the FA Youth Cup final in 2006 but lost 3-2 on aggregate to Liverpool. “We should have won that,” he says. “But we got a rude awakening in the first leg — very much like ‘This is real, this is Anfield’ — and then we just fell short in the second leg. I honestly believe we would have won that final easily if we had had Micah, but he was already with the first team. He was incredible at that age. So was Johnno. Everyone felt he was the next Steven Gerrard, a future England captain.” please log in to view this image (Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images) The summer of 2007 brought the takeover by Thaksin Shinawatra and an influx of expensive signings, which raised concerns among the younger players, but it also brought the arrival of Sven-Goran Eriksson, who gave Etuhu his debut against Norwich City in the League Cup. Within a couple of months, Etuhu was playing in the Premier League, making his debut against Wigan Athletic and then coming off the bench to set up one goal and score another in a 4-2 victory over Bolton Wanderers. “That was amazing,” he says. “It must be hard for anyone to understand exactly how that feels unless it actually happens to you. Scoring a goal in the Premier League, helping your team to come from behind to win, in front of your own fans, you can’t ask for more than that. It’s what you dream about. And I didn’t sleep that night. Honestly, I didn’t sleep.” please log in to view this image Etuhu scoring his goal against Bolton (Photo: Dave Thompson – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images) That was as good as it got for Etuhu in the Premier League, though. There was a spell on loan to Leicester City in the Championship, and then a handful of appearances for Manchester City the following season, by which time the club was in the midst of a transformation after being taken over by Sheikh Mansour on transfer deadline day September 2008. “When it happened, you were like ‘Oh, right? OK…’,” he says. “But then we signed Robinho and we were trying to sign (Dimitar) Berbatov and suddenly it was like, ‘Hang on, is this real?’ I remember being in the changing room when Robinho turned up. I was just looking around, saying, ‘I cannot believe we’ve signed Robinho.’ That’s when you knew things were changing. But I don’t think anyone ever thought it would get to the magnitude it has now.” He enthuses not only about Vincent Kompany (“amazing professional, natural-born winner, the one who transformed the dressing room”), Yaya Toure (“the go-to player”, “a role model, especially for me coming from Africa”) and David Silva (“just unbelievable”) but about players like Martin Petrov (“absolutely unreal”) and Elano, who were among the wave of talent who came in under Shinawatra’s ownership. Like everyone at Manchester City at that time, he has stories he can tell about Mario Balotelli (“I wasn’t there the night of fireworks, but he caused some mayhem in that apartment block”) and Robinho. “Robinho was brilliant — unbelievable skill — but he didn’t take football seriously,” he says. “One time we were away on a training camp in Tenerife when Mark Hughes was manager. We all came down to the pitch to train and everyone was, like, ‘Where’s Robbie?’ “Mark Hughes sent one of the coaches to knock on his door. Eddie (Niedzwiecki), I think it was. Eddie knocked on the door, no answer, so he went to reception and they got a master key and opened the door and… basically, the room was empty; no bags, everything gone. Next thing we heard, he was back in Brazil. He hadn’t told anyone. That was Robinho for you.” please log in to view this image Vladimir Weiss, Pablo Zabaleta, Robinho and Etuhu in training (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images) Etuhu loved being in such elevated company, but it didn’t do much for his prospects. Becoming a first-team regular at Manchester City was always going to be difficult. Now it felt almost impossible. “It got harder and harder,” he says. “They could just go out and buy two players in my position, and then another two, like (James) Milner and (Samir) Nasri, and it was very hard to compete with that. I just went down the pecking order. I went from being in contention to start to just about being in the first-team squad.” And, like so many young players at big clubs, he found his professional prospects diminishing just as his personal life was being transformed by reaching adulthood and earning sums that were beyond his dreams. “You get those distractions,” he says. “I think a few things might have been different if I’d had a father figure in my life, someone to help you get back on track if you unintentionally come off. When I look at the players who had good careers, like Micah, most of them have had good father figures and influences in their lives. Micah’s dad was brilliant for him. Daniel Sturridge the same. I didn’t have that.” When asked what he means by coming off the track, Etuhu suggests it was nothing too extreme. A slight loss of focus or motivation, perhaps, at a time when he needed to be pushing harder than ever. “I wasn’t struggling,” he says. “If you speak to any of the managers or coaches I’ve worked with, or my team-mates, they’ll say I’ve never been a problem. I’ve never had any issues off the pitch… barring that one.” That one incident happened in the early hours of February 28, 2010. A dispute broke out in a casino in Manchester and carried on outside. CCTV pictures showed Etuhu knocking another man to the floor with a punch and kicking him three times when he was on the ground. On trial at Manchester Crown Court the following February, Etuhu pleaded guilty to affray and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. At Warrington Crown Court, a month later, he was sentenced to eight months in prison. In sentencing, Judge Hale told him, “You brought yourself up by your bootstraps — you and your family — having come here from Nigeria with nothing but your talent, grit and determination. That is a great credit to you and your family. And you have blown it.” Those words still hurt Etuhu 11 years later. Because it’s true. He did blow it. As his barrister said, this was a young man with “no background of violence, no dishonesty, no trouble” but one incident left a “disgraceful blot” on his character and his record. The issue arose inside the casino, where Etuhu and his girlfriend at the time made a complaint that led to three men being asked to leave. When he and a friend left, the other men were waiting for them. They were confronted in the street, where things spiralled out of control. “As I left, they came back around to the front of the venue and they tried to attack me,” he says. “There were three of them and I defended myself. Do I regret what I did? Yes, of course I do. I had never had any problem like that before. I wasn’t looking for trouble. I was a professional footballer, 21 years old, playing for Manchester City at the time. They knew who I was and I think I was a target.” He was arrested at home the next morning and he describes the weeks and months that followed as “a horrible experience – because of the unknown, the uncertainty, not knowing what’s going to happen.” “My lawyer was saying because it was self-defence, because I’d never been in trouble before, because I’d character references that were brilliant, because no one had a bad word to say about me, I wouldn’t be going to prison,” Etuhu says. “I went to court and I had nothing else with me because I thought I would be going home afterwards. So then to get told I was getting a custodial sentence and getting sent downstairs, and that was the last time I was going to see my family for a long time… my whole world collapsed in that moment.” What was prison like? “Not nice,” he says. “It’s prison. I couldn’t believe I was in there. I was still thinking, ‘Is this a dream? Is this really happening?’ I’m not ashamed to say I cried myself to sleep that first night. “The worst thing was having no freedom. Not being able to walk around and do your own thing, pick up the phone to speak to someone. You get told what to do. You’re confined within four walls, sharing a small room and a toilet with someone you don’t know. People knew I was a footballer. Whenever anyone relatively high-profile came in, everyone knew. But they were respectful, actually. I didn’t have any problems. I even played in the football team in my third prison, which was Thorn Cross — an open prison.” Some people describe prison as a transformative experience. “And I can understand people saying prison changed them,” he says. “But honestly I don’t feel I went to prison as someone who needed to change. I did learn to become more appreciative of different things in life, because you learn things all the time in life, but I don’t believe I needed to reform my character. There was one incident, which I regret, which was out of character and done out of self-defence. It would be different if I was someone who had done something knowing the risk and knowing the consequences. But that scenario was nothing like that.” Did team-mates stay in touch? “Yes, a few of them,” he says. “Micah was there for me a lot. He was always in touch. Also Pete Lowe (Manchester City’s head of education at the time), Alex Gibson (former City academy coach) and Jim Cassell (the club’s former academy director). I did think I might get more help from the club, but I think they didn’t want any association with what happened. My contract was cancelled. They had made me aware that was a possibility and then, before the trial, they said they were letting me go regardless. They said it was too much.” There was a bittersweet moment in May 2011 when Manchester City beat Stoke City in the FA Cup final, ending the club’s 35-year wait for a major trophy. “I’ll never forget watching that in prison,” Etuhu says. “I was happy for them, watching my old team-mates and guys I had grown up with like Micah, seeing them pick up the FA Cup. I was so pleased for Micah. But at the same time, I felt broken because I felt I could have been there. Instead, I was in prison.” please log in to view this image City players celebrate the FA Cup final win against Stoke, which Etuhu watched from prison (Photo: Laurence Griffiths – The FA/The FA via Getty Images) Etuhu served three months of his sentence before being released subject to a home detention curfew. On his release, he hoped to resume his career. A trial was arranged with Leeds United, who were playing in the Championship under Simon Grayson, and he made a positive impression in training and a series of trial matches. He was told he had done enough to be offered a contract, but then everything went quiet and the explanation came back that the club did not want to sign an ex-convict. In desperation for a new start, he signed for Greek club Kavala, but the deal fell through. “At that point, I thought football was over for me,” he says. “I’d been out of prison and I’d been training for three months, unpaid, hoping to get a deal, and now I was told my conviction was going to be held against me. I thought, ‘You don’t know me. You haven’t spoken to me. You’re just making a judgement.’ I remember telling my mum, ‘It’s not going to work. Football is over for me. I’m going to have to quit.’ She said, ‘No, son. Don’t quit. Stay positive. I know something is going to come.’” Salvation came from Portsmouth and their manager Michael Appleton, who offered him a trial. This involved staying with his brother Dickson, who was now at Fulham, and driving to Portsmouth every day — again unpaid, with no guarantee of a contract. “Eventually they said, ‘We like what we see. The lads like you. Let’s do something,’” he says. “But two days later Portsmouth went into administration. They said, ‘Look, we want to sign you, but unfortunately, because of this administration process, so we can only sign you on an expenses deal.’ “I was being paid nothing, but I looked at it as a great opportunity and I thank Michael Appleton for giving me the opportunity to get back on track in football.” From there he moved to Barnsley, helping them escape relegation from the Championship under David Flitcroft, who then took him to Bury, where they won promotion to League One. From there it was on to Carlisle, where he spent two enjoyable seasons before the third was wrecked by injury. please log in to view this image Etuhu playing for Barnsley against his old side (Photo: ANDREW YATES/AFP via Getty Images) Did life in the lower divisions feel like a comedown after playing in the Premier League? “No, because you’re still playing for your team-mates and you’re still playing for the fans,” he says. “They’re paying good money to watch their team and it means so much to them. Whether you’re playing for 3,000 people or 50,000 people, you’ve got to respect the people who are paying to watch you, the people you’re playing with and also yourself. Winning promotion at Bury was my favourite season in my career. That was before their financial problems, which were such a shame, but you could see how much promotion meant to the fans and the whole club. “I had an OK career — some might say a good career — but if I’m speaking honestly, I can understand people saying I should have done more with the talent I had. With my ability, I feel like I could have been one of those players who played season after season in the Premier League. Because Dickson did. And most people say I was more talented than Dickson. When you look at his career, he had a good career. He played a lot of games in the Premier League and the Football League.” Dickson Etuhu also gained a level of notoriety in 2019 after being found guilty of match-fixing while playing in Sweden. He was banned from football for five years. Their other brother, Michael, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January last year as one of five men who admitted conspiracy to kidnap and plotting blackmail in the “gangland torture” of a man they wrongly believed to be a multi-millionaire crimelord. It creates an unedifying picture — and is one that Kelvin does not want to be a part of. “To be completely honest,” he says, “I haven’t had contact with my brothers for a number of years. Dickson had a very good career and played a lot of games and I think he’s in Scandinavia now, but we’re not on talking terms and I can put that out there. please log in to view this image Dickson Etuhu in action for Fulham against Arsenal (Photo: Scott Heavey/Getty Images) “Then my other brother (Michael). There was an incident, like you mentioned, and my name and picture were on the front page even though I had absolutely nothing to do with whatever went on. It said he was my agent. He’s never been my agent! Yes, he’s my brother, but we don’t speak. I had spent years doing a lot of positive things, thinking I’m getting to the other side and putting that behind me, and then all of a sudden my name and picture are there next to something like that.” Not every person who talks about moving on and putting the past behind them is able to live up to that pledge. But Kelvin Etuhu appears to be. Retiring from football marked a new start, not an ending. As well as becoming a father, he has embarked on a business career, having resumed the studies that were put on hold for years so that he could focus on football. “I always had a plan, financially and career-wise,” he says. “Maybe not the very first bit of my career, but later, especially after I was incarcerated, I became mindful of the need to be careful with my money — property, savings, investments, stocks and shares, investing in businesses — and start planning ahead. “A few years ago I invested in a company that does non-intrusive electrical energised testing, remote critical power asset monitoring. That’s with friends and business partners who have years of experience. We’ve got offices in London, Newcastle and Manchester and we want to keep growing — expand in the UK and then go global. “I’m also doing an electrical engineering course, which I’m very grateful to the PFA for helping me to finance. That will be my AM2, which will mean I’m qualified to do any form of commercial, domestic or industrial electrical engineering. “I was always academic at school back in Peckham. But from the age of 13, 14, when I moved to Manchester, the education courses were a bit different because I was training with the YTS lads, so I could only do college on certain days. I wanted to do A-Levels, but it got to the point where football totally took over my life. I just wanted to be a footballer. I kind of wish I had done these courses when I was playing because now I would be further on. But you live and learn.” Even though he didn’t reach the heights he hoped to as a footballer, the highs outweighed the disappointments. He knows he was one of the luckier ones. “And that’s the thing,” he says. “That’s why I always tell young players there are no guarantees. You have to make sure you take the academic side seriously. Have you seen the percentage of players in academies that make it to the Premier League? It’s less than one per cent. You can’t just put all your eggs in that one basket.” Etuhu knows that one incident will shape perceptions of him, but he hopes his story can ultimately be seen as a positive one. “I always say there are two worlds,” he says. “There’s the football world and then there’s the real world. We start off in the real world but then if you’re a professional footballer, you get taken out of the real world and placed into another world just before the start of your adult life. Then when you retire, you get placed back in the real world. To go from one to the other is really hard, even with the right support around you. “I’m just appreciative of the way my life is now — of having a direction, especially after football. My family is healthy, I don’t trouble anybody, nobody troubles me. I’ve got peace of mind. That’s all you can ask for.”
Agreed......we had a couple of very good years with an exciting team with fabulous attacking play but ultimately fell short of the silverware, and the cash went on the fish food !! Then the big dipper reached the summit and hurtled downnnnnnnn.
Elland we have had young talent who went astray and usually its their own fault. We see every year a number if our academy players being released or sold and even now I cannot think of any young player we released having made it into the top flight. Probably the closest has been Alex Mowatt but even he had some luck because Chris Dawson was ahead of him and after smashing it for the first team he got injured and Mowatt took his place. Chris Dawson was playing for some obscure non league outfit in the FA Cup the other night. I was always banging on about the skill and speed of Nial Huggins but Bielsa sold him after he played a couple of first team games. He is now at Sunderland but hardly played for weeks. Sunderland were well keen on signing him and Leeds were well keen on letting him go but with a 30% sell on clause. But so far Bielsa is right and hes gone from hero to zero in a few weeks really and that happens to plenty at ER every Summer and look at what we got rid of recently and all had had a go in the first team under Bielsa Mujica ......Las Palmas Casey ............Blackpool Huggins ……..Sunderland Gotts …………Barrow Hosannah ……Wrexham Stevens ………Barrow Kamwa ……… released
