City's fan-tastic show of support (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

City's fan-tastic show of support

2:06pm Friday 5th September 2008

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The lady cooking burgers outside the Peacock pub could hardly believe it.

“It’s just like a real match,” she told her follow chef as the queue built up across the way from Elland Road.

Kick-off was still 90 minutes away but there were people everywhere. Just like a real match indeed.

But this was the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, the ugly duckling cup that nobody usually bothers with.

Just like the old gag about ringing up to find out when the game starts and being told “when can you get here?”

Attendances aren’t so much one man and his dog; more like just the dog.

Look at the crowds from the first round: 1,755 at Scunthorpe, 1,412 watching Dagenham, 1,530 enjoying Exeter and Shrewsbury, 1,665 and 1,339 gripped by the penalty shoot-outs at Chesterfield and Brentford.

One figure stuck out like a sore thumb: Leeds United v Bradford City, attendance 20,128.

In total, 51,851 fans up and down the country watched 16 games in the cup devised for the bottom two divisions. So that means almost 40 per cent of those were at Elland Road.

Even City’s away following of 4,278 bettered every other crowd. There were 800 more behind the goal than at Southend and Leyton Orient, the second “biggest” audience.

Only once in the competition’s 24-year history has a larger crowd turned up for a game outside the final. And that one at Sheffield Wednesday against Blackpool in 2004 was for a northern area final second leg where the winner on the night went to the Millennium Stadium showpiece.

It wasn’t the first round, the bottom rung of the ladder of a cup at the bottom of priorities for every team.

Of course, the Tuesday turn-out had absolutely nothing to do with the competition. This was about a local derby that had been shoved on the back-burner for seven years since City were walloped 6-1 and Stuart McCall tried to put the nut on Andy Myers.

Amid the three relegations and two administrations that have followed, City fans have wondered if they would ever get the chance to redress the balance. The fact that the opportunity finally arose in the JPT shows how far Leeds have plummeted as well from those halcyon days of May 2001 and Kewell, Viduka and Smith.

But like a boxing match between two rival fighters with an alphabet title at stake, this was all about the contest itself and not the reward on offer.

In the eyes of the magnificent claret and amber army, who sung their hearts out until well after the final whistle, this was their chance for payback.

They were met with the inevitable jibes about “your cup final” from the Leeds end.

And yes, there was that crackle in the air which you don’t experience at Macclesfield or Aldershot.

But don’t tell me that the home fans, however much they pretend otherwise, didn’t feel an extra buzz that they wouldn’t get in League One against the likes of Bristol Rovers or today’s visitors Crewe.

Gary McAllister spoke afterwards about bringing back more derby nights against the Sheffield sides and the big one with Manchester United. Fanciful thinking for now.

Huddersfield are coming next month but that will have to go some to beat the atmosphere that a League Two team brought the other night.

For Leeds punters, not to mention any burger-stall proprietors, I don’t think the Johnstone’s second round will hold quite the same relish.