So the time has finally come that The Championship’s most inconsistent manager Kevin Blackwell of my beloved Leeds United has had his marching orders, he took over in May 2004, and managed to get us to the play off final, now if he only he had told his players it was the play off final and not just a day trip out to Cardiff, things could have been so different and we wouldn’t find ourselves second from bottom and on a fall from glory nearly as fast as Sam Allardyce’s looks set to be.

This interestingly leads us on to who will be the next person to take over at Elland Road, and i’m afraid to say who ever it is Leeds fans will surely be dissapointed, i first started supporting Leeds when they were in the equivelant league they are in now, and were managed by Howard Wilkinson, he was then replaced by George Graham who at the time was out of football because of a bung scandal, (funny how these things come round again) he then left us for Spurs and we replaced him with wait for it ….. his assitant, now David O’Leary did a good job no denying that before he was sacked and replaced with Terry Venables, who had been out of the game for a while, so we got rid of him and replaced with Peter Reid who proved his managerial skills by being unable to recognise Ian Harte (his own player at the time) on A Question Of Sport, he kept us up, but then he had to go to, and Eddie Gray, another assistant took over, only for his assitant Kevin Blackwell to come and go.

What i guess i’m trying to say it doesn’t really matter who leeds get linked with the likelyhood is they will make the wrong choice, Alan Curbishley seems the most likely candidate at the moment and that would not really be a suprise as he appears to be Mr Reliable, i mentioned to Alan in the forums, that we might get O’Leary back and he seemed suprised i suggested it, but if i’m honest i don’t blame him, it was all Risdales fault, who would be my ideal candidate, well apparently Ken Bates is very good friends with Claudio Raneiri and if that was to happen i would finally get my dream of a big name manager who may actually do something, and who wouldn’t like to have Claudio’s wisdom back in the Premiership.

I heard on the radio today that Kevin Blackwell the Leeds Manger was disappointed about the state of the pitch at the Millennium Stadium after the rugby match that had been played the previous day. Boothroyd’s response had been ‘I’ve got no problems with the pitch’ I wish I had of acted on my instincts and gone online to www.betandwin.com One o

As I followed the build up to the game, the richest game in world football valued at between ?20 million and ?40 million depending who you listen too. A common theme coming from the mouths of the reporters and the Watford players was that Boothroyd gets the extra 1% out of his players. I was reminded about what Muhammad Ali did in the build up to his title fights, he was a master of the psychological battle, so much so that his opponents were often defeated before they got in the ring. Ali would make a series of statements over time that were true, they would have the effect in the mind of his opponent that everything he said was true and this would build up to a climax that he would drop them to the floor in four.

So what had Boothroyd done in the lead up to the big game. He’d met up with Clive Woodward, no matter what you think about Woodward, he is a World Cup winner, his book is probably the best sports/business book that I have ever read. Don’t be surprised when Clive Woodward gets his hands on a team if he does an Aidy Boothroyd.

The other act of looking for the extra 1% that impressed me about what Boothroyd instigated in the build up was to have a practice penalty shoot out immediately after their final home league game. The Watford fans were still present. His reasoning was that it was important to test the players in a pressure environment and that it would have been a totally different scenario testing his players out on the training ground. The genius in doing this was twofold:

1. In the event of a penalty shootout his players would have been better prepared and been more confidant

2. The Leeds players would have heard about Watford had done and would likely have that seed of doubt in their minds just like Muhammad Ali’s opponents.

Like life in general the difference between winning and losing is often the cumulative effect of those 1% actions. The difference between a successful relationship and divorce is often the cumulative effect of lots of 1% decisions.

What are the lessons that we can learn from Boothroyd that we can use in our everyday life. Lets ask some questions.

What area of your life do you want to do better in?
What are you going to do to get those improvements?
What are some 1% actions you can implement in the area you choose to improve in.

The question is do you want your life to be lived in the Premier League or are you going to settle for the Ryman Isthmian League or worse still Sunday league.

Gavin Allinson is a Total Success Life Coach. He is in the process of writing a book titled ‘Life Lessons from the world of football’. Subscribe to his blog here as he creates the content for his book
http://totalsuccesscoach.typepad.com/lifes_football_lessons/

Ande Smallwood is our new guest columnist for Marching On Hopefully, a Leeds United column

So we didn?t manage to gain automatic promotion, and a lot of people me included never thought we would get as far, but the chance for us to sneak in was there, unfortunately due to being unable to score for nearly 10 hours it was not to be, and we find ourselves thrust into a 4 team cup competition to try and muster our way to play against the big boys next season,

With our apparent success I have however been on the receiving end of one of the stranger questions in the world of football, do you want Leeds to be promoted? Now normally that wouldn?t even be a question, how many other teams? fans, do you know get asked if they want to play Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal, or travel to Plymouth, Ipswich and Hull? Not to mention the increased TV coverage and financial implications.

The problem is that a lot of people seem to think I should be worried that once, or should I say if, for the time being we were to get promoted will we find ourselves coming straight back down again, and I have to admit that yes that is a possibility, but one that is surely worth the risk. Peter Risdale is out and Ken Bates is in, meaning less spent on feeding fish and sensible decisions like not opening all the ground on a match day, as it wouldn?t fill, are put in place.

It may only be one season and we may end up with a record worse than Sunderland have managed this season, if that?s even possible, but it will be financially beneficial, who knows we may even resign Robbie Fowler, we are of course paying his wages anyway, so the answer is yes, of course I want Leeds to be promoted, do you want your team to stay in the same league and not get promotion, didn?t think so.