Elland Road will not look or feel the same after coronavirus but Leeds United, love and legacy live on - Graham Smyth

Elland Road will not look the same when 36,000 eventually stream back through the gates for a game of football.
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By then, of course, the grand old stadium may well have hosted fixtures without the crowd present, but it is much more preferable to imagine the first time the doors open to supporters again.

That will signal that some form of normality has broken out and we will have returned to the lives we were leading before a virus changed the world.

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Sadly, tragically, some will not. There will be absentees on that day, Whites who will never again walk through Lowfields underpass or cross the road from The Peacock before climbing the steps to be greeted by sights and sounds they have missed so much. They won’t retake their seats, greet their neighbours like long-lost friends or leaf through the programme.

Norman Hunter’s absence will be so keenly felt; the man was a giant, in stature, achievement and presence.

It was during Hunter’s effortless story telling, at the club’s centenary dinner, alongside fellow legends Johnny Giles and Eddie Gray, that the penny dropped for this correspondent as to just how big Leeds United Football Club really is.

These were men who existed at the very top of the game, on the domestic and European stage. They won the lot, at home, and deserved to do the same abroad. Hunter was part of a World Cup winning England squad.

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When you consider how adored and feted today’s Leeds players are, as a highly talented Championship side, the love and esteem with which Whites held and hold the all-conquering Revie Boys must have been akin to Beatlemania – their competitive ‘edge’ would probably see them just miss out on sainthood.

DIFFERENT: Elland Road will not look the same when Leeds United and their supporters return to the stadium. Pic: Tony Johnson.DIFFERENT: Elland Road will not look the same when Leeds United and their supporters return to the stadium. Pic: Tony Johnson.
DIFFERENT: Elland Road will not look the same when Leeds United and their supporters return to the stadium. Pic: Tony Johnson.

They were superstars but, by every single account, Hunter was as down to earth as they come. As good a human being as he was a footballer.

An Elland Road without Hunter is difficult to imagine and life on the media gantry, where he would pound his fist on the desk and kick and head every ball as passionately as any Leeds born-and-bred diehard, will not be the same again. The legendary defender and anyone else the Leeds United family lose before this horrific period is over, will be missed terribly.

And even many of those who do take their seats the first time it is possible, will do so having suffered greatly through loss and will still be feeling the effects of grief as the whistle blows to resume the collective Leeds United experience.

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Graham Greenall, the larger-than-life steward who looks after the media on matchdays and whose cheery ‘Marcelo Bielsa, guys’ heralds the arrival of the head coach to each press conference, lost his beloved wife Yvonne to this awful virus.

PRESENCE: Norman Hunter, pictured with club owner Andrea Radrizzani, was a giant of a man for Leeds United, during and after his playing careerPRESENCE: Norman Hunter, pictured with club owner Andrea Radrizzani, was a giant of a man for Leeds United, during and after his playing career
PRESENCE: Norman Hunter, pictured with club owner Andrea Radrizzani, was a giant of a man for Leeds United, during and after his playing career

For him and for others, Elland Road may well become a sanctuary, a place of welcome distraction, even if just for 90 minutes, from the nightmare they have endured.

It will not look the same, it will not feel the same but the shared matchday experience will represent the same thing for everyone – hope and togetherness.

The emotion, as the first strains of Marching On Together ring out, from the Norman Hunter South Stand, will be nigh-on overwhelming and the strength of feeling will spill out of teary eyes all over the ground.

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The first goal, scored in an opposition net, will evoke a guttural, cathartic roar to make every hair on the back of every neck stand.

And the first win will bring the house down.

This is a football club that has always been a big noise in this country, but it was made truly great by men like Don Revie, Billy Bremner and Norman Hunter.

While legends die, love, legacy and Leeds live on.

When football returns, the responsibility for carrying that legacy, one that won hearts and minds and created pockets of Whites the world over, will rest on everyone associated with the club, from the owner to the players, to the stewards, ballboys and fans.

Elland Road won’t look the same ever again but it is still home, for Leeds. It will always be home.

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