Forget Twitter mockery and book the open-top bus parade if Leeds United finish midtable - Daniel Chapman

Some people were glad to see fans back in Premier League stadiums last weekend. Not me. Most of them were Londoners. What good is that to anyone?

And what good are 2,000 fans? Yes, technically, up to 4,000 are allowed in Tier 1 areas. But, at the moment, that comprises Neil Warnock’s back garden in Cornwall and precious little else, and offered that, I’ll take the precious little, thanks.

Last week, Angus Kinnear was making two key pleas: please don’t argue about the ticket ballot, and please don’t be upset when you go to games again but it’s rubbish.

He’s well placed to warn that it’s not how it was. Pre-match pubs replaced by temperature checks and queuing. The heat of a crowd replaced by chilling separation. Limbs might be possible when we score, but they’ll need a running jump and contravene conditions of entry.

We’ll have to cling to it being better than nothing, but we shouldn’t forget we’re still owed much more. After winning the Championship in July we had the open-top bus, sort of, but we definitely didn’t have the parade. My diary is still pretty empty, so any time you like, Leeds, any time you like.

Timing is everything and people might say that moment has passed. I say it’s about grabbing the opportunity, seizing the day.

Aston Villa must have been tempted last season. A final-day draw with West Ham kept them in the Premier League and, much as we regret Covid-19’s impact on celebrating our promotion, their fans must wish they could have that day again, a weekend of hoopla and rejoicing.

On one hand it’s pathetic. If you’re celebrating staying up by a point, what else are you capable of? Crying when your coach isn’t nominated for a FIFA award?

But then again, why not? The Premier League offers too few revels outside the ‘big six’. Our game at Chelsea showed what we’re up against pound for pound – or five hundred million pounds – for Chelsea’s squad, a fifth of that for ours.

Those circumstances have long-since blunted new-season hopes for clubs with longer Premier League tenures than ours.

You might qualify for the Europa League. You might finish top-half. You might stay up. Those are the prizes on offer: but, if you even think about celebrating them, don’t be surprised when you’re laughed at.

Leeds are now being lulled into this false serenity. Losing 3-1 to Chelsea should be enraging – listening to their shrieking fans was. But it was shrugged off easily and we’re moving on quickly: West Ham next, then Newcastle. The unnatural order of the Premier League has imposed itself so thoroughly that we already know our place.

At least our place is with the mid-table also-rans rather than down among the bleak. We’ve left West Brom and Fulham behind, fast, and taken no time overtaking Sheffield United.

Even so, it’s hard not to feel like an opportunity is being missed. Last weekend was our first visit to Stamford Bridge since the dark day in 2004 when we were already down. But what about flashing back to Highbury in 2003, when Mark Viduka’s 88th-minute winner kept us up so dramatically?

You’re not supposed to enjoy moments like that. We’d been playing Barcelona and Real Madrid a matter of months earlier. But, as an explosion of adrenalin and joyful abandon, staying up that day was hard to beat, even set against the Champions League.

We won nothing from it except one more terrible year at the top until relegation claimed us. But so what? What a moment and what a party. It’s what we want to get back into stadiums for, into pubs, onto streets.

It’s probably not worth getting drawn into a relegation battle just to live it again, although I can’t say I’m not tempted. Mid-table safety is a nice target for this season, on paper. But a suspenseful final-day battle against catastrophe? You could inject that into my veins and hold the Covid-19 vaccine for later.

Leeds are just a bit too good for that this season, which takes us back to my original thought. We’re all hoping to tick off delayed plans in 2021. That family celebration, the foreign holiday, those half a million people on the streets of Leeds celebrating promotion with the players the way we wanted to in July. If Euro 2020 can happen in 2021, why not this?

An open-top bus parade for finishing 12th or wherever is prime fodder for mocking tweets from Chelsea fans. But what is a tweet worth against real-life fun? It’s so hard these days to be happy. Maybe in a post-Covid future, we’ll learn to take our chances.