Leeds United chief on letter from Real Madrid, EFL discussions, Howard Wilkinson's lecture and Andrea Radrizzani's 'unrealistic expectations'

The week after Norman’s passing was always going to be a challenge for everyone associated with the club, but the thousands of messages of condolence that we received lifted our spirits and proved that the whole of the global football community held him in the same high esteem that we did.

Messages came in from clubs, players and supporters and it is a testament to Norman’s stature as a man and player that so many opposing supporters felt compelled to write to express their admiration of him as a both player and a gentleman.

We even received a personal letter from Spanish legend Emilio Butragueño, on behalf of everyone at Real Madrid.

Emilio described Norman as ‘a legendary player who set the standards for future generations’.

We were delighted to be able to announce that the South Stand will be renamed ‘The Norman Hunter Stand’ as a fitting tribute to his contribution to Leeds United.

The fact that this honour has previously only been reserved for Don Revie and John Charles shows quite where Norman ranks in the greatest of the greats.

The honour should ensure that millions of football fans who never had the opportunity to see him play will continue to know his name and that tales of his heroics will be passed down through generations of Leeds Supporters.

Our discussions with the governing bodies of football continued this week and despite press reports of regional leagues and the premature curtailment of League’s One and Two everyone across the EFL, the Premier League and the FA and UEFA remains firm that the primary objective is to complete this season when it is safe to do so.

The conversations between the EFL board and Club CEO’s has never been more collegiate and a huge amount of work has been undertaken with medical professionals on scenario planning the safest ways to return to competitive action.

In the meantime our players [along with the rest of the EFL] have been released on ‘holiday’ [in the loosest sense of the word] to ensure that they are contracted to play across July.

The reality is they are all safe isolating with the added complexity of having to send a daily picture of their weight on their bathroom scales to our strength and conditioning team.

Our Foundation team continue to work across the city of Leeds in facilitating the delivery of food to those in our community who most needed.

This week their endeavours were significantly boosted by our good friends at Clipper Logistics who have provided them with a 40ft refrigerated trailer which will step-change their delivery capacities.

Meanwhile many of our staff have been engaged in our online diploma in leadership in football and were delighted that the surprise guest lecturer this week was Howard Wilkinson.

Howard talked about mental and physical resilience in football leadership and the ability to make quick decisions in challenging situations.

He concluded by sharing his recent statistical analysis across all four English divisions that the last nine matches had little impact on final finishing positions of the top two.

Many businesses leaders have challenged organisations to use the period in lockdown to become more creative.

This has not been embraced more enthusiastically than in our decision to instruct five year old Daniel Auton to lead negotiations to secure the long term services of Ben White.

Whilst his initial offer of £15.07 was rebuffed by Brighton CEO Paul Barber we know that Daniel will not be fooled by this transparent bluff of playing hardball and will counter with a cosmetic uplift to get the deal over the line.

In other footballing matters Rob Callery was named as our new head coach in the EFL’s Football Manager 2020 Cup.

Inspired by this, and in an effort to relive the boredom of another fixture free weekend, I thought I would relive how I spent much of the 1990’s and buy the latest edition of the game.

After being appointed to replace Marcelo Bielsa I discovered that the new format of the game revolves around an email inbox.

The first three messages I received were; an outline of unrealistic expectations for the season from Andrea, a list of three foreign transfer targets I had never heard of from Victor and a list of unexpected and long term injuries incurred in pre-season from head of medicine Rob Price.

It was at this point I realised I had just wasted £12 on recreating my real job in the virtual world.

Finally, in a world shrouded in bad medical news, it was amazing to hear that Dominic Matteo has made a superb recovery from his recent illness.

The champagne order for the directors’ box will be increased in anticipation of his welcome return.