My Leeds United - The six-year-old White who refused £40 bribe to become Manchester United fan

Shaun Cronin is a lifelong Leeds United supporter, journalist and content creator from Cork, Ireland.

“There will be a lot of powerful words people in this series will use to describe what Leeds United Football Club means to them.

You can expect words like love, passion, and pride - but, ‘connection’ immediately sprung to my mind when I sat down to write about what the club brings into my life.

It’s the 30-year-plus connection it has created between my father and I, the connection made with a classmate – who is now a friend for life – when I landed in college 140 miles from home and it’s a connection to a city in England, that I have zero family ties to, but feels like home every time I’m lucky enough to set foot in it.

Hopefully, I will have the pleasure of seeing Elland Road again soon once all this madness is over.

My Leeds United story can only start in one place, with my father, John Cronin.

Born in 1961, he has been lucky enough to remember seeing most of our major honours and great sides. In reality, I never stood a chance of supporting another team.

From a young age I’ve been obsessed with all sports, however soccer [yes, the dirty ‘s’ word, we have Gaelic Football over here] was first love.

There is also what I like to term as a ‘Red Wall’ in Ireland when it comes to English football. Even today, it’s almost a straight choice between Liverpool and Manchester United – it’s pretty out of the ordinary to support anyone else, although a full Ryanair plane of Leeds fans leaves Dublin for every home game.

One of the bricks in that Red Wall was my grandfather on my mother’s side, he was the biggest Man United fan you will ever meet and once organised a whip around in the local to convince a six-year-old me to change over to the dark side.

He managed to collect a whopping 40 pounds and offered it to me to make the switch. Of course, instead of just taking the money and changing back a week later, I couldn’t do it and ran to my dad crying.

It was an emotion I’d get used to over the next 25 years thanks to Leeds, but I still make it over twice-a-year and watch every game I possibly can with the old man.

We even break out the scarfs across the sitting room chairs for bigger games, and the Whites are often our first topic of conversation when I walk in the door at home.

I wouldn’t change that relationship for anything.

But, after years of despair and near misses, Marcelo Biesla’s leadership has made our connection to the team stronger than ever before in my living memory [I was four in 1991-92 before anyone gives out].

It may not be possible, but I really want us to be able to finish off this season – successfully – so I can share it with my Dad and my regular travel companion to games, Barry Dunne.

Lets face it, we’ve waited long enough. So what’s another few months eh?

MOT everyone, and stay safe.