A TRIBUTE TO JAMIE EKINS & SØREN TRAPP

I believe that blogging should be about personal opinions and views, therefore my blog is not a news feed, match reports or copied material from  the web. I am writing about MY Leeds United, the things I have gained from being a fan of Leeds, and my views on transfers, players, chairmen, matches and so on. This blog is written as a tribute to the two men who have the biggest stake in me being as big a Leeds fan as I am. So Jamie & Søren, this is for you!

I grew up in a pretty normal family, mom and dad, older brother and sister and later on a little sister too. We lived in a small town outside Ribe, Denmark – we enjoyed watching and playing football. My dad and brother, and later on my little sister too, were big Manchester United fans, and tried their best to lure me into the arms of the enemy. I have always been a pretty confident kid, and liked to tease my dad so of course he would have no success in his attempts, actually I didn’t really support any team, I just liked playing and watching the game.

That all changed one August evening in 1995, I turned on the sporting news and saw the greatest goal I had ever seen, you guessed it, Tony Yeboahs stunning volley against Liverpool – I was sold! My golf coach, Jamie Ekins, had tried for some years to make me a Leeds fan, and on this evening his quest ended and I’ve never looked back. Becoming a Leeds fan was great, Jamie and I took drives to Esbjerg to watch games on TV and always had loads to talk about after the games – he told me about the great team of the sixties and seventies, and the history of our great club. My dad to this day thinks that Jamie, who is his golf coach too, brainwashed me, but he actually likes that I am a Leeds fan, because we have fun teasing each other (especially on January 3^rd 2010, or maybe that was just me). Oddly enough Jamie’s own son did the opposite switch and became a Manchester United fan.

As I grew older my passion for Leeds grew with me, throughout my school years I might not have paid proper attention to the teachers because I was playing football manager or thinking of the next Leeds game, but I did manage to graduate though, and when I finished school, I travelled to London for six months with my best friend. England opened my eyes for football and Leeds United even further, never have I seen such passion for the beautiful game, I bought everything with LUFC on in that I could get my hands on, meaning that I had to sail home instead of flying due to massive overweight. When I returned from England, Leeds were flying high in the Champions League, finally we were getting what we deserved, or at least we thought so, Leeds United crashed and burned, but my love for the whites just kept growing.

In 2004 I made the odd decision to move to Kolding, a medium size town (by Danish measures) with about 85000 residents, out of those 85000 there were 1 Leeds fan, me. Leeds played some rather boring seasons in the two years I lived in Kolding, and my interest in them seemed to fade a bit, I only checked leedsunited.com once a day and was not longer glued to the screen following the lads on teletext and only very few games were shown on TV. After watching Leeds lose the playoff final in 2006, I was sitting in my living room in Kolding watching the World Cup, and thinking that something had to change, I had outgrown Kolding and felt bored and unhappy there. I started looking for a bigger and hopefully better place to spend my time, and agreed with myself that Odense was it. I quit my job in Kolding a month later and started looking for work in Odense. I quickly found a job, and also quickly found a local pub with loads of football fans – Leeds were going to build on the lost playoff final and get promoted the following season I dreamt. We all know that the season ended up sending us into League 1 for three years. I found out that pub, Kick Off, showed Leeds games rather often so decided that I had to get back to my old self, supporting Leeds in a massive way. The first game I saw on the pub was against Preston in March 2007, I got there a bit late, so Leeds were down 1-0 when I joined the party of 10-15 Leeds fans watching the game.  Robbie Blake equalized and in the dying seconds David Healy got the winner, the following episode is rather blurry, but it is described the way I remember it. When Healy scored I jumped from my seat, up on a table being extremely happy, and suddenly saw the owner of the bar grab me, I remember thinking that I would probably get kicked out, but no, he was even as ecstatic as me, this was the first time I met Søren Trapp. After meeting the guy who, in my opinion, is the biggest Leeds fan ever, I started coming more and more on the pub watching games with Søren, sadly the season ended with me crying on the bar and Leeds being relegated to League 1.

Søren and I agreed that even though it was now League 1 we would just keep being crazy Leeds fans and supporting the lads, and we sure have, and we had our ups and downs as the Leeds song goes. We have had playoff misery (I still remember fondly burning a Doncaster scarf after the final loss), player sales we did not agree with, a at times crazy chairman, but through all this we have supported Leeds United. My biggest and best experience with Leeds came in February 2010 when Søren and I took a trip to Leeds, he had been there a few times, but for me it was a first – It was brilliant, we saw two games, meet all the players and just had fun spending time in the best city in the world. In September 2010 we went back, this time with Søren’s wonderful girlfriend Britt and two other Leeds fans from Odense, Allan & Andreas and once again the city did not let us down – I guess that following a team for so long gives you a sense of belonging even if you grow up thousands of kilometers away. This October Søren and I will once again pack our bags and travel to Leeds to see the mighty whites beat Cardiff and Blackpool, and I am sure that we will have a much fun as we did the previous times there.

So Jamie Ekins, thank you for showing me what it was like to be a Leeds fan and sharing all you knowledge about Leeds with me. And Søren Trapp thank you for bringing me back from “TV supporter” to full blood, life or death Leeds fan and thank you for our wonderful trips to Elland Road and back, I hope there is many more to come.