2009–10 Leeds United F.C. season

Events

This is a list of the significant events to occur at the club during the 2008–09 season, presented in chronological order (starting from 15 May 2009 and ending on the final day of the club's final match in the 2009–10 season). This list does not include transfers or new contracts, which are listed in the transfers section below, or match results, which are in the matches section.

May

15 May: The eight new academy scholars for the 2009–10 season are revealed to be: James Baxendale, Jonathan Birbeck, James Booker, Alex Cairns, Joe McCann, Sanchez Payne, Lewis Turner and Nathan Turner.

26 May: The club's top goalscorer in the 2008–09 season, Jermaine Beckford, rejects a three-year contract offer from the club. As a result, the club put the player on the transfer list.

June

17 June: The League One fixtures for the 2009–10 season are released with Leeds' first match against Exeter City at Elland Road. The final game of the season will be against Bristol Rovers at home.

July

2 July: The players return to Thorp Arch for pre-season training.

8 July: The club state that they will be investigating the circumstances surrounding academy product Luke Garbutt's move to Everton.

9 July: The club announce that they have rejected bids from two Premier League clubs for starlet Fabian Delph. They also reveal that they have rejected unacceptable bids for Jermaine Beckford.

17 July: Jermaine Beckford is taken off the transfer list.

24 July: The squad numbers for the new season are announced. Richard Naylor is given the number 6 shirt replacing Ľubomír Michalík who moves to number 17. Paul Huntington swaps to number 24 with Patrick Kisnorbo taking his number 3 shirt. Meanwhile, new recruits Jason Crowe and Shane Higgs take the number 2 and 12 jerseys respectively.

31 July: Richard Naylor is appointed the new club captain.

August

4 August: Chairman, Ken Bates revealed that the club had agreed a fee with Manchester City for Fabian Delph; however City needed to have the bid approved by their owners in the Gulf and required a week to do so. As a result, Leeds rejected City's bid and accepted another bid from Aston Villa. Delph later agreed terms with Villa and was transferred for a fee worth up to £8 million.

6 August: Jonny Howson is announced as the new club vice-captain.

September

5 September: The 2–0 home win against Stockport County sees the club record their best ever start to a season with eight successive victories; the previous best start to a season was in 1973 – the season in which Don Revie won his second First Division title as manager of Leeds. Another club record is beaten with the victory the club's fourteenth successive home league win.

17 September: Leeds City Council offer to re-purchase the club's training ground, Thorp Arch, which was sold by the club to businessman Jacob Adler in 2004. The deal would see the Council renting Thorp Arch to the club with an option for the club to purchase the facility at the end of the lease.

October

16 October: The club announce that they chose not to exercise the option of re-purchasing Thorp Arch from Barnaway Ltd. before the 23:59 deadline on 15 October.

December

16 December: The club's stadium, Elland Road is chosen as one of the fourteen venues for the 2018 World Cup should England be successful in being chosen as the host country.

January

3 January: Leeds United make FA Cup history by becoming the first team outside the Premier League to eliminate Manchester United in Alex Ferguson's managerial career. In doing so, Leeds ended a 29-year streak without a win at Old Trafford.

6 January: The club confirm that Jermaine Beckford handed in a transfer request on 30 December and that the request was accepted.

17 January: Jermaine Beckford withdraws his transfer request, committing himself to the club until the end of his contract at the end of the current season.

February

9 February: Three Leeds players are punched by opposition fans after the club lose to Carlisle United on penalties in the Football League Trophy area final second leg.

March

13 March: The club's youth team finish the Emirates Airlines Dubai Sevens tournament as runners-up having beaten Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers and Celtic in previous rounds. The team lost 2–0 to Olympiacos in the final.

April

3 April: Striker Trésor Kandol is fined by the club after being sent off for violent conduct just twenty seconds after coming on the field of play as a substitute in the 1–0 defeat to Norwich City. The red card is the second Kandol has received this season having been sent-off after the final whistle for violent conduct earlier on in the season.

17 April: The club qualify for the League One 2009–10 play-offs after 7th place Colchester United lose to Hartlepool United. Even if Colchester win all of their three remaining games and Leeds lose all of theirs, Colchester would still be three points adrift of Leeds in the final league table.

May

8 May: The club come second in the league and thus finally secure automatic promotion to The Championship after a nailbiting season finale against Bristol Rovers. With Max Gradel sent off in the first half and the club conceding a goal early in the second half, the Leeds fans feared that they would have to settle for a play-off place; but Jonathan Howson and Jermaine Beckford each scored within four minutes to make the score 2–1 to Leeds and secure their promotion.

Squad information

Appearances (starts and substitute appearances) and goals include those in The Championship (and playoffs), League One (and playoffs), FA Cup, League Cup and Football League Trophy.
¹Player first came to the club on loan and was transferred the following year.
²Player joined the club in 2008 as a scholar. He is presently a 2nd year scholar and is not currently signed to the club on professional terms.
Squad includes players registered with the club on the last day of the season (8 May 2010) only.

Squad stats

Last updated: 10 May 2010
Source: Leeds United
Ordered by Squad Numbers
0 shown as blank

Most frequent starting line-up

Most frequent starting line-up uses the team's most used formation: 4–4–2. The players used are those who have played the most games in each respective position, not necessarily who have played most games out of all the players.

Captains

Last updated: 10 May 2010
Source: Competitive match reports.
Competitive matches only
Matches started as captain only
Country: FIFA nationality; No.: Squad number; P: Position; Name: Player name; No. Games: Number of games started as captain.

Assists

Last updated:10 May 2010
Source: BBC Sport

Disciplinary record

Last updated: 10 May 2010
Source: BBC Sport
Only competitive matches
= Number of bookings; = Number of sending offs after a second yellow card; = Number of sending offs by a direct red card.

In

¹Transfer fee was officially undisclosed, however it was reported by The Times that the fee was £250,000.
²The club has the option of extending the player's contact by an additional year.

Loans In

Sources: For loan start source see "Start source". For loan end source see "End source".
EU = if holds or not a European Union passport; Country: when 2 flags, 1st flag = country that plays for internationally, 2nd flag = country of birth; No. = number on jersey; P = Position (for position name, pause mouse pointer on abbreviation); Name = Name on jersey (for more extensive name, pause mouse pointer on name); In/Out = In: The player came in on loan, Out: The player went out on loan; Loan club = the club that the player moved on loan to or the club that the player came from on loan; Started = the date when the player's loan started; Ended = the date when the player's loan ended.

Loans Out

Sources: For loan start source see "Start source". For loan end source see "End source".
EU = if holds or not a European Union passport; Country: when 2 flags, 1st flag = country that plays for internationally, 2nd flag = country of birth; No. = number on jersey; P = Position (for position name, pause mouse pointer on abbreviation); Name = Name on jersey (for more extensive name, pause mouse pointer on name); In/Out = In: The player came in on loan, Out: The player went out on loan; Loan club = the club that the player moved on loan to or the club that the player came from on loan; Started = the date when the player's loan started; Ended = the date when the player's loan ended.

Out

EU = if holds or not a European Union passport; Country: when 2 flags, 1st flag = country that plays for internationally, 2nd flag = country of birth; N = number on jersey; P = Position (for position name, pause mouse pointer on abbreviation); Name = Name on jersey (for more extensive name, pause mouse pointer on name); Age = age on the day of the signing; Moving from = only indicate the club the player was playing before start playing for this club in this season, for the type of the moving see Status column; Moving to = only indicates the club the player is going to play next, for the type of the moving see Status column; Ends = when the player's current contract ends; n/a = Not applicable.
¹The Professional Football Compensation Committee decided that Everton should pay Leeds an initial compensation fee of £600,000 followed by £200,000 upon Garbutt's first full international appearance and £150,000 after the player has made 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40 appearances (thus totalling £750,000 from this final clause). It was also ruled that Leeds should receive 20% of any profit that Everton makes from future sale of the player.
²Transfer fee was officially undisclosed, however it was reported by The Guardian that the fee was approximately an upfront £6 million with an additional £2 million in variables.
³The total compensation fee for the two academy players was reported by the Mail Online to be £800,000.

New Contracts

Last updated:

Kit

Supplier: Macron
Sponsor(s): NetFlights.com
Features: OHS

Source: Leeds United (Macron)(registration required), Leeds United (NetFlights.com)

Club officials

Includes staff currently registered with club only.

First team coaching and medical staff

Includes staff currently registered with club only.

Other staff

Includes staff currently registered with club only.

Other information

Last updated: 15 May 2009
Source: Leeds United

Overall summary

Last updated: 12 Apr 2010
Source: Competitions

Table

Updated to games played on 8 May 2010.
Source: The Football League
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) number of goals scored
(C) = Champion; (R) = Relegated; (P) = Promoted; (E) = Eliminated; (O) = Play-off winner; (A) = Advances to a further round.
Only applicable when the season is not finished:
(Q) = Qualified to the phase of tournament indicated; (TQ) = Qualified to tournament, but not yet to the particular phase indicated; (RQ) = Qualified to the relegation tournament indicated; (DQ) = Disqualified from tournament.

Results summary

Last updated: 3 May 2009.
Source: The Football League

Results by round

Last updated: 3 May 2009.
Source: Competitive Matches
Ground: A = Away; H = Home. Result: D = Draw; L = Loss; W = Win; P = Postponed.

Official Player of the Year Awards

The results of the 2009–10 Leeds United A.F.C. Player of the Year Awards were announced at a dinner on 8 May 2010 at Elland Road.

Player of the Year: Patrick Kisnorbo

Young Player of the Year: Aidan White

Players' Player of the Year: Patrick Kisnorbo

Goal of the Season: Jermaine Beckford (vs Manchester United, 3 January)

Best Contribution to Community: Leigh Bromby, Jonathan Howson and Ben Parker

Chairman's Special Award: Ben Parker

League One Team of the Week

The following Leeds players have been selected in the official League One team of the week.

10 August: Jermaine Beckford, Michael Doyle [1]

17 August: Shane Higgs, Andy Hughes [2]

24 August: Jason Crowe, Bradley Johnson [3]

31 August: Jermaine Beckford, Bradley Johnson [4]

7 September: Jason Crowe [5]

21 September: Jonny Howson, Bradley Johnson [6]

28 September: Patrick Kisnorbo [7]

2 November: Richard Naylor [8]

23 November: Jermaine Beckford, Neil Kilkenny, Robert Snodgrass [9]

7 December: Robert Snodgrass [10]

21 December: Leigh Bromby, Robert Snodgrass [11]

1 February: Jermaine Beckford, Richard Naylor [12]

8 February: Luciano Becchio [13]

6 April: Richard Naylor [14]

26 April: Luciano Becchio [15]

Other Awards

PFA Team of the Year (League One): Patrick Kisnorbo, Robert Snodgrass

PFA Fans' Player of the Month (League One): Robert Snodgrass (August/September), Jermaine Beckford (October, December)

League One Player of the Year: Jermaine Beckford

LMA Performance of the Week Award: vs Manchester United (3 January, 1–0, FA Cup)

Johnstone's Paint Trophy Ultimate Finish Award: Neil Kilkenny (vs Accrington Stanley, 15 December)

Yorkshire Evening Post Player of the Year (Leeds United): Patrick Kisnorbo