PTBAA v MOT

Tickets arrived today. I know it's just a friendly, but my two teams, Scottish and English Uniteds, Dundee and Leeds, are playing each other in a match next weekend and we are taking a trip down to see the game. It will be my first visit to Elland Road in a very long time. Thinking about it I haven't been that often. Three or four times when I was a first-year student in Durham and took the train to Leeds to see them play - the season they were relegated from the old First Division. I was there for the last home game when two late goals saw them turn round the game against Brighton and get the win that everyone there seemed to think would be enough to keep them up. Needing just a point in their last game they lost at West Brom who, then safe, themselves lost to Stoke to help them in turn leap frog Leeds to safety. And a couple of times in the next few years when I went with my friend S to see games when I was down in Holmfirth staying at my Grans. Games against Portsmouth and Oldham in the old Second Division. And I'm thinking that's it. A few other away games in my student years - Sunderland, Wimbledon, Birmingham and Newcastle - but that's all. And yet following Leeds from a distance is part of my identity. The Leeds score is the one I look out for next after (Dundee) United. Checking for updates on my phone on a Saturday afternoon. Sneaking a look at TV screens in shops and pubs.
I think the first 'proper' game I went to was a testimonial for Peter Lorimer against the 'other team' in Dundee at Dens Park in 1978. Strangely it's pretty hard to find any detail of it on the internet - what seems to be a full list of Leeds United friendlies doesn't include it, although there is an entry for a different testimonial game for Lorimer at Elland Road with Leeds playing a "Scottish Select". Presumably the Dundee game wasn't billed as Leeds United - the only reference I've found online refers to it as a "Peter Lorimer XI". I'm pretty sure Billy Bremner also played in the game so I expect it was a Leeds team of sorts if not in name.
Anyway, it will be a little odd next Saturday at Elland Road.