The Concept

It is always a thankless task selecting the “Greatest” anything, as people are influenced, sometimes by favouritism from a popularity point of view or simply by the fact that the players were from an era before a person started supporting the club and in many cases before they were even born. Their judgement is clouded accordingly. Leeds United recently published their own 100 greatest players on the official website. Presumably from some kind of poll?

I looked for my favourites, sure many were there, but where was Tommy Burden, club captain and inspirational leader, veteran of over 250 games for LUFC. Wilf Copping English International, 150+ appearances, Tom Holley, stalwart centre half 169 appearances (excluding War-time). I looked at Rio Ferdinand 50 games ? Eric Cantona even less at 25, Imre Varadi 23 games, John McClelland 22 league games, David Rocastle and Chris Kamara, less than 20, Tomas Brolin (do me a favour) and wondered where the priorities lay!

To me, a player's greatness is a reflection of his abilities and achievements as a player for LUFC (or representing his country etc, when a LUFC player). It should not be swayed by unpopularity or the fact some perceive him as a “Judas” or whatever.

Tony Hill (OzWhite)

The Voting

So, we asked the users of three of the main Leeds United forums, Marching On Together, WACCOE and Leeds Chat, who they thought were the greatest Leeds United players ever. They were asked to give a list, (Maximum 100) be it top 20, top 50, or whatever and score: 100 for No.1 down to 1 for No.100, or 100 for No.1 and 81 for No.20 etc.

As with all votes and polls you will never get a true opinion, merely a generally acceptable consensus of the valid voters. With all “elections” you will get the persons who will not express there opinion (for whatever reason), the informal votes (the ones who did not, would not, or could not understand the rules) and finally the ones who cast a valid vote. Recent elections in UK would reinforce that. Therefore over the 3 Forums the participation has been excellent with over 100 respondents and 164 players nominated. Draw your own conclusions and make what you will of the results.