Every fan of every club thinks it only happens to them, that their team are uniquely unlucky, that either the gods or the men in suits have condemned them, and only them, to a lifetime of torment for some long forgotten transgression. Only they know true pain, only they have cried on the telly, only they know what it is to experience the capricious nature of the world’s most beautiful game.

It turns out, though, that the fans of 91 clubs in the Football League are wrong. And only the fans of one are right.

It’s April 2019, a glorious spring afternoon and that rare treat: a 3pm Championship kick-off at Elland Road. Leeds are going into the game three points clear of third-place Sheffield United. The visitors, Wigan, are 21st, with the worst away record in the league and without a win anywhere in their last four games. In fairly short order they are also playing with ten men after defender Cedric Kipre palms Pat Bamford’s shot off the line. Penalty Leeds. 1-0. A position from which it is almost impossible to lose. Almost. Cue the pain.

It’s April again, 2024, and five years after Marcelo Bielsa slumped to his haunches in the Loftus Road tunnel following a 0-1 defeat. Leeds are back in West London, and the Peacocks are locked in a race for second spot, a point ahead of Ipswich who have a game in hand. It takes just eight minutes for Ilias Chair to open the scoring for the home side. It only gets worse from there. Full-time: 4-0. More pain.

Philosophers have spent millennia wrestling with the question of suffering. Does it have a purpose? Would we actually be better off if it was completely eradicated? Is there some level on which human beings need pain and suffering in order to flourish?

Often this has coincided with the question of whether there is a god. How can an all powerful, benevolent deity inflict pain and suffering on their creations? These philosophers mainly tended to focus on plagues and diseases as their chosen examples of suffering, but that’s probably only because Leeds United weren’t founded until 1919.

If we’re looking for philosophers at Leeds, then we need look no further than the man in charge of that defeat against Wigan. Bielsa was, above all else, a romantic about football. During the good times while Leeds were riding high in the Premier League, he said in April 2021:

“Football is full of surprises, and there’s nothing nicer for a spectator than to see something they didn’t expect. To say the opposite is when you know exactly what’s going to happen, but this will eventually cause boredom.”

I’ll give him that. I wasn’t expecting us to lose to Wigan, and I wasn’t bored by it. For Bielsa, suffering keeps you on your toes, or your haunches. He is also a believer in its power to drive us on to better:

“The moments in my life when I’ve improved are closely related to failure. The moments in my life when I’ve regressed are closely related to success.”

You fail, you suffer, and then you succeed.

And so, back to Loftus Road a week ago. And after half an hour it was all a very similar story. Leeds were back in London, and they were 2-0 down and the dream of a comfortable promotion seemed once again to be turning rapidly into a nightmare.

But then Leeds did something I didn’t expect but that I did enjoy. This team, or at least this club, with its collective memory of the past pain, had grown and learned, and they stood up. They got a point which in any other context would have seemed like a disappointment, or even a failure, but here it felt like hope.

Perhaps there is a purpose for pain after all, and while we can and should strive to cure cancer and end world hunger, it seems there will always be people who willingly inflict the pain of supporting a football club upon themselves. Even when humanity reaches a point where it has removed the need to suffer, there will always be some poor bastard choosing to watch Leeds United away at QPR. Maybe pain can be good. I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know on Saturday evening. ⬢

(Photograph by Martin Rickett, via Alamy)