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Inspiring a new song symbolically heralds the transformation of a Leeds United player’s career. Most fans were too scared of Gaetano Berardi to understand what he was about when he first joined as Sam Byram’s understudy at right-back; fast forward to his second season, and we’d taken him to our hearts as our first-choice left-back, usurping Charlie Taylor and earning his place in the chant celebrating Garry Monk’s back four — Luuuuke Ayling and Berardi, Pontus Jansson and Kyle Bartley. Plenty of fans would have waved goodbye to Kalvin Phillips until Marcelo Bielsa rocked up at Thorp Arch and turned him into our Yorkshire Pirlo. In the Premier League, Junior Firpo was a punchline — you’ve seen Firpo, now fuck off home — yet as Leeds won promotion his name became the sound of a Super Firpo summer.
For much of his debut campaign at Elland Road, Noah Okafor was too enigmatic to know what to sing about him. Week after week, there were glimmers that he might just be our most talented attacker. But those hopes were often dashed by a frustration that they remained merely glimmers, moments here and there, rarely beyond the hour mark, interspersed with the occasional injury niggle we’d been warned about from his time in Italy. For four months between October and February, Okafor failed to score or provide an assist. Whenever his name was shouted from the stands it was usually with a growl. For fuck’s sake, Okafor. Get him off.
We like to think that Leeds players will be universally appreciated if they simply Put The Work In. Run your bollocks off, put in the odd hefty tackle, throw out the odd Leeds salute, and hey presto, you can be the new Andy Hughes. Except that’s never going to cut it for a marquee attacking signing. Just ask Brenden Aaronson. Noah Okafor was going to have to do something special. Noah Okafor had to rewrite 45 years of history.
I’d waited my entire lifetime for Leeds United to win a league game at Old Trafford. So naturally, I missed it. I was in Greece, travelling from the mountains of the Peloponnese to the small island of Hydra, via a hectic drive through Easter traffic to the port of Athens. By the time we got to the island that Leonard Cohen used to call home, I was knackered, well aware that whatever the result in Salford, if I watched it I’d be unable to fall asleep, a price that wasn’t worth paying when — in the typically twisted logic of a football supporter — I’d convinced myself that if I did tune in then Leeds were destined to lose 2-0. I made a pact with myself that if I turned my phone off and didn’t check the score until I woke up the next day, things might work out different, without ever really expecting to check my phone the following morning and shout, fucking hell!
I spent the rest of the day watching the goals on repeat, scrolling through Instagram stories of friends who were in the away end, feeling sick with envy. I’ve seen the highlights. I’ve seen the extended highlights. I’ve laughed at Scum fans still crying about Lisandro Martinez’s red card ever since. But I held off from watching the full game back until the end of the season, saving it up as a little treat to toast a fine season from Daniel Farke, Ethan Ampadu and the rest of the Lads of Leeds.
Having spent a sunny afternoon sat inside watching back the game on LUTV, I would just like to say once more: fucking hell! Leeds were every bit as good as you remember. From 1-11, each player was superb, an absolute menace to play against out of possession and displaying a verve and confidence on the ball that made a mockery of our previous four decades of misery — January 3rd aside — at the home of Them. Dominic Calvert-Lewin could’ve scored a hat-trick. Ao Tanaka nearly made it 3-0 before half-time. Bruno Fernandes constantly looked like he wanted to cry.
There are so many highlights to choose from. James Justin earning the best booking of the season by clattering Matheus Cunha and leaving him screaming by the advertising hoardings as the away end bellowed ‘DIRTY LEEDS!’ Justin and Jayden Bogle sliding in unison, perfectly synchronised, in stoppage time to belligerently make sure a Luke Shaw shot was blocked. Karl Darlow’s save from Benjamin Sesko’s close-range header being swiftly followed by two Calvert-Lewin goalline clearances as, even though I knew the result six weeks later, I started feeling sick.
But the moment that made me beam was undoubtedly the minute leading up to Okafor’s second, which started with a classic Ethan Ampadu tackle in his own half flooring Bruno Fernandes, who remained on the turf as Gabi Gudmundsson briefly stopped for the one time all night, only to be told to carry on by his captain. Seconds later, Ampadu was suddenly on the edge of Scum’s penalty area to rob Casemiro of the ball and pin the hosts back to their own goal. Casemiro’s embarrassment was compounded by losing a header to Brenden Aaronson, with Leeds completely dismantling Scum’s ‘leaders’ in the space of one move that ended with Okafor volleying into the bottom corner and Tony Dorigo squeaking to Bryn Law in LUTV’s commentary, “Bryn! What is going on?!”
Even if it took a deflection, a long-range volley will always be a spectacular sight. They don’t all have to be Yeboahs. But I’ll always prefer Okafor’s opener for its instinctive brilliance, the ball dropping out of the air after another superb team move and onto his right foot in the blink of an eye through the gravitational pull of sheer star power. That aura is what Leeds signed him for, even if his ice-cold pose while celebrating in front of the camera was punctured by Ampadu giving him a big shove, Okafor briefly turning around looking like he wanted to chin him.
From that moment on, Okafor was transformed in a Leeds shirt, tearing into Wolves with a goal and assist in the opening twenty minutes at Elland Road before marking his next appearance in Beeston with another goal against Burnley, taking any opportunity he got to rev up a crowd that was already singing his name, shining with swagger.
Whatever happens from here, we’ll always have that night in front of the Stretford End that sparked a hat-trick of chants. Inside the ground, ‘Okafor again!’ soon became an ode to the man who ‘the Whites have never had a player like you before’ on coaches home. That might be a stretch, but no amount of hyperbole can do justice to ending almost half a century of unwanted history. Even so, the most important chant that Okafor inspired emerged with the score at 2-0 in the first half, the oles yet to start, and a celebration of the collective that made 2025/26 a season to remember. ‘Hello, hello — United are back!’ ⬢
Leeds United wins at Old Trafford don’t happen very often, so toast Noah Okafor’s heroics in front of the Stretford End on that famous Monday night until the next one comes around in another 45 years. You could say it makes the perfect Father’s Day present…
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