Disaster as the Mighty Whites fall at the last hurdle

With Leeds United selling all their allocation of 36,000 tickets for the League 1 Play-Off final ticketless United fans had to nip down to Donny for one. Many of them were seen in the sparsely populated Donny end, proudly wearing Leeds colours. It was a bit like the scene on any day in Doncaster where there are always lots of fans wearing Leeds shirts in the streets.

The Mighty Whites nearly lifted the Wembley roof with boos when the League Chairman, Lord Mawhinny, walked onto the pitch to shake hands with the Leeds players, who looked at his lordship with stony faces.

But the rest of the match belonged to Donny. They outplayed United with pure passing football; they were quicker in the tackle and got into the game much faster than the Mighty Whites.

The first ten minutes were all Doncaster and the mighty Viking, Casper Ankergran, twice in one minute had to snatch the ball from the feet of Donny players who were through on goal. United rode out the storm but never looked like scoring. The chances they had never troubled the Donny goalie, ex-Leeds man Neil Sullivan.

Donny came out for the second half and immediately went on the attack. Disaster struck United when Donny forced a corner and James Hayter headed in, only two minutes into the second half, 1-0.

United tried but were simply not good enough on the day and Sully was clearly the master of the Donny goal area. He grabbed every ball that found its way in.

After a long and courageous season, when the Mighty Whites clawed back the 15-point deficit in the shortest possible time, it was the spell of lost matches at the end of last year, following the departures of first Gus Poyet and then Dennis Wise, that spoilt it for Leeds.

In terms of points earned United did enough to earn promotion and it is a bitter pill to swallow that it was not enough to take us up. They did well to turn around the deficit too, in the play-off semi-final against Carlisle but it was always going to be a lottery at Wembley and United could not pull a winner out of the hat.

At least next season we start with the same number of points as the rest of the teams in lowly League 1. Let us hope that we can sustain the stability that Gary McAllister brings to the club. Marching on together.

Oh dear! This means Donny Rovers are playing in a higher league than the Mighty Leeds. Well done to them, it is nice to see another West Riding team doing well and playing in a super new stadium.

Attendance 75,132

Doncaster Rovers 1 Leeds United 0