Jamie Shackleton, a midfielder, scored that day after celebrations in advance of the game lasted well into the night.
There was one aspect of Leeds United’s famous promotion performance against Derby County that caught Jamie Shackleton off guard, and it wasn’t what transpired later, when Leeds was fined £20,000 for using fireworks while celebrating their promotion to the Premier League as champions on the Pride Park pitch.
The FA cited the behavior of acting “in an orderly fashion” as a rule that was broken in the aftermath of the game, which Leeds United won 3-1 behind closed doors. However, when the 23-year-old midfielder thinks back on that incident, that isn’t what comes to mind.
After favorable pre-match results, Leeds was promoted to the top division for the first time in 16 years. Leeds was promoted when Huddersfield Town defeated West Brom on Friday, July 17. The fact that Brentford lost to Stoke on the previous Saturday added to the weekend’s memorability by ensuring that they were also awarded the championship.
After those results, staff and players at Elland Road partied till the small hours of the morning before picking themselves up for the Derby encounter the following Sunday. The players’ ability to deliver a winning performance, as Shackleton notes, throws the football manual’s preparation guidelines out the window and indicates that the late-night partying had little to no influence on them. This demonstrated the fitness levels under Bielsa.
As Shackleton recounted in an interview with the official Leeds United Podcast, “That game made me rethink football to be honest! We walked outside and played one of our greatest games of the season in the state and condition that everyone was in that morning.
“We studied the statistics after the game, and we ran the most we had all season. The statistics were sky-high. Simply put, I didn’t get it. Even though I wasn’t feeling well, I still managed to score. Do I have to do this every week or what? I wondered.
