How Leeds sack race became a pantomime

Oh no he isn't, decided McKenzie who, after his highly public meeting with the bemused manager in a hotel bar off the M62, had given Reid the distinct impression he was certain to be handed his P45.

Oh yes he is, insisted deputy chairman and Royal Mail boss Allan Leighton, whose edict that Reid had to stay on longer left McKenzie quietly fuming and Leeds fans thinking their votes counted.

Yet it was only McKenzie's enthusiasm for the 47-year-old former Sunderland and Manchester City manager that had ensured Reid did not stroll happily away from Elland Road last May, his job done.

Having stepped in as the surprise choice to be caretaker when Terry Venables was packed off back to the Smoke, Reid's dry Scouse wit and personable demeanour impressed the new chairman.

So much so that McKenzie was ready to rip up the club's carefully prepared short list long before Reid had successfully completed his eightmatch brief to rescue the club from relegation.

Despite having initially targeted Paul Hart, Gordon Strachan, Micky Adams and, more optimistically, Martin O'Neill, McKenzie championed Reid's cause to the exclusion of any rational process of selection.

A magnificent 3-2 victory at Arsenal clinched it, a win that included one of 11 goals in those final eight matches from Aussie striker Mark Viduka who was to become Reid's nemesis.

McKenzie spoke glowingly of the relationship he had forged with Reid, who might have recalled Tommy Docherty's quote about preferring his chairman to be in front of him rather than behind him. On the pitch, Reid's Leeds had an unfamiliar look, thanks to a posse of loan signings. Oh, and Jody Morris, who got himself arrested.

Nothing new there for Leeds fans, of course. At one stage it seemed like a rite of passage for their younger players to get nicked and some would argue two arrests in particular started the club's demise. It is not so much a farce as a tragedy that Leeds' fortunes have nose-dived so alarmingly from the Champions League semi-finals to the gates of penury since that infamous assault trial two years ago.

Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer are long gone, but so is the great spirit fostered during the David O'Leary wonder years. Reid was left to make do and mend with cheap thread and a blunt needle. Reid never backs away from a row and last Friday's catchweight contest with Viduka - gifted, moody and not long for Leeds - was the climax of a personality clash that did a struggling team no good.

Viduka undoubtedly felt like strangling his boss. Instead, he settled for the parting shot - 'If you want to go down, stick with this fella' - that must have chilled plc board spines as the Fratton Park debacle unfolded. But it was not McKenzie who brought down the curtain. Peter Ridsdale's successor, who has just unveiled record losses of £49.5million, went off on holiday to South Africa instead.

So step forward Birch, once Shrewsbury's £50,000 record signing, whose thanks for sterling work in rescuing Chelsea from the brink was the subsequent appointment of Peter Kenyon as chief executive.

Yesterday, the former accountant who will be expected to perform a financial miracle, was also charged with firing the manager after a week in the job.

Boo! Where's the real villain when you need him?