Caught between comparisons with past glories and promises of an equally successful future, everyone at Leeds would have been better off appreciating the present when Nottingham Forest visited Elland Road at Easter in 1999.

Beating Forest 3-1 meant David O’Leary’s side became the first Leeds team to win seven consecutive league games since Don Revie’s record-breaking champions of 1973/74, but with Revie’s old boys due to visit Elland Road for a reunion dinner celebrating their achievements a few weeks later, O’Leary was forced to admit how far his ‘babies’ still had to go before they could be mentioned in the same breath as Leeds’ greatest. If he wanted to avoid such comparisons, he wasn’t helped by the fact that as United walked out for kick off against Forest, they did so alongside a four-year-old mascot going by the name of Billy Bremner.

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