Daniel Farke is backed to end 37 years of play-off misery by former Leeds boss – but with a caveat

“To me, achieving what I’ve done is far better than anything anyone else has done, even now. If you look at Leeds now, this team is stronger. The club has kept several Premier League players and that hasn’t happened with us.

“The guys leaving in 2004 were in Bentleys, Range Rovers, Ferraris, Lamborghinis all going out the door, while two of the new guys drove into the club car park in a Ford Focus.

“One of them had been in an accident the week before and there was plaster stuck to the wing, which then fell off, leaving the wing hanging. If you ever wanted a metaphor to sum up the club, this was it.

Leeds have failed in all five of their attempts to win the play-offs and Blackwell says everything went against them in the final in Cardiff.

“Things built up for us and I don’t know if it was the curse or not, but everything went against us in the final,” he said.

“We had Stephen Crainey and Richard Cresswell sent off in the semi-final win against Preston, so we went into the final without a left-back.

“Matthew Kilgallon had to move in front of centre-back and I had to bring Sean Gregan back to centre-half from midfield.