Garry Monk walked out on Leeds United earlier this week, with the club and Monk not being able to see eye-to-eye on how to take the club forward.
Since then it’s been ‘Manager A in the running for Leeds job’ and ‘Manager B said to be favourite for Elland Road hotseat’ with names like Aitor Karanka (11/10) and Claudio Ranieri (2/1) seen as favourites with bookmakers Sky Bet.
Behind that pairing is a cluster of 10/1 shots in former Whites manager Simon Grayson, former Newcastle manager Alan Pardew and former Swansea boss and Barcelona player Michael Laudrup.
However, away from this bunch said to be jockeying for the privilege of being Whites boss are others. But lurking at the back of the pack, hopefully not like the tortoise wanting to overtake the hares, is a name that would send shudders down the spines of every Leeds United fan.
David Hockaday.
Hockaday is currently rated as a distinct 66/1 outsider with bookmakers Sky Bet, and even at 66/1 Leeds fans will see that as not far enough away from the club.
Hockaday was Massimo Cellino’s first appointment as Leeds United boss, an appointment that led to many a Leeds fan scratching their head and asking “David Who?” A quick Google search would have shown Hockaday’s experience limited to a spell with non-league Forest Green Rovers.
Hockaday brought with him his assistant Junior Lewis and said upon his arrival: “I wasn’t surprised to get the call because I’ve talked to lots of people and when I met the president we talked and it was very obvious he knew what he was talking about. I played for 20 years in over 650 senior games, I’ve coached at every level in every league, from the Premier League to the Conference.”
He lasted 70 days, six competitive games as the man in charge at Elland Road; a spell that ended as it had started with Leeds fans scratching their heads and wondering what they had just witnessed.
Before his sacking, Hockaday presided over a puzzling pre-season tour of Italy where the Whites beat a village side FC Gherdeina 16-0 before having to play a ‘shirts vs. bibs’ game amongst themselves after their second opponents failed to turn up.
In between the FC Gherdeina game and the hastily arranged inter-squad game, Hockaday had the Whites squad sitting in a flowing river as a way of allowing their bodies to recuperate. To say the players looked unimpressed was an understatement.
It was a car crash appointment was the appointment of David Hockaday, one that Leeds United fans would rather just simply forget. But at 66/1, the demons of Diamond Dave Hockaday are still their haunting their waking thoughts. Especially as he came from nowhere to be manager of the Whites once before.
