Let's take an interest in the 49ers

Now that 49ers Enterprises' stake in Leeds United is 44%, it's time to look more seriously at the body from which the investment arm of our future touch-rugby overlords grew. Even United's still-majority owner Andrea Radrizzani went to take in a San Francisco 49ers bout this week, so what did he see?

That depends where he was sitting. Experience of building a new stadium is an oft-cited reason for Leeds bringing the Niners guys to Beeston, where Elland Road is overdue a revamp, but the new home they opened in Santa Clara in 2014, forty miles from their old ground in San Francisco itself, suffers from at least one glaring flaw: the cheap bleachers form a semi-circle facing south-west without cover, so rooting Niners are seated staring directly into the fearsome California desert sun, literally bleaching. They don't like this! But let's assume 49ers chief exec Jed York and exec vice president Paraag Marathe entertained Andrea in the huge curtain wall block of north-east facing executive boxes. Free from retina damage, the deluxe seats still don't offer all they might if what you want to see is a winning team on the ol' griddle iron. Coming into Monday's match with the Los Angeles Rams, the Franciscan Monk Boys hadn't won a home game since October 2020, when they beat the Los Angeles Rams. That was the only game they won at home in 2020, the win before that happening in December 2019, against can you guess who? In fact the Niners have been sending their home record into all-time low territory lately, losing five in a row there coming into this game, making it 23 won and 34 lost in regular season matches since moving to Levi's Stadium, aka The Field of Jeans. Since 1970 only the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have put up a worse home win percentage, at their old Tampa Stadium between 1976 and 1997. From 2016 to '17 the Forters lost eleven in a row in Santa Clara.

Losing at home all the time in a home forty miles away from home is one of the not-goods rumbling to the surface among the 49ers' frustrated fanatics. Their team was supposed to be going for the Superbowl this year: since Jed York took over, they've been in it twice, in 2012 and 2019, but lost both times. Instead a poor start to the season has armchair quarterbacks bemoaning the lack of squad depth the 49ers can rotate from, blaming coach Kyle Shanahan for this inadequate roster, and blaming Messrs York and Marathe for not only enabling him, but giving him a contract extension last year that runs until 2025. Worse, amid the uproar, the owner seems to want Shanahan to keep going, too.