There goes Jonny Howson
Let's have a party and invite everyone. Even if they play for Middlesbrough now.
I don't want to ever be that guy, you know, one of those guys, with my arm round an unsuspecting old sporting hero in the pub, jabbing him in the chest with my finger then waving my hands at a bunch of people half my age, that guy, yelling at them, telling them all off, 'You just don't know!' I'm yelling, with what to me is Shakespearean grandeur but to them is a sign I need to go home, 'You don't know what this man did for Leeds! This man here! I can't believe you don't recognise him!' I'm ignoring their embarrassed glances, the way ninety per cent of them are now checking their phones. 'You ignorant bastards!' I yell, my coup de grace. 'Come and shake the hand of Jonny Howson!'
But I was close to it on Tuesday because I don't know if anybody else noticed but that, that man right there in the Boro training gear, that man warming up in the north-west corner, that was Jonny Howson. Jonny Howson! League One promotion hero, club captain, irreplaceable in a way that sent storms through Rob Snodgrass's soul. Jonny Howson! But everyone was too busy chanting Luke Ayling's name to notice him, and that seemed a shame to me. It also seemed to me that Luke Ayling's chant solved the 'problem' of Dan James needing a song which was, in fact, that he didn't need a song he needed a chant, and using Bill's vacant tune for 'Dan! Ja-ay-ay-ames' would have been absolutely fine. Not fire, true, but fine.
Did we ever have a song for Jonny Howson? I think it was only ever 'One Jonny Howson'. Which, with my preference for minimalist chanting, did fine as well. Remember, we're the fans who felt there were too many syllables in 'Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!' and narrowed it down to grunts. And remember, we're the fans who don't remember Jonny Howson when he's standing right there.
It was always a bit difficult to remember Jonny Howson, even when he was on the pitch. He did some things that ought to be remembered as incredible, but they and he always seemed to be overshadowed. That stoppage time goal at Carlisle to send us through to the play-off final sent me sliding across a pub floor on my knees, but because memories never stop when they ought to it sends minds skidding on to Wembley, and Doncaster, where we wished we'd never been. Which is part of the trouble with League One in general: great memories, but should never have happened. Which is also probably why a promotion parade never happened when we finally went up in 2010. Looking back, it's a shame, because maybe it would have meant a few more replays of Howson's equaliser against Bristol Rovers, the goal that gave Jermaine Beckford the platform to be a legend twice in one season, imprinting it properly into history. As it is, like January 3rd at Old Trafford where he finished off Howson's brilliant long pass, 'The Bristol Rovers game' is all Jermaine's (and Max Gradel's), with a few diehards still pointing out that Jonny's goal wasn't bad, was it, before it.
300-odd games for Middlesbrough will do this to a West Yorkshireman's reputation, though, not to mention 188 for Norwich City. He scored against us on his first return to Elland Road as well, the daft apeth, although he followed it with a lot of not-celebrating and he couldn't really avoid scoring given this was Granddi N'Goyi's one and only game for Leeds and our wingers were Charlie Taylor and Sam Byram. The Peacocks were actually so inept at this point that a sizeable number of Leeds fans celebrated Howson's goal more than he did, giving him a warm round of applause because it was nice to see a Leeds footballer doing something competent even if you had to ignore his green shorts and the wrong sort of bird on his chest.
Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman
Here's the report I wrote on that Leeds vs Norwich game at the time, featuring a shout-out to good old Brian Montenegro
I'll get to some sort of point here I promise but Howson has played 740 games in his career now, and he's played them in long loyal stints, and he never wanted to leave Leeds, and I've never seen a point in his career when he wasn't good enough to get in our team. That might have changed if he'd stayed — fans have a tendency to get bored with the same old players, and Howson was never exactly the thrilling kind — but at least it would have been up to Howson himself to play so well that we never heard the name Mateusz Klich. Which would have been a different kind of shame and I guess why I shouldn't go messing with history. But as it is, the main reason Jonny Howson only played 225 games for Leeds instead of 740 was the capricious nature of Ken Bates, who never should have been allowed that much influence in Beeston, and that feels wrong. Seeing Howson on Tuesday was a reminder that it was never put right. To those of us who still recognised him, anyway.