Manager: Simon Grayson Owner: Ken Bates Ground Name: Elland Road Capacity: 39,460 Last Season Prediction: n/a Last Season Position 2nd in League One All Time Top Scorer: Peter Lorimer (238)

	Simon Grayson

Simon Grayson is another impressive young manager with a good record at both clubs he's bene in charge at. Grayson was given the managers job at Blackpool for the start of the 2006-07 season.

In late 2006, he led Blackpool to only one defeat in fourteen league games, , resulting in their appearance in the playoffs.

Blackpool beat Oldham Athletic 5-2 on aggregate over the two legs of the play-off semi-final. They met Yeovil Town in the final and won 2-0, securing promotion to the Championship. It was their tenth consecutive victory, a new club record. This was extended in Blackpool's first game in the Championship with a league win over Leicester City[ and a victory against Huddersfield Town in the League Cup.

In October 2007, Grayson guided Blackpool to the fourth round of the League Cup for the club's first time in 35 years. In May 2008, Blackpool finished nineteenth in the Championship, their highest finish in the Football League since 1971-72.

Grayson moved to Leeds in December 2007 to manage the club he had supported as a boy.

Grayson's first game in charge was at Elland Road on Boxing Day against one of his former clubs, Leicester City, who were top of the league. Leeds were sitting in 9th place, on the back of five straight defeats, but a late equaliser from Robert Snodgrass gave Grayson's new club a 1-1 draw.

Leeds won their final eleven home games, matching a forty-year-old record from the Don Revie era. Leeds' away form did not match this, and Grayson guided the club into a fourth-place finish, earning them a two-legged play-off tie against fifth-place Millwall, which Leeds lost 2-1 on aggregate.

Last season after a flying start Grayson lead his team to promotion finishing in second place and will be looking to build on that with back to back promotions this year.

At the third time of asking Leeds finally secured promotion back to the Championship. They started the season well with an unbeaten run in all competitions, which included seven victories and a draw in League One and saw the club progress to the third round of the League Cup, before losing 1-0 to Liverpool.

In that season's FA Cup, Grayson led Leeds to a 1-0 victory away to Manchester United, their first win at Old Trafford since 1981. Grayson's side also earned Leeds a replay against Premiership opposition Tottenham Hotspur after a 2-2 draw at White Hart Lane.

They fell away badly after the win over Manchester united and slipped down to third place behind Millwall as the race for promotion hotted up.

It all went to the last game of the season and was dramatic. Bristol Rovers took the lead and Leeds were down to fourth place at one stage but they turned it around with Jermaine Beckford getting the winner which saw Leeds finish the season in second place, and earn automatic promotion to The Championship.

Robert Snodgrass

Robert Snodgrass started his career at Livingston, where he scored 15 goals in 79 games. Snodgrass caught attention by turning down a trial with Spanish giants FC Barcelona. He joined League One team Leeds United in July 2008.

After joining Leeds, Snodgrass came into the side for the first game of the season to make his debut against Scunthorpe United, gaining an assist after setting up Enoch Showunmi's headed goal. He scored his first goal for Leeds in the 5-2 League Cup victory over Chester City.

After initially struggling to hold a regular starting place in the starting XI, Snodgrass re-established himself after a string of impressive performances throughout November and December, which saw the young winger score four goals in seven games.

He made a massive impact at Elland Road in his first season, establishing himself as a firm fans favourite and narrowly missing out to Jermaine Beckford in the Fans Player of the Year award.

On the eve of the 2009-10 season, he signed a new four-year contract with the club. In May 2010 he was selected in the League One PFA Team of the Year for the 2009-10 season. Snodgrass played an instrumental part as Leeds were promoted to The Championship after finishing in second and was called upto the Scotland squad but has yet to make his international debut.

The Scot is capable of playing on either wing or as a supportive striker and is now one of the first names on the team sheet under manager Simon Grayson.

It seems a long time since Leeds were in this division and they will arrive with high hopes of doing well as they are a club who believe they should be at the top of the Premiership let alone the Championship.

It won't be easy for them as even at this level players will relish the chance to play at Elland Road and cause an upset. Leeds will be seen as one of the favorites to go up but Simon Grayson has done a good job of keeping his feet on the ground and will be looking to consolidate this season.

The loss of Beckford is a big one and how they replace his goals will be a key factor in how they do but they have plenty of good attacking players such as Snodgrass and Becchio whilst Kasper Schmeichel is a very good signing on a free transfer.

Leeds are a good side under Grayson and shouldn't be written off from the promotion picture, they will be hard to beat and could get real momentum behind them but ultimately I think they'll have to settle for a place just outside the playoffs.

In Leeds' first fifteen years the club kit was modelled on Huddersfield Town's blue and white striped shirts, white shorts and dark blue socks with blue and white rings on the turnovers, because Huddersfield's chairman Hilton Crowther was attempting to merge the two clubs He eventually left Huddersfield to take over at Leeds.

In 1934 Leeds switched to blue and yellow halved shirts incorporating the city crest badge, white shorts and blue socks with yellow tops. The kit was worn for the first time on 22 September 1934. In 1955 Leeds changed again to royal blue shirts with gold collars, white shorts, and blue and yellow hooped socks, thus echoing the original Leeds City strip.

In 1961 Don Revie introduced a plain white strip throughout, in the hope of emulating Spanish side Real Madrid. A perching owl was added the strip in 1964 as the clubs emblem. The design was a surprise, given Revie's superstition about the symbolism of birds.

The owl came from the city crest, which itself was based on the crest of Sir John Saville, the first alderman of Leeds. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Leeds used the LUFC script found running down the centre of the current badge, however this was presented in a diagonal fashion rather than the current vertical. In 1973 came the embodiment of seventies imagery with the iconic LU smiley badge.

Revie's predilection for gimmicks was years ahead of its time, and done with the explicit intention of gaining acceptance from a public outside West Yorkshire

We have two former Leeds players in the squad at the moment. Shaun Derry spent three years at Leeds between 2005 and 2008.

Derry was a regular in the Leeds starting eleven in season 2005-06, becoming a vital part of the squad as they pushed for promotion back into the Premiership.

Derry was part of the Leeds team which reached the Championship Playoff finals, but Leeds ended up on the wrong end of a 3-0 defeat to confine them to another season in the Championship. He spent much of the clubs relegation season out injured but didn't get back into the side under Dennis Wise in league one and was sold to Crystal Palace after an alleged fall out between the two men.

Hogan Ephraim spent two months on loan at Leeds last season but didn't feature too often for the League one side.

Steve Hodge is another to play for both sides. He joined QPR from Leeds in 1994 and was a solid player for us that season as we finished in the top half of the Premiership. Hodge joined Watford on a free transfer, the following season.

It's been a long time since QPR beat Leeds, you have to go back to 1995 for our last win, a 3-1 victory at Elland Road in our relegation season from the Premiership.
After a long gap between fixtures Rangers were back playing against Leeds in the 2004/05 season. Many fans couldn't wait for this fixture to come around as it did seem to signal our return to the semi big time. After 45 minutes most fans were wishing we were back playing Wycombe away from the media spotlight.

It had all started so well when Gareth Ainsworth fired us in front after just one minute. We all celebrated and got ready to enjoy a fun afternoon. It all went wrong though soon after.

Matthew Rose hobbled off injured and whilst he was getting treatment off the pitch Leeds equalised. His replacement Gino Padula had just about got his tracksuit off when they scored again and before we knew what had hit us we were 5-1 down and it wasn't half time yet. To make things worse Brian Deane of all people had scored a first half hat trick and the general feeling was we were lucky it was only five.

Another Brian Deane goal ended the scoring as the QPR fans tried to stay in good voice and even better humour whilst Chris Day saved a penalty late on from David Healy. If the result hadn't been bad enough it turned out that Ian Holloway had only travelled to the game to end rumours that he was going to Wolves, it turned out he was ill and was taken to hospital after the game with his blood pressure not being helped by our comical defending.

By the time we met again in April the season was al but over for both sides. Clarke Carlisle got a mixed reception on his return to QPR and Chris Day made his last appearance for Rangers in front of the Loftus Road crowd. Seth Johnson gave the visitors a first half lead but they never threatened a repeat of the 6-1 and Rangers got a deserved equaliser late in the game through Captain Kevin Gallen.

In 2005/06 the results again went in Leeds favour in two dull games. At Loftus Road an injury to Mauro Milanese affected our chances as Santos was switched to left back and we looked a shambles. Ron Hulse got the only goal of the game but a draw would have been a fair result after Rangers had the better of the second half. David Healy was sent off during the second half after an off the ball incident involving Bircham.

The return game turned out to be Ian Holloway's last as QPR manager. Due to injures and some dire performances it was a new look team with loanees Leon Clarke and Keith Lowe impressing on their one and only performance for QPR. Phil Barnes was in goal whilst Marcus Bignot started in midfield. Rangers played well and were unlucky to not grab a draw but goals from Eddie Lewis and Paul Butler gave Leeds a two goal win.

Our last season in the same division saw us both in a relegation battle with Leeds ultimately going down to League one. We faced Leeds in our first home game of the season and went two goals behind and looked doomed before a Martin Rowlands penalty and a last minute Shabazz Baidoo goal helped us to a valuable point.

The return game was a tough one with a full house at Leeds and Lee Camp making his second debut after signing on loan. Rangers had lost the last match 5-0 at Southend so needed to improve and produced a battling display with Camp in fine form to earn us a 0-0 draw.