Seth Johnson recalls Leeds duo throwing Peter Ridsdale into a water feature | OneFootball

Seth Johnson has recalled a rowdy Leeds United Christmas party in the early 2000s, when team-mates threw chairman Peter Ridsdale into a water feature.

Asked if Ridsdale wanted to be one of the lads, Johnson said: “Yeah, he did, yeah. I remember on a Christmas do, when the lads threw him in this little, it was like a water feature,” he said on the Under the Cosh podcast.

“It was like a club do, I can’t remember, one of the big pavilion things, but they had like a water feature by a little walkway that you go over. And I’m sure Rio Ferdinand and Robbie Fowler, they just picked him up and just threw him in this f—— thing.” Asked if Ridsdale took it well, Johnson added: “Yeah, he f—— loved it, didn’t he?”

Johnson joined in autumn 2001 for £seven million, among the last major arrivals before Leeds’ finances unravelled, following big-money deals for Robbie Keane, Rio Ferdinand and Robbie Fowler.

The episode sits alongside wider off-field turbulence of that era, including the Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate case, when both stood trial over an alleged assault in Leeds city centre, with Woodgate later charged with affray. Eirik Bakke later said, via the Mirror, that David O’Leary berated players for going out days before a trip to the San Siro. All this came as Arsene Wenger was raising professional standards in England, and Leeds were seen to be falling behind.

Source: Leedsunited.news