Whilst more news has trickled out of Elland Road re our stadium plans, one 19 year old Millwall fan from Kent won't be seeing inside of ER or any ground for three years.

Frankie Harris admitted a charge of threatening behaviour when he was arrested during Millwall's 2-0 FA Cup fourth round tie win at Elland Road.

He was accused of participating in tragedy chanting and making stabbing gestures relating to the murders of Kevin Speight and Chris Loftus in Istanbul nearly 25 years ago, six years before he was even born.

Leeds magistrates slapped him with a three year Football Banning Order. In addition, he was fined £120, ordered to pay £85 in costs, a £48 surcharge and £200 in compensation.

He also admitted doing a "dirty protest" in the cells at Elland Road police station, by smearing his own excreta on the walls. Yuk!

Methinks best part of him was wasted that day. Salt of the earth these geezers from South London are! Not.

I'm sceptical that these banning orders work. As we saw with that thug Aaron Crawley, his so called life ban was easily circumnavigated, presumably by others willing to buy him tickets - although he somewhat came a cropper by falling out of the upper tier at Chelsea in last seasons FA Cup defeat.

Let's hope that Mr 'Arris or any of the other 300 odd 'Wall diehards won't be back at ER any time soon as fingers crossed we will be promoted by the end of the season.

(And yes, yes I know that they brought 2500 up that Saturday to the FA Cup tie before reverting to the usual excuses that the league clash was midweek, it was cold, there were no trains back way past their bedtimes etc. At least they don't have the old excuse of having the hassle of getting to a motorway service station to pick up their tickets before KO no more!)

Re the stadium expansion plans, it has been announced that 26,000 people are on the controversial waiting list. This is where fans pay £10 a season to stay on the list in the hope that they might get chance to buy a season ticket eventually.

The scheme has been criticised because subscribers have no idea whether or not they're next in the queue or number 25,999!

I believe Angus Kinnear our MD did promise they would be informed of what queue position they were in but given he's off to Everton in the summer, who knows if this promise will be fulfilled or not?

Existing season ticket holders have also been subjected to a controversial scheme whereby if their attendance drops below 80pc then they forfeit the right to renew.
However they can put their ticket into the official ticket resell exchange even just hours before KO if something crops up last minute and they can't go. I doubt even those who have fallen foul to this, those who decide not to renew for whatever reason including those who sadly pass away will not make a big difference to reducing the waiting list.
But even this won't scratch the surface off the demand initially. Its not clear whether or not the current capacity will have to reduce whilst the expansion work is ongoing? I saw what Liverpool did with the Anfield Road end a couple of years ago where they built over the top of the existing stand to cause minimal capacity reduction.

The ER project shall take some years and initially raise capacity to 47,000 and then 53,000. Some are asking with sell outs of 36,000 most games and 26,000 waiting their turn, is 53k big enough?

Let's not forget if we do go up and stay up, under current EPL rules we will have to give 3000 to visiting fans. Not Millwall obviously!

In the early 2000s season ticket holders such as myself took part jn a ballot whether or not to build a new 50,000 seater stadium near Skelton. I was in the minority who voted No, but 2/3rds voted Yes.

Obviously due to our dramatic fall from the Prem to League One, that never came to fruition. With hindsight I'd be in favour of building a new ground with better infrastructure, amenities etc as its hassle now getting away on matchday and there's hardly anything left in the way of pubs and food options near the ground now.

But the bill would surely be £1bn at least - the sort of money I doubt Leeds and the 49ers don't have.

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