IN THE absence of flavour, last night’s pre-match pie offered me only this: when two worlds collide expect the unexpected. Deep within its crusts, a clash of its constituent ingredients had left vegetable the unlikely victor over animal. Who’s ever actually asked for a potato & meat pie, for goodness sake? Craft 0-1 Cash. Not so unexpected after all, then.

Up in the stands, two worlds collided for a young chap perched nearby, as he excitedly witnessed at first-hand the Premier League gods and godlets with whom he’s on first-name terms. But this wasn’t like in the adverts. He saw their faces contorted by the heat of Elland Road’s breath. He watched them toil and sweat; all-red strips glistening as if each were flayed of their skin down to blood and sinew, revealing themselves to be humiliatingly human.

Meanwhile, his Leeds United charges were enamelled in all-white, seemingly impervious to pain and fatigue. With senses flooded by a raucous, undulating sea of chest-beating fists, for one utopic hour he could believe that the sort of shellacking which has had our 3rd Division peers pleading for mercy might just do the same to Liverpool. Y’know, them off the telly.

But who would wish to chase boyhood dreams through the distortion of a lens? Far better to fail in the flesh than to prevail by proxy.

And so it went. Ably abetted by Crowe, Snodgrass set about making the right flank his own, and when he delivered for a combination of Michalik and/or Beckford and/or Becchio to net early on for Leeds, it seemed too good to be true. And it was, according to a linesman’s flag.

At the other end, Kisnorbo backed Michalik to defy himself and form a partnership of solid steel. This was no rearguard action however, and only occasionally did Howson and Doyle find no answer to Liverpool’s midfield searching, when Higgs had to repel Babel and Riera.

After the break, with Becchio a spearhead, Leeds continued to impress with the ball on the deck – though it was from a Higgs punt that Beckford began to get the better of his inner demons but not quite Cavalieri in the Liverpool goal.

Then the moment which meant the Scouse numbers wouldn’t spend their whole evening standing in gobsmacked awe: two priceless N’Gog touches and a goal. Craft 0-1 Cash. Not so unexpected after all, then. Yet oddly rather satisfying, just like that pie.

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