Leeds United face Port Vale in the League Cup

The League Cup (or Carabao Cup as it’s now branded) first round draw was held today in Thailand, as the FA look to outsourcing to save... oh hang on, it was for sponsorship reasons? Oh, fine. The Carabao Cup draw was held in Bangkok today and Leeds United is set to host Port Vale in the first round of the competition.

Leeds United and Port Vale don’t have a lot of history together, and the League Two side was relegated from League One last season, placing 21st out of 24 teams in League One. Port Vale has never appeared in the top division of English Football while their local rivals, Stoke City, currently overshadow them by playing in the Premier League.

The current manager of Port Vale is ex-Leeds player Michael Brown, infamously being the last player to wear the number 17 for the club while Massimo Cellino was in charge of the club, as Cellino thought that the number was unlucky.

Port Vale’s chairman courted some controversy recently by claiming that he didn’t hire ex-Leeds striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink to manage the club because he feared racist abuse from his own supporters. The chairman, Norman Smurthwaite, said that he had the chance to hire the former Chelsea legend as manager in 2013, before Hasselbaink went to Burton Albion, but was afraid of the racist abuse that Hasselbaink, who is black, would have to endure from racist elements in his own supporters. Smurthwaite was largely criticized for the claim, as he should be because it was the work of an absolute coward. To not hire one of the few black managers in the game because of racist trolls in your own club’s supporters only serves to embolden their racism and gives every garbage spewing idiot all the ammunition they need to continue their hateful campaigns.

So let’s hope that Port Vale get crushed by Leeds in the first round, as any team which panders to racists deserves all the bad things happening to them.