Former Leeds United striker Alan Smith said The Whites' Premier League relegation in 2004 changed his life and he could have done more to prevent it.
Smith, who played for The Whites between 1998 and 2004 at first team level, was voted the club's 'Supporter's Player of the Year' in 2003 and 2004, also reaching the Champions League semi final with Leeds.
The man who played 172 games in West Yorkshire spoke to VAVEL about his stint at Elland Road, ranging from his incredible start at the club and the Champions League glory nights, to the lows of relegation.
Smith also said 'you either liked us or loathed us' when describing the Whites side he was a part of, a phrase he embodied for Leeds fans, having left the club for bitter rivals Manchester United after facing the drop.
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On his start to life as a Leeds United player
Smith was in the spotlight almost as soon as he stepped onto a Premier League pitch, scoring just three minutes into his league debut, equalising against Liverpool at the Kop end.
Smith revealed he had not expected to be in the squad, and was supposed to be on international duty with England's under 18's team over that weekend.
"Yeah, it was pretty surreal to be honest, I'd scored against Wimbledon with the youth team on the Saturday before.
"I was supposed to be in Israel playing with the under 18's, we were based in Mottram Hall in South Manchester all week.
"On the Wednesday, there was some sort of discrepancy over whether we could travel, and we all got sent home back to our club teams.
"On the Thursday morning, at breakfast there were a few first team players injured, so I trained with them on Thursday and Friday for the first time ever.
"Then I travelled with the team thinking it was a bit of experience, but when David O'Leary named the team, I was one of the subs, and I was a bit surprised if I'm being honest.
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On the lack of opportunities for young players in modern football
As a player who broke into Leeds' first team having gone through the entire academy process, Smith said he felt the chances for young players to follow in his footsteps have lessened in recent years.
He also called for reserve level football to return, which he felt bridged the gap between professional and youth football.
"Football's weird I think sometimes, the circumstances and surroundings change, but not a lot else, and we were playing good competitive reserves football, so maybe there's a bigger leap [between youth and men's football] now than there was then.
"Then, we had pros who hadn't played on a Saturday in the teams, so you'd have people either have first team players coming back from injury or players not making the team playing.
"Everyone used to say, if you played well with the reserve team you'd have a chance of playing for the first team on a weekend, now, I think that's something that's changed.
"I feel like the squads are bigger, there are more games, and the speed of them probably has changed a little bit, but I still feel that there's a lot to be said for there being a league that's just as competitive as them leagues were.
"Youth teams, academies, or a proper reserve league which set you up to play first team football [would be ideal]."
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On Leeds' Champions League semi final
Smith enjoyed somewhat of a meteoric rise in the years that followed breaking into the team, and by 2001, the West Yorkshire side were in the Champions League semi final.
The quarter final had been superb for Smith, who played an influential role in securing a 3-0 win for Leeds over Deportivo, scoring the second goal of the game.
Leeds went on to win the tie 3-2 on aggregate, but were eventually knocked out by Valencia.
Smith, who now coaches at a football school in Florida, said the run to get to the competition's final four was down to the work of several staff behind the scenes.
The man who scored 38 goals for the club also said the 'dirty Leeds' tag the team were given spurred them on to become a side the fans adored and the rest detested.
"We had a crazy run really, the club was going through a real growth, it was slow and gradual, improving year by year, but there were a lot of people who set the foundations for that.
"Howard Wilkinson was one of them when he started the academy, Leeds was probably the first academy to be developed, and I think you saw the rewards for that.
"Eddie Gray, who's obviously still a part of the club now [also laid the foundations for success], with his grandson making his debut last weekend [Archie Gray], who was excellent.
"We had Paul Hart there, Eddie was there, George Graham was there.
"O'Leary was the assistant under Graham first before he took the job, so he had a great support team around him.
"When he took the job, he had some good young players, but he was very brave as a manager to out them in the team, I think we were playing on enthusiasm, people look at the young players but for me when you look back at it, it was only the nucleus of the experienced players that really got us through.
"Performances of young players are always inconsistent, and I was definitely one of them, in terms of my temperament, whether I could stay on the field or I was getting sent off or I was doing something stupid.
"We were all very similar in our characteristics, looking back on it in the role I do now, I look at the group of players that we had and we were probably all attitude players, you either liked us or loathed us.
"We were really likeable to our own supporters and hated by others, which is what football should be about really.
"We probably played that card better than anybody else, which suited Leeds as a club, because of how we'd always been, that's how it had been from the great team of the 70's.
"They carried the tag of 'dirty Leeds', and I think the kids and the people that came through the system took that and really enjoyed that sort of stigma that we carried."
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On being relegated with Leeds
Smith left the pitch in tears after The Whites' relegation from the Premier League was confirmed in 2004 following a 4-1 loss against Bolton.
He was not forced to head to the second tier with Leeds, moving to rivals Manchester United in a move that was not well received by his former club.
However, the 42-year-old still said facing the drop with his boyhood club was a dark day in his career.
"It was tough, it was probably the worst day of my career, and I say that just because when I look back on it, people say I couldn't have done any more because 'I was this' and 'I did that'.
"But, I look back now, retired and looking at what I try and instil in the kids that I work with now, and I realise that I learnt so much about how different I could have been as a player at Leeds once I had left the club.
"I was still really young, about 23, but I still feel I could have tried to get more out of everybody else even though I was so young, and probably other players would say this as well.
"Even though I had to grow up very quickly, I still look back and think 'could we have got more out of each other, been a bit ruthless with each other and driven each other on even more?'
"When you're such a young player, you have to try and concentrate on yourself a little bit, because you're still not at the level of experience where you know everything, and know your own performance inside out.
"Once you have that, you can go up to everybody else and say 'this is what you need to do and this is what you need to do', whereas when I left for Man United I found players there who could do that.
"That was one of my biggest regrets, I still feel like I could have done more, because it was a life changing experience for me, I'd grown up at the club, and I'd been there since I was 10 years old.
"So, for me, that experience changed the course of my life because I probably wouldn't have left the club."
