Michael Bridges has one of the best jobs in world football this summer as a member of Leeds United’s touring party in Australia. The former striker has been retired since 2015, hanging up his boots after spells with New South Wales outfits Newcastle Jets and Lambton Jaffas, but he has been invited on the Whites' pre-season tour as a club ambassador.
Together, him and Australian-born Tony Dorigo, have stayed with the first-team squad Down Under, making a number of appearances around both Gold Coast and Brisbane and they’ll make the journey over to Perth this week, too, for the club’s final tour game against Crystal Palace. Bridges has lived in Australia for some time, working as a coach in the A-League and as an analyst for Optus Sport, the channel with the rights to the Premier League, in recent years.
As such, he knows all about the sheer amount of support Leeds have in the Southern Hemisphere and he won’t have been quite as surprised to see more than 40,000 fans, divided evenly between Leeds and Aston Villa, turn up to watch the clash at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Sunday.
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“It goes back a long time,” Bridges told Leeds Live when asked about the club’s remarkable fanbase Down Under. “I’ve been asking people why there’s so many Leeds fans over here and you get some interesting comments.
“The strangest one I ever heard was when the black and white TVs were around, Leeds United’s white shirt stood out immaculately on TV. The other side is when I was at Leeds, I signed in 1999-00, it’s incredible to think I was there with Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Jacob Burns, Danny Milosevic, Jamie McMaster, Paul Okon, there’s so many Aussies that have played for Leeds United.
“The fanbase is huge and I was very, very surprised with how many Leeds fans there are in Australia, especially when we came out and toured a few years ago and took on the red team at the Optus Stadium. Coming out here and spreading the word gets you a bigger fanbase and it gets you more merchandise and it’s great the club has recognised that.”
Of course, the club has changed hugely since Bridges left Elland Road in 2004, but there are one or two familiar faces for him within camp on the Australia trip. One of those is Mark Jackson, who has recently been promoted from his previous role as under-23s head coach into the first-team under Jesse Marsch.
“I’m good mates with Jacko,” Bridges added. “I played with him in the England set up many years ago and he’s been promoted to work alongside Jesse and I’m delighted for him.
“He learned his trade with the younger ones and the under-23s and he has the opportunity now. He’s a great operator and I’m pleased that Jesse has taken him under his wing and it’s a new set-up now.”
Leeds could have certainly done with an in-form Bridges, who scored 21 goals in all competitions during his first year at Elland Road, as they battled to avoid Premier League relegation last season. Marsch’s side eventually got over the line with a final day victory over Brentford in west London and they’ll be keen to push on and build on that this term.
Bridges is realistic when it comes to his Whites expectations for the 2022-23 season, insisting survival must be the aim once more. However, he’s also been impressed by the club’s new signings, who he has spent the last week alongside in camp.
“The first season in the Premier League was unbelievable and I think a lot of people got carried away thinking it was going to be a European spot the year after,” Bridges said. “The reality was Leeds United needed to stay in the Premier League for three years and it was about safety.
“I don’t want it to go down to the wire like it did last season but you have to try and better what you did the year before. I think the third year is about survival and anything after that is a bonus. It’s sad to see Kalvin go, but the reality is he’s done fantastic with Leeds and he stuck it out as long as he could.
“He’s moved on and the money the club has spent, bringing in five or six players, I think has been fantastic. It’s great for the fans, it’s great for the team and they have bigger depth, it’s exciting times.
He added: “The job Jesse did when he came in, it was going to be hard to emulate what Bielsa did, but he tightened ship and he seems to have got everybody to believe in a change of system and tactics and it paid off. The boys bought into it, the fans bought into it and the club bought into it and long may it continue.”
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