Peter Corrigan: Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?

There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune... or can land you right in the crap. That last bit is not quite what Leeds United's beleaguered chairman, Peter Ridsdale, said when he was endeavouring to get everyone off his back on Friday, but it is as good a paraphrase as you are likely to get at short notice.

What he did say, as fans demonstrated outside and Terry Venables glowered in the adjoining seat at the Elland Road press conference, was that Leeds certainly took the tide at the flood when they were sailing high in the Champions' League two years or so ago.

They surfed through the transfer market with carefree optimism, believing they could sustain their place at the crest, and they didn't. They did not miss by much, failing by one point to qualify for the Champions' League the following season, but it was the start of their calamitous times. "We lived the dream," Ridsdale admitted, "and it was a mistake."

Now that he is living the nightmare, he cuts a forlorn figure, especially if you match his present demeanour with that he displayed when Leeds were having their treacherous heyday. His handling of the aftermath of the murder of two Leeds fans in Istanbul three years ago attracted an admiring limelight in which he flourished; every inch the sharp and confident leader of a progressive club.

Managers at other clubs would have envied David O'Leary in having such a creative chairman, willing to step up and share the pressures as well as the high profile. It genuinely resembled a dream partnership with dream prospects, and what is now denounced as extravagance seemed at the time to be bold investment.

This was not, however, a rare outbreak of stampeding ambition in the game. In varying degrees of overcommitment, many clubs have fallen for a like scenario. How many now rue their starry eyes? It is just that Leeds are doing more rueing than most.

Students of lurking fate might see an odd similarity between Leeds and the team to whom they have sold Jonathan Woodgate in controversial and self-damaging fashion. Newcastle United could be said to be in a similar position to Leeds of two years ago; riding high, producing exciting stuff, backed by an adoring support, led by highly remunerated executives not averse to having their picture in the paper and willing to invest heavily to swell the quality of their squad while the going is good.

Not that I am suggesting that Newcastle are travelling a parallel route towards downfall. For one thing, Bobby Robson has far more experience and a cannier approach than O'Leary and, for another, I cannot believe that such grotesque misfortune can strike twice in the same decade.

What befell Leeds may have had plenty of assistance from the errors and miscalculations of those concerned, but it was wretched luck all the same. The repulsive nature of the allegations that landed Woodgate and Lee Bowyer in court – Woodgate to be convicted of affray and sentenced to 100 hours of community service, and Bowyer to receive a Pyrrhic acquittal – ate into club spirit. Whatever possessed O'Leary to write that ill-founded book on the subject further undermined their stability.

When O'Leary left Leeds, any hope that the blame for all their troubles could be drummed out with him did not last long. In his plea for understanding on Friday, Ridsdale did not blame O'Leary by name for the near-£90m transfer splurge, but he created the clear impression that the former manager deserved a big share of the responsibility. "To suggest it is uniquely down to me is fanciful," he said.

There was a time when the manager did carry the can alone, but that was back in the days when he was the only professional at the top level; when he would persuade dopey directors to part with the money to buy the players he felt he needed.

Directors may be no less dopey these days but they are now getting top wages for it. As chairman and chief executive, Ridsdale is reported to earn £500,000 a year, and most of his fellow directors on the plc board are well-paid and carry very impressive credentials from the world of big business and commerce. It is from them that these draconian acts of cost-cutting stem; prudence has arrived a little late on the scene, you may think.

In any case, no one is suggesting that they made bad buys. Rio Ferdinand was bought in November 2000 for £18m and sold last year to Manchester United for £30m. If the value of their other purchases has fallen, this is due more to the rapidly deflating market than misjudgement.

Had they qualified for the Champions' League for each of the last two seasons, it would have been worth £60m to Leeds and we might not have had to witness this sad turmoil. Such is the cruelty that attends failure, however narrow, and the true quality of a club can only be measured by the way it responds.

If you want to stand back, and I mean well back, the departure of Woodgate following swiftly on Bowyer's transfer to West Ham at least allows the club to draw a line under that crippling episode.

Now we must wait to see if Ridsdale can successfully stabilise the profit-and-loss columns. He attempted to do that on Friday by emphasising that the sale of Woodgate for £9m puts Leeds in a healthier position than many clubs. He might be missing the point that, if the team are not doing well, happiness in football cannot be defined as a contented boardroom and purring shareholders.

Ironically, Ridsdale's chances of surviving personally over the next few weeks owe much to Terry Venables, who, he admits, he misled over the sale of Woodgate. Venables would be likely to say that he has been misled from the first day he walked into Elland Road last year.

Had he known that so many players were already earmarked to be sold, I am sure that he would not have taken the job. Perhaps Ridsdale and the board were hoping that he would do so well that they would not have to conduct this panic sale at all. After all, if Leeds had been in the top three of the Premiership when the transfer window opened at the beginning of the year they surely would not have parted with a soul.

Had Venables been warned that a wholesale clearout was a probability, he would have been gone already. Now I believe he will stay, and it does the drama no harm that he is the man who must buy time for Leeds to rediscover their equilibrium. In many eyes, he was the one on trial when he took the job on. Now he has the role of saviour and it is the club who are on trial.

It is a morality tale of our times, and a happy ending will qualify as a miracle I would not yet discount as a possibility.

Eminently silly

A football team of under-nines have been ordered to scrap their club slogan. For two years, the badge of Sedgley Scorpions has displayed the words "Stuffem, Tankem and Ammeram". It might be taken for Latin if you didn't know that screw, tank and 'ammer are all colloquial terms for sporting victory.

But, following a complaint from the mother of an opponent, the Birmingham County FA have deemed the words to be "violent and offensive". To add to the pomposity they also suggested that the word "Stuffem" could be immoral.

It will cost the Scorpions a lot of money to change their badges and pennants for what their chairman correctly describes as political correctness gone mad. Words like that have been in sporting currency for a century or more.

Perhaps they are regarded as inappropriate because they signify a desire to win. A pity such words did not resound around England's dressing-room at half-time in their match against Brazil in last year's World Cup.