Leeds United in Dublin - AC Milan ticket sales update, Don Revie call and Gary Speed gift

Along with those packing flights from Leeds Bradford there will be a steady stream of Whites making their way from all over Ireland. Four coaches departing from Newtownabbey north of Belfast are already fully booked. They'll be coming from Enniskillen, Meath, Wexford and Galway.

The City of the Tribes is where Gerry McDermott called to order the first meeting of a Leeds United supporters club in the 80s. A Galway native, he was inspired by an encounter with the Griffin branch with whom he travelled back to Leeds from a game up at Carlisle.

"I started supporting Leeds as a child," he told the YEP. "It was the old black and white. I'm 65 by the way, so it was the 1970 cup final, Leeds and Chelsea. I just liked the white, the all white and I liked Eddie Gray, one of the stars of that. But I really got into it in the 80s when I started going to Leeds. You really embrace it when you actually get to Elland Road. Allan Clarke was manager at the time and the first game I went to was against Wolves.

"There was one day it was Man United v Liverpool and I decided to go from Galway to watch Leeds play at Carlisle. On the way back I was invited to come back on a bus with the Griffin branch. And there was a hotel in the center of Leeds called The Griffin Hotel. And we went in there, and they just got talking to me and I decided to set up a supporters club. In 1984 there was nothing in Ireland at that time. The good old days had gone. I set up one in Galway. There were only eight people at the very first meeting but it grew from there. I set up the Dublin branch, then there was Cork, and it just spread to nearly every county in Ireland."

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Leeds United scouts in Ireland

McDermott's involvement soon extended beyond the pre-Ryanair era matchday trips across on the Dublin to Liverpool ferry. He got to know Eddie Gray during the legend's 1980s stint as manager. And one day an idea popped into his head.

"We'd had Johnny Giles and we had signed Dennis Irwin in 1983 but we'd never had a big history of signing players from Ireland, so one day I wrote a letter and Eddie Beaglehole, the youth development officer, got back to me and came up with the idea to set up scouting over here. I set up with a guy called Paddy Hilliard - he was involved with Home Farm. I never thought it would go where it went. Then all of a sudden Gary [Kelly] went over and obviously he brought Ian Harte over, then there was Stephen McPhail, Alan Maybury.

"The funny thing is, in the late 80s we were the first club to have a look at Roy Keane but at the time he was very small and Leeds thought they had a better player at the time in Gary Speed. There was also Robbie Keane, he went over in '97 but they didn't really want him either."

McDermott, who was involved in scouting for Leeds until the late 1990s is full of Leeds United stories. There was the time Don Revie rang him out of the blue. "I thought it was a wind up," he said. "He said do you not recognise the Middlesbrough accent and I was saying I wouldn't know one accent from another, apart from Scouse or Geordie." There was the Connemara stone presented to Gary Speed in 1990. "We gave him this presentation, a symbolic stone from a place called Spiddal just outside Galway. It's in the Gaeltacht, the Irish-speaking part and the stone represented this area. Gary went back to North Wales and presented the stone to be put behind a bar. About three years ago we got a phone call from a builder and he was in the bar in North Wales and it had been taken over and stuff was being dumped in a skip and he found the stone that had been given to Gary Speed by the Leeds United Galway Branch in '93. The guy said 'I'd hate to just throw it in a skip' so he sent it back and he wouldn't take a penny for postage so we have it back here now."

And there were the visits from Leeds United.

"The first time in my lifetime would have been January 1990, the weather was horrendous and Leeds must have got knocked out of the cup," said McDermott. "We played Shelbourne at Tolka Park. Leeds were on the last flight out of Leeds Bradford before they closed the airport due to the weather. There were 3,000 locked outside and the Gardaí decided to open the gates and let everyone in. I thought about it recently and health and safety wouldn't allow that anymore. They were all caught unawares. You could pay on the tunstile. It was an indication of what was ahead. Leeds used to come regularly after that. They had a strong association with Shelburne Football Club."

Aviva clash with AC Milan

Word reached McDermott weeks ago that the Aviva wanted Leeds to face off against AC Milan this summer in a pre-season friendly. It was a similar situation in Stockholm where Strawberry Arena put the feelers out among local supporters to see if there would be an appetite for a Leeds game. There would only ever be one answer to that question in Sweden or in Ireland.

"I think it even takes me by surprise now, and I've been a Leeds fan since 1970," said McDermott. "Leeds United's support is monstrous. I think it's even taken the 49ers by surprise. They knew it was big, but didn't realise was that big.

"It's nine years since they were last over when they played Shamrock Rovers. Lewis Cook was 19, he was the new kid on the block and got a phone call in his hotel room to say you're flying back out of Dublin to sign for Bournemouth. They played two games that week, one in Tolka Park, as normal, against Shelbourne and then in Tallaght Stadium, Rovers' ground."

Leeds party in Dublin

Absence, coupled with Marcelo Bielsa lighting a flame under the club, has only made the heart fonder. Local fans and those arriving from the UK and Ireland will gather together in Dublin for a friendly with Serie A giants and what is expected to be an extension of the celebratory scenes that followed promotion. The 3,000-capacity Camden sportsbar is set to host a party for Leeds fans on the Friday night.

"Demand has gone through the roof from Belfast and nearly every town in Northern Ireland," said McDermott. "They're coming from all over and I'd say it'll open people's eyes, the amount of buses coming down to the game. There's only Man Utd, Liverpool and obviously Celtic would probably fill a stadium like this in the Republic, apart from the international team. It shows how big Leeds are, here.

"We're meeting in the Camden, which is a unbelievable sports bar. There's a big giant screen there and they're going to be putting up the best goals and last season's goals. The bar stays open until 2.30am so they're going to put on a party, then all the bars leading to the Aviva will be packed. It'll be huge. Like a carnival atmosphere. Leeds is more than just football, it's your daily fix and it's about the friendship that grows from it. Fans will be coming who haven't missed a game for 50 years. Leeds is their life. There's very few clubs like Leeds."