Having joined the Second Division for 1905-06, Leeds City made a good fist of it in their first season, finishing sixth out of 20 clubs. In addition, Rugby's monopoly with the locals finally seemed to have been broken, with Leeds RL's average gate numbers falling by nearly 50% in that first League season. City didn't do quite so well in 1906-07, but they did manage to sign centre-forward Billy McLeod from Lincoln City. McLeod was a reliable goal scorer and scored 15 goals in just 23 appearances in the league that year, but could not help the club to manage more than a mid-table finish, which was where they remained most seasons before the First World War. McLeod went on to score a total of 171 goals in 289 League appearances with Leeds.

1907-08 was no better than the previous year with City finishing 12th. Manager Gilbert Gillies' contract was not renewed.

In March 1908, Frank Scott-Walford took over as secretary-manager from Gillies, after finally being released by Brighton following protracted negotiations. He brought in many of his trusted Brighton players, yet none made a lasting impact. Even though Tom Morris, said to be the best defender in the Second Division, was introduced in the latter half of 1908-09, no real improvement was made.

Scott-Walford later switched his attention to Ireland and brought a host of up-and-coming players to Elland Road. Unfortunately the newcomers had little impact. In 1909-10 City flirted with relegation, finishing a lowly 17th, and after a mid-season finish in 1910-11, the club had to apply for re-election at the end of 1911-12 after a dismal season, leading Scott-Walford to resign.

Leeds City reached a low point when its bankers decided to call in the club's £7,000 overdraft, which would effectively put City out of business. Chairman Hepworth poured in more cash and appointed Mr Tom Coombes as Receiver. Coombes was to run City's affairs for three years as the club lurched from one financial crisis to another.

The extent of Hepworth's generosity was revealed at a public meeting at the Grand Central Hotel in April 1912. The club's major benefactor had invested the then huge sum of £15,000 on trying to keep City afloat. An extraordinary general meeting at the Salem Hall, called to try and sort out the whole miserable mess, revealed that total liabilities were £15,782, total losses since the club's formation were £11,321 and assets stood at £7,084. The meeting agreed that the company should be wound up and that Coombes should run the club.

And then came the arrival of Herbert Chapman as manager. He had made an impact in his first managerial role at Northampton Town, and he was to become the most famous British manager of the next two decades, with Huddersfield Town and Arsenal, winning 4 League titles and 2 FA Cup finals. Chapman campaigned vigorously to keep City in the League and on 4 June, they were re-elected comfortably enough with 33 votes. Lincoln City (27 votes) replaced Gainsborough Trinity, who managed only nine votes. He also confidently predicted that he could take Leeds into the First Division.

The 1912-13 season began with renewed optimism and Chapman's team made a useful start. There were more off-field problems, however, this time with the Football League. During the summer Chapman signed three players - Billy Scott, George Law and Evelyn Lintott - agreeing to pay each of them the full year's wage of £208 to the end of the following April. But two months had already elapsed since the end of their previous contracts. In effect, the players were getting more than the permitted wage of £4 per week. Aston Villa had fallen foul of the League for the same offence and when their case came to light, City realised they had unwittingly breached the rules and reported themselves. The League were swift to act and City were fined £125 plus expenses and the players were ordered to return the excess payments.

Despite these problems, Chapman was an inspiring leader and the club finished sixth in his first season, with McLeod netting 27 League goals out of a club record of 70 for the season. Highlight of the season was a 5-1 thrashing of eventual Champions Preston in February. Chapman was now becoming heavily involved in the club's affairs and was particularly anxious to improve team spirit.

1913-14 saw City come within two points of promotion in 4th spot, thanks to quite brilliant form at Elland Road where they set up a club League record by thrashing Nottingham Forest 8-0. Large crowds rolled up to see Ivan Sharpe's wing-craft creating goals for the mercurial McLeod, whilst goalkeeper Tony Hogg proved an exciting discovery. Again McLeod had a good return, netting 27 goals in his 37 games.

Things finally seemed to be improving financially as well with the club generating a profit of £400, after enormously improved attendances. There were regularly more than 20,000 fans at Elland Road that year and they drew 30,000 for the visit of Fulham.

The club looked better financially as well as on the pitch and in August 1914, a syndicate of Leeds sportsmen, headed by Mr Joseph Connor, president of the West Riding FA, came up with an offer to run the club. Their offer of a payment of £1,000 plus an annual rent of £250 for Elland Road was accepted by Coombes.

Things seemed to be heading in the right direction at last and City were confident of promotion at the start of 1914-15. Disappointingly, however, the side never matched their form of the previous year and finished 15th in the last season before the suspension of the official Football League programme during the war years. McLeod had another useful season though and finished up with 18 goals in 31 games. During the war Leeds were unexpectedly successful when more than 30 guest players, including many internationals like Franny Walden and Charlie Buchan, appeared for them. City won the unofficial League Championship by beating the champions of the Lancashire League after winning their own section, but this was a completely unofficial achievement.

The four year gap seemed to rejuvenate the club and when the League programme proper resumed in 1919-20, Chapman's men made a useful start to the season, with ten points from eight games, with McLeod already hitting 9 goals. But then, things went badly wrong. Leeds City Football Club was suspended and eventually expelled from the Football League after an astonishing scandal involving alleged illegal payments to players during the war years.

After the long and dark days of the First World War, the resumption of official football activity was eagerly anticipated and the new Football League season kicked off on 30 August 1919. Leeds City started along with all the others, but were not to see the season out.

What was to become infamously known as The Leeds City Scandal had been rumbling on for years and it was about to become public knowledge.

Charlie Copeland was a full-back who had first played for City on November 9 1912 in a 4-0 win over Glossop after being signed by Herbert Chapman. Copeland was in and out of the side over those few seasons before World War I, but was a regular during the war years. He fell out with the club over a pay rise and as a result made allegations about illegal payments being made to wartime guest players. He raised the issue with the football authorities in July 1919, and even though the practice had been widespread, neither the FA nor the Football League could ignore such allegations once formally brought to their attention.

But Copeland's actions were only one factor in the wartime problems which hastened City's demise.

The club's troubles began when Herbert Chapman vacated his post as manager to assist the war effort by taking charge of the Barnbow munitions factory in East Leeds. Chapman recommended that his assistant, George Cripps, took control of the club's administration while he was away. Playing matters became the responsibility of new chairman Joseph Connor and another director.

Chapman had been a charasmatic and successful manager over the previous three years and had bound the club together as a team on and off the field, but the void he left allowed tension and personality clashes to rise to the surface.

The most problematic conflict was that between Connor and Cripps. The chairman simply did not rate Cripps and made no secret of the fact. In fact, he felt so strongly about matters that he threatened to resign if no action was taken - he maintained that Cripps was mishandling the club's business affairs and getting things into a mess. The Board sided with Connor and enlisted the help of an accountant's clerk to look after the club's books. This happened in 1917. However, despite Cripps having some health problems, he was made responsible for correspondence and managing the team. That perverse decision was a mistake, because it only served to make matters worse.

The internal politics continued throughout 1917-18 and it became apparent that the in-fighting was having a serious impact on the club's well-being. Indeed, matters had reached such a poor state that the Board was seriously considering whether there was any real alternative but to pull the plug on the club. The assets they owned were dwindling fast and they doubted the wisdom of continuing to throw good money after bad. If the chairman of the Football League, John McKenna, had not intervened to urge the directors to battle on, it is likely that Leeds City would have folded there and then. It might have been better if they had, but it is unlikely that Leeds United would have ever then come into being.

Cripps was as disliked by the club's playing staff as he was by Connor. Things became so bad at one stage that the club captain John Hampson wrote to the directors before one match at Nottingham to the effect that if Cripps were to travel with the team, the players would go on strike. The crisis was postponed by Connor successfully pleading with Hampson to avert the strike, arguing that it would spell the end of the club and bring them all down. But again, it was only a temporary reprieve.

Herbert Chapman returned as manager in 1918 and the Board thought that this might put an end to the internal strife, but this was not to be the case. They tried to demote Cripps to his former position of assistant, but he fought the decision bitterly. He felt very badly done by and threatened to sue the club for wrongful dismissal. Cripps' solicitor was James Bromley, a former director of the club. Cripps made a claim against the club of £400 and told Bromley that the club had made illegal payments to players during the war years.

Bromley took speedy action and negotiated a deal between Cripps and the Board in January 1919. According to Connor, Cripps provided a written undertaking not to disclose any information relating to the club's affairs and also promised to pass over all relevant documents in his possession, including cheque books, pass books and correspondence. He handed all these documents over to Connor in the presence of the Leeds City's solicitor, Alderman William Clarke. Clarke sealed all the papers away in a strongbox in his city centre office. Again according to Connor, Bromley gave his word of honour that he would not reveal his knowledge of the documents. In return for all this, Cripps would be given £55, rather less than the £400 he had sought.

Bromley had a different version of events. He maintained that he handed over a parcel of documents which he had been given by Cripps into the trust of Clarke, but that the parcel would only be given up if this were to be agreed by both Connor and himself. He also said that one of the conditions for the handing over of the parcel was that the Board made a donation of £50 to Leeds Infirmary. Bromley said that he later asked to see a receipt for the donation, but Clarke told him that Connor was unwilling to enter into any further discussion with him regarding the club's affairs.

It looked like things had reached an impasse, but matters were shortly to get very much worse.

As City began to assemble their playing staff ready for the 1919-20 season, the first post-war League campaign, the renewal of Charlie Copeland's contract was considered. Before the war, Copeland received £3 a week with a £1 weekly increase when he played in the first team. The board had now offered Copeland £3 10s (£3.50) for playing in the reserves, and considerably more if he played for the first team, or they would release him on a free transfer.

The disgruntled Copeland demanded £6 a week and rocked the club by stating that if he did not get the cash, then he would report City to the Football Association and the Football League for making illegal payments to players during the war. City's directors felt they were being blackmailed. At the risk of forcing Copeland's hand, they ignored his demands and gave him a free transfer to Coventry. Copeland, who had got hold of certain documents or at least knew of their contents, carried out his threat in July 1919 and revealed the alleged irregularities to the authorities.

Bromley was also Copeland's solicitor and, though he strenuously denied it, the club's directors had strong suspicions that it was he who was feeding Copeland the information which proved so sensitive.

Following Copeland's allegations, the Football Association and the Football League set up a joint inquiry into the matter. The Commission, chaired by FA chairman, J C Clegg, summoned the club to Manchester on 26 September 1919, to answer the charges. City were represented by Alderman Clarke, who was asked to present the club books before the inquiry.

The Commission, which included a dozen members of the Football Association and the Football League, as well as members of the international selection committee, were stunned when City replied that it was not in their power to do so. Immediately, the inquiry ordered City to produce the documents by 6 October or face the consequences.

Despite all this off-field controversy, Leeds City had made a solid start to their new campaign and not even the players could have guessed what was in store as they set off to play Wolverhampton two days before the deadline. Because of a rail strike the team went to Molineux by charabanc and won 4-2, with ace marksman Billy McLeod netting a hat-trick. On the way home, the City coach gave several stranded people a lift back to the North and among them was none other than Charlie Copeland.

The trip to Wolves was to be City's last game. The Commission's deadline came and went with no sign of the documents, so the following Saturday's fixture against South Shields was suspended and after a meeting of the inquiry team at the Russell Hotel in London, City were expelled from the Football League and disbanded.

League chairman John McKenna announced: "The authorities of the game intend to keep it absolutely clean. We will have no nonsense. The football stable must be cleaned and further breakages of the law regarding payments will be dealt with in such a severe manner that I now give warning that clubs and players must not expect the slightest leniency."

An FA order formally closed the club, leaving everyone associated with Leeds City shocked and uncomprehending, the unfortunate players out of a job and City officials to face further punishment.

Although there had been no concrete evidence of the alleged illegal payments, City's silence - whether to protect themselves or a misguided move to shield players - was deemed to be admission of guilt.

Not even the personal intervention of the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Alderman Joseph Henry, who offered to take over the club from the directors, could persuade the inquiry to reconsider and League football came to a halt in Leeds after just eight games of the 1919-20 season.

Five City officials were banned for life - Connor, Whiteman, fellow directors Mr S Glover and Mr G Sykes and, rather surprisingly, manager Herbert Chapman. The board promptly resigned, but Chapman earned a reprieve after evidence was later given that he was working at the munitions factory when the illegal payments were allegedly made.

Connor complained that City were not given a fair hearing by the inquiry and Alderman Henry also believed that Burslem Port Vale - the club who had replaced City in the Football League - had brought undue pressure to bear on the inquiry team, in an effort to get City thrown out, so they could take their place.

Port Vale inherited City's playing record of Played 8, Won 4, Drawn 2, Lost 2, Goals For 17, Goals Against 10, Points 10. They completed City's remaining fixtures and finished in 13th place.

Bob Hewison, a guest player with City during the war, was asked by the inquiry to act as secretary during the winding up of the club, a job he tackled while recovering from a broken leg sustained in 1918-19. Also helping to sort out the tattered remnants of the club were Alderman Henry and Leeds accountant W H Platts.

Hewison later became Bristol City manager, and became embroiled in another illegal payments scandal. On 15 October 1938, another joint Football Association and Football League inquiry into payments made to amateur players fined Bristol City 100 guineas and suspended Hewison until the end of the season.

Biggest victims of the Leeds closure were the players. The Football League promised to pay their wages until they could get fixed up with new clubs and the best way to find them new employers was considered to be by auction, which was duly held at the Metropole Hotel in Leeds on 17 October. Representatives from 30 League clubs turned up to haggle over Leeds City's erstwhile assets.

It was a humiliating experience for the players as they were sold off along with the club's nets, goal-posts, boots, kit and physiotherapy equipment. The entire squad fetched less than £10,150, with fees fixed at between £1,250 (for star player McLeod) and £100 after would-be purchasers complained that the original prices were set too high. The Football League, who were responsible for organising the sale, said that no player should be made to join any club he did not want to but, with the players anxious to get back into the action as quickly as possible, the other clubs clearly held the whip hand.

Looking back on the entire shabby episode some years later, John McKenna revealed he had some sympathy with the plight in which Leeds City found themselves trapped: "Perhaps others have escaped being found guilty of malpractices, but if they are found out now we shall not stand on ceremony or sentiment."

And so the name of Leeds City was banished to the history books, tarnished by allegations of financial wrong doings and mismanagement. Clearly an overzealous Football League had handed the city back to the clutches of Rugby League. One of the biggest cities in England had no professional football team. It is no surprise then that another team in Leeds were fast tracked into the football league in 1921. Leeds United had no links to Leeds City, but did eventually get to play at Elland Road (home to Leeds City), once Yorkshire Amateurs agreed to vacate.

And there is the end of Leeds City FC or was it….

Over the years the name has been used by several teams and conscious efforts made to establish a second, credible football team in Leeds. Farsley and Guiseley, Gosforth and Yorkshire Amateurs also have had some success in diverting attention from the main professional team in Leeds, i.e. Leeds United.

There is a long history of football in North Leeds and especially at Adel. Not much is documented though, but the Memorial Ground has seen players such as Terry Oath and the Charlton brothers heavily involved. Sunday football dominated in the 1980’s and Adel FC played in the Leeds Sunday Football League. Saturday football only arrived with Philip Hawks well in the 1990’s. Whilst acknowledged as providing the best facilities in local football, the club drifted into the millennium surviving, but not moving forward either on or off the pitch. A fateful few years in the West Yorkshire League was followed by mixed fortunes in the lesser Yorkshire Old Boys League. Adel FC was providing social football, with occasional success. Graham Remmer and Phil Hawks well guided the club through these difficult years, with help from Jack Hill. Jack’s association with Adel goes back many, many years and his support and direction kept the club alive and at times afloat. New ideas were needed, dynamic personalities sought and a direction to take the club needed to be established. The following events, people and plans, both unplanned and planned made Leeds City what it is today.

1.      Stephen Richmond (now Chairman) arrived at the club in 2004, to manage one of the Sunday teams. With him came new and innovative thoughts on how the club could be moved forward.

2.      Stuart Remmer joined the committee and provided a link between Adel FC and the parent organisation Adel WMA. His major input was to take the old and ensure it moved forward with the new.

3.      Leeds City Vixens agreed to work closely with the male part of the club. Vixens were only tenants at Adel, but agreed to join the overall committee in late 2004. John Southcombe and Martin Cockerill brought with them other ideas on how a club in North Leeds could move forward

4.      Abbey Grange FC. Abbey were our closet neighbours, playing on the LMU pitches just over from Adel. They were keen to grow and develop and looked enviously at the facilities at Adel. Amongst their ranks were David Booth, Mark Mcfarlane and Richard Benton. All are experienced in local football at all levels and with massive ambitions to grow their club. Abbey also had a fledgling junior section

5.      The open age teams at Horsforth St Margarets were looking for a new home. Playing in the WYL Premier Division, this close nit teams were looking for an organization and structure to help move them forward.

In 2005 Leeds City FC was formed from the merger of Adel FC, Abbey Grange and Leeds City Vixens. The name was a deliberate choice in order to show the ambition of the new club. A successful application was made to the West Yorkshire League and the management and players from Horsforth St Margarets arrived to fulfill this position for the club and firmly put us on the football pyramid. All other sides were re-named using Leeds City (Adel Rangers, became Leeds City Rangers). Whilst the current history is short, the name of Leeds City is now back and viable once again. Things never stay the same, but Leeds City has the management and commitment to go forward and fulfill the potential our predecessors could not.