February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
It isn’t the just fact that somebody of his limitations has swapped a place on the bench at Elland Road for a team playing in the second-best league (after Serie A) in the world. It’s that Harte is joining a side that in their entire 95-year history has previously spent two seasons in the top flight of Spanish football. And those were back in the early 1960s.
A couple of weeks ago, you see, Harte was linked with a move to Valencia. Now, you may have seen that and been surprised by it. You may have wondered what a club of Valencia’s pedigree would want with a left-back like Harte. After all, a side with their sort of ambition doesn’t usually go in for defenders who aren’t actually very good at, eh, defending. Of course, the truthful answer is the Spanish giants probably had no interest at all because ludicrous backpage yarns about glamorous moves to high-profile outfits have been a bizarre hallmark of Harte’s career.
Ask anybody to name the only Irish international in the last four years to be publicly linked with Juventus, Barcelona, Inter Milan and Bayern Munich, and most would plump for one of the Keanes or Damien Duff. And they would be wrong.
Last August, Harte was, according to published reports, almost certainly on his way to the San Siro. Having been left out of the Leeds United first-team squad for the first two games of the season by Peter Reid, he was allegedly being courted by Inter Milan and merely waiting to discuss the move with his family before giving them answer. There’s more where that rubbish came from.
Back in October 2002, several tabloid stories emerged about Harte heading to the Old Lady of Turin. According to, ahem, sources, Juve were willing to pay