English League Championship play-off final / Leeds Utd v Watford, Millennium Stadium, Sunday 3.0: Manager Kevin Blackwell has assured Leeds United fans the club will be ready for the Premiership if they overcome Watford in the Championship play-off final on Sunday. The fallen Yorkshire giants appeared destined for years in the wilderness when they spectacularly dropped out of the top flight at the end of the 2003/'04 season with unprecedented debts that were to rise to over £100 million.

When Blackwell, assistant to Eddie Gray at the time, was appointed manager the following summer he set about building a team from scratch with the threat of liquidation hanging over him. But two seasons later Leeds stand on the brink of a return to the big time, one game away from completing one of the most unlikely of turnarounds given the legacy of former chairman Peter Ridsdale's boom-and-bust era.

"From Christmas we've been looking at two possible scenarios," said Blackwell. "The frustrating thing is we can't do anything - we don't know where we're going to be and can't talk to anyone yet. We'll start after the final."

When asked if his side was good enough to mix it in the top flight, the 47-year-old replied: "That will be handled. Believe me. And in the proper manner. If the club had been run properly before we would not be where we are . . . A lot of money was put on red and it came up black."

One of the first men Blackwell turned to when asked to pick up the pieces at Leeds was Watford manager Adrian Boothroyd and the irony is not lost on either of them. Blackwell gave Boothroyd, now 35, his break in the summer of 2004, appointing him as head coach at Leeds where he stayed for eight months before Watford came calling.

One who has arguably done more than most for Leeds is chairman Ken Bates, bought out at Chelsea by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and is now throwing his full weight behind the Leeds renaissance.