How the Leeds United star’s transfer to Manchester United gave rise to a Korean phrase

As Leeds United prepare to face Manchester United this weekend, it may stir up memories among some fans of a controversial player’s move from Elland Road to Old Trafford in the early years of this century.

In the summer of 2004, Leeds United player Alan Smith did the unthinkable and moved across the Pennines to the club’s arch rivals, Manchester United – not knowing that it would spark a linguistic phenomenon thousands of miles away in South Korea that still exists today.

In Smith’s three years at Old Trafford following his £7m move, his performances never reached the heights of his previous club, where the striker was a local hero.

But in South Korea, Smith’s loss of form gave rise to an initially ambiguous phrase that actually meant the pinnacle of one’s life or the climax of one’s life.

‘Leeds Days’ is now an everyday term among the country’s 52 million speakers, although a large portion of the population there appear to have never heard of the city, let alone the player.

“Most people there don’t know the origin of the word, so I find myself explaining it,” says Josh Wellman, who was the liaison to a Leeds United fan group in South Korea.

Wellman, originally from Hemsworth in West Yorkshire, moved 5,000 miles to South Korea in 2017, where he spent most of the next eight years as an English teacher, before returning home last month.

When he was 12, Smith’s move through Benin was his first football “sorrow”, he says.

“It wasn’t nice to be reminded of that, I guess, when I first heard that phrase,” Mr. Wellman laughs.

“It was my first year there. I had never heard of him before I left.

“The first guy I worked with was from Barnsley and he was very interested in football, so he was the one who explained it to me.”

‘Leeds Days’ are believed to have first appeared on Korean online forums in the 2000s, after one of the country’s best players – Park Ji-sung – joined Manchester United a year after Smith.

With the boom in the Internet and interest in English football in South Korea, the conditions were ripe for the spread of this phrase.

“At first it was only used by football fans, but later it was used more widely by other people,” says Dr Siwi Cho, lecturer in Korean at the University of Leeds.

She adds that the meaning of “Leeds Days” has “evolved” over time.

“When it started, the meaning was actually ‘bygone era’, but now it’s more used to refer to someone’s youth or prime time.

“It can also indicate your popularity as a star or singer, your popularity with your fans or your wealth.”

More recently, the ‘days’ part of the phrase has been dropped by the younger generation, says Dr Shaw, with simply ‘Leeds’ now being used.

However, a new Korean restaurant in Leeds city centre, opened by Hyung Joon Kim and his wife Yoon Sung Bang in April, is using the phrase in full.

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t know the origin at first,” admits 54-year-old John, who first moved to the UK from Korea in 2001. “Then when I looked at it, it kind of clicked.”

“About 15 or 20 years ago, I started seeing celebrities posting pictures of themselves on social media in their youth, or their ‘Leeds days’,” he explains.

“It’s a term that Korean people are familiar with, but it’s not really known to people outside the country.

“So we used it because we wanted people to know that we serve authentic Korean food.”

Wellman, who co-hosts a podcast about South Korean culture for those who have immigrated there, says one of his students was named Leeds.

He also came across a dermatology clinic and a bar bearing the city’s name, the latter hosting a dozen or so Leeds United fans at a promotional event a few years ago.

However, far from being a loud sports bar with big TVs, Wellman says it was actually “a very upscale, expensive whiskey bar, and not the best place for a dozen people to watch a football game.”

“I don’t think the owner was very happy,” he adds.

While the phrase was initially jarring for the 33-year-old (who turns 35 in South Korea due to a cultural difference in how age is calculated) due to Smith’s highly offensive move, he soon relished it as a reminder of home.

“If I saw this in a restaurant, I would take a picture and send it to everyone – look at this, we’re famous,” he explains.

“Any connection I could draw between Korea and Leeds was nice, even if most people there didn’t know what it meant.”