The 22-year-old from York has become an accomplished defender, fit to fill Woodgate’s boots without the comparison acting as concrete around them. Rafa Benitez, the Liverpool manager, is an acknowledged admirer of his reliability and ambition. Reading’s Steve Coppell tried to sign him this summer but Leeds chairman Ken Bates responded to a bid in excess of £1m in typically bullish form. “He’s going nowhere,” said Bates. “If he continues to develop, I can see him as a natural successor to John Terry.” Again the comparison sits easily.
Killa, as he is widely known, can close his eyes and conjure up almost haunting images of the days when some of the Premiership’s top players were daily inspirations at Leeds’s Thorp Arch training ground. “I’d finish my training with the Academy boys and come out here and sit by the side of the pitch to watch the likes of Rio Ferdinand and Woodgate and Radebe and you’d see the challenge you faced. They represented the standard you had to reach,” he says. “Hopefully, one day I can be as good a player, if not better. It is nice to hear your name mentioned in the same breath as the England captain. The way he gives 100% and tackles and puts his head in the danger area while still being able to take the ball out of defence and show a great touch, this is why he’s an inspiration and those other players, for me, were the same.
“I often wondered how I would ever get a chance while they were at the club but that’s what made me work and made me strive because I wanted that opportunity. I used to watch Robbie Keane and Robbie Fowler out there scoring goals. Harry Kewell used to drill home 30-yard shots for fun. As young lads, that’s what we all saw as our destiny, if we were good enough. That’s what it was to be at Leeds.”
From the hallucinogenic heights of a Champions League semi-final against Valencia to the sudden, unedifying fall which threatened the very foundations of Elland Road, Kilgallon has witnessed so much in his short time at the club. “The Premiership is where a club like Leeds belongs, with the massive following we have and the tradition and track record of the club,” he asserts. “It’s where we belong and this is everyone’s mission. I was devastated when we were relegated. We shouldn’t have gone down.
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The fans deserved better. But hopefully the good times are coming back. Last season we came close to achieving our goal and it was exciting, though it was massively disappointing when we lost in Cardiff (Watford beat Leeds 3-0 in the Championship playoff final). But we’ve come a long way again in a couple of seasons and, if we can continue that progress, we can get there.”
Leeds have yet to find their true form this season but manager Kevin Blackwell is convinced that his team will be stronger, ultimately, for that setback at the Millennium Stadium. “I’ve never tried to claim that we’ve reached our peak yet but from where I’m standing I can only see improvement on the way,” he declares. “We’d have been right on top of Norwich going into this weekend if we’d won at QPR rather than throwing two points away and we’ve got players coming back who will give us that strength in depth we need. The negative reaction that has come from some quarters this season is surprising because the table doesn’t worry me. We’re not top with five wins out of five but anyone writing us off is going to get a shock. I’m not going to pretend that we’ve been brilliant but once this
juggernaut gets moving it will take some stopping.”
It would mean more to Kilgallon than anybody. He attended York City’s school of excellence, but his heart was always in Leeds, the club he supported. Aged 13, he arrived with his father, Shaun, one day at the Leeds training ground, asked for a trial and has been with the club ever since. He excelled at tennis and represented Tadcaster Grammar School at national level — “I never had lessons but I could hit with both hands, which is more than I can do with my feet” — but football was his passion.
“My mum and dad both tried to drum into me the importance of having something to fall back on and I did all right in my GCSEs. Dad’s a chef so, after two years of doing a sports science course when I became a trainee, I took a course in cooking,” he reveals. “I always thought I looked a bit of a plonker in a chef’s uniform but I can cook a good fillet steak with pepper sauce. I haven’t told the girlfriend — she does the cooking at home — but Gordon Ramsay might have competition one day.”
It was after a loan spell at West Ham that Kilgallon got his chance in the Leeds team, making his debut against Hapoel Tel Aviv in the Uefa Cup and making two Premiership appearances before the end of the 2002-03 season. Terry Venables, who had succeeded David O’Leary as manager, gave him his start, immediately identifying the qualities that would lead to some heady comparisons: “I watched him in the reserves, was impressed and had no hesitation in using him in the centre of defence when I needed to. It wasn’t a matter of me including him to give him a bit of a lift. He worked hard and he deserved his chance.”
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Venables, now with England under Steve McClaren, has not forgotten Kilgallon, who was in the under-21 squad this week. He has a long way to go to take the place of John Terry but he once thought the same when he looked at Woodgate and hard work got him there.