DAVID O'Leary played the nave, young Dubliner card to the max. The twinkling Irishman with the lovely lilt gloried in his babies in white nappies going about the innocent business of making Leeds United everyone's second favourite team, much like Newcastle United in Kevin Keegan's equally fresh-faced era.

Then came the unseemly events of the night of January 12, 2000 - the night Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate ran through the streets of Leeds in a drunken state, the night Asian student Sarfraz Najeib ended up half-dead in Mill Hill, bitten and beaten. We know the courtroom outcome: Woodgate guilty of affray but cleared of GBH; Bowyer found not guilty of both charges but branded a liar by the judge and installed as Public Enemy Number One by the tabloid press, and Leeds United restored to their pantomime villain role of Dirty Leeds.

Within days, the serialisation of David O'Leary's book had begun in the News Of The World. It was billed as the book they all wanted. In reality, it was the book the News Of The World wanted now; the rest of us could have happily waited for longer. Better still, it need never have come out at all, not because the Najeib family is conducting a civil action against Messrs Bowyer and Woodgate and Leeds United too, but because the rotten stench has not gone away, nor will it. That self-deprecating "young, nave" tag was never convincing... until now.

Why call a book Leeds United On Trial? O'Leary, 43, should have rejected the title put to him in favour of something less provocative, insensitive and crass. Marching On Together had already been snapped up by assistant manager Eddie Gray and reporter Richard Sutcliffe for their winter 2001 books, so no hat trick there. Trials And Tribulations may have sufficed, but On Trial, oh deary, Mr O'Leary.

Then what about the timing? Yes, Leeds United On Trial was due out in the autumn, some five months after the first aborted trial but, post trial number two, why such indecent haste that the penultimate chapter ends in limbo with Lee Bowyer still holding out against a club fine: a situation since resolved.

The answer, and David O'Leary surely knows it, is that Leeds United On Trial has maximum currency value NOW. The year is over, the re-trial is over, the news is still cauldron-hot - oh, and New Leeds has a damaged image to repair, quickly.

O'Leary's book goes about its account of "The Inside Story Of an Astonishing Year" in methodical, joyless, self-justifying detail. He is the good Catholic on a whinge and a prayer, offering little new on the court case behind its disruptive effect on club affairs and its unpleasant consequences for Mr and Mrs O'Leary: death threats and hate mail.

Yes, he condemns Woodgate and Bowyer for their unruly behaviour that January night but whether describing the court case or matches, he continually refers to them as Woody and Bow, as if he can't bring himself to lose his affection for these errant young men.

In particular, he talks of Bowyer presenting him with a signed shirt at the season's end as an incredibly touching gesture. Better to have kept that sentiment to yourself, David.

Out of nine chapters, only two are on the trial but so what: they are the selling point, not O'Leary's spat with Arsenal's Robert Pires, his difference of opinion with Liverpool's Gary McAllister, his "war of words" with Manchester United emperor Sir Alex Ferguson. Nor the heart ailments of O'Leary's father and his French friend Mr Houllier of Liverpool. Nor even Leeds United's extraordinary European excursions as David and his babes knocked over Goliath after Goliath in the UEFA Champions League. Instead of pleasure at recalling those deeds, and feeling sympathy for O'Leary in troubled times, that court case hangs like a black cloud over Leeds United On Trial.

The inaccuracy of calling Leeds the biggest city in England, typographical errors, the absence of an index and, in particular, no statistics from the 2000-2001 season pale into insignificance when placed against the greater folly: the publication of a book with nothing to gain and everything to lose, a book that merely adds insult to injury (and that is not a reference to last season's notorious crock list).

David O'Leary is fond of saying he hasn't won anything yet as a manager.

Now he risks losing friends too - and not even the belated gesture of giving the book proceeds to community football causes in Leeds will rectify that.

David O'Leary, Leeds United On Trial, The Inside Story Of An Astonishing Year, is published by Little, Brown at £14.99.

Updated: 10:29 Thursday, January 03, 2002