Leeds United’s “darkest day” dominated the front and back pages of the Yorkshire Evening Post yesterday, as the city newspaper reflected on where it all went wrong.

A disappointing 1-1 draw against Ipswich on Saturday saw the club all but relegated to the third tier of English football.

The match was further marred by a pitch invasion.

The Yorkshire Evening Post staffed the match as if Leeds would be relegated, with three photographers and news and sports staff at Elland Road.

And immediately after the match the Evening Post’s website, leedstoday.net, told how United were ‘down bar a miracle’, with a reflective match report charting the fall to League One level for the first time in their history.

Its Sunday sports paper, Yorkshire Sport, led on the misery, with immediate post-match analysis.

And yesterday’s Evening Post followed this up with a P1 comment headlined ‘That’s it’.

Inside, the paper reported on the ‘darkest day’, looking at the shameful pitch invasion and the despair of “true” fans as well as a full match report, the view from fans and a more considered analysis at the back.

Editor Paul Napier said the match had been a miserable end to a miserable season.

He said: “It looked envitable since last September, although of course you always hope it’s not going to happen.

“It was very tricky to cover from our point of view – it is not a simple story and was made more complicated by the horrific pitch invasion.”

He said the depressing result may also lead to depressing sales figures, as news like this can be tricky to sell.

Last year Leeds United lost out in the play-offs as they battled to return to the Premiership, and the following Evening Post issue had not sold well – as the news was so bad that people did not want to read about it.

But Paul said the paper would continue to cover the club with the same depth.

He said: “We are a Leeds newspaper and Leeds is our club.

“The great debate is are you better off at the bottom of a higher division or at the top of a lower division.

“Sales might do better when the club is doing well whatever the division is, who can tell.”