A FOOTBALL coach is seeking damages after he was sacked for sending an email containing "obscene" images of naked women in the shower to Sunderland boss Gus Poyet.

Gwyn Williams, former technical director of Leeds United, has brought a High Court damages claim over his dismissal.

The 66-year-old, who was summarily dismissed for gross misconduct in July 2013, is seeking up to £250,000 in compensation for breach of contract.

He claims that the email he sent - to Poyet, former Newcastle United executive director of football Dennis Wise and club receptionist Carol Lamb - was part of a "dirty Leeds" joke, referring to the club's reputation for heavy tackling in the 1970s.

His counsel, Daniel Barnett, has told Mr Justice Lewis at London's High Court that an attachment to the March 2008 email contained some images of a "Benny Hill" or "saucy postcard" nature while others went a little further.

He said: “They fall considerably short of hard-core pornography, or images that are likely to shock and disturb.”

Mr Williams, who joined Leeds in August 2006 at an annual salary of £200,000 plus benefits, argues that forwarding the email to three friends was not sufficiently serious to amount to a breach of contract - but the club says it was.

He said five years and eight months elapsed before it was discovered by the club, while allegedly conducting a forensic examination to find a reason to justify not paying him his notice.

Mr Williams said that he sent the email to the two men to amuse and titillate them, but accepted it was something he should not have done.

He said: “From 1970, Leeds was known as `dirty Leeds' and these were forwarded to me on the basis that these were muddy girls in a shower getting clean and that was the basis I sent them out. Rather than the content, it was the dirty Leeds issue."