New books about Leeds United (From York Press)

New books about Leeds United

12:02pm Saturday 26th December 2009 in

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Leeds United are cast adrift from the Premier League honey pot in the old third division of English football, yet still the books keep coming on the most hated team in all the land.

This autumn has seen the publication of Leeds United Internationals, For Club And Country (Breedon Books) by the oracle of Leeds minutiae, Martin Jarred, and another global collection, the far-flung experiences of LUFC fans from around the world in Andy Stanmore’s We Are Leeds! (Breedon Books).

In response to David Peace’s work of fiction, The Damned Utd, and this year’s even more fanciful spin-off film, journalist Phil Rostron has sought to redress the imbalance in the matter-of-fact We Are The Damned United, The Real Story Of Brian Clough At Leeds United (Mainstream).

Like fellow West Yorkshireman Peace, Leeds fan Robert Endeacott has taken the fictitious route in Dirty Leeds (Tonto Books), fusing the journey of aspiring footballer and Leeds fan Jimmy O’Tourke with an insightful account of the rise of Leeds United under Don Revie from 1961 to 1974. As with Rostron, Endeacott is on a mission to examine the facts fairly.

Nearly every member of that infamous Revie side has written an autobiography, from captain Billy Bremner to outcast keeper Gary Sprake. Why do there continue to be so many books on Leeds, Robert, even with those gory-glory years a fading memory?

“I think it’s quite simple,” he says. “It’s that they’re the most interesting, contrary and most dramatically effected club there’s ever been, even above Manchester United, despite the Munich air crash.

“Liverpool have had tragic events too, but Leeds have had controversial events both on and off the field. Fortunately, in the Sixties we had Don Revie and we still have the legacy of that.”

Ah yes, the legacy of “Dirty Leeds”: the label given to Bremner, Charlton, Hunter and co by the Football Association in a newsletter, the label that has stuck like mud to boots since that day.

“The newsletter said Leeds had the worst record for fair play that season, but it didn’t say how many players they had sent off. It was nil, but the term Dirty Leeds was immediately made up by the press and it’s never gone away. “Even now that side doesn’t get the credit it deserves, which is terrible. It’s just biased,” says Robert. “I’m hoping with this book not so much to put the record straight as to put some justice into the fiction. My sincere hope is that I’ve done those great players proud.”

Robert already has written a not dissimilar book to Stanmore’s We Are Leeds: a celebration of fans’ fervour in Fanthology. Now, in Dirty Leeds, he combines the fan’s view from the terraces with the inside track afforded him by his links with the club.

“I’ve been lucky enough to have very strong ties thanks to my dad working as a groundsman there for 26 years. And when people realise I’m a Leeds fan, that puts me at an advantage, knowing I’m on the terraces with them,” he says.

“My only worry was that I wasn’t sure that people would want to read Jimmy O’Rourke’s story – which is basically my story but set 15 years earlier – because whatever business you’re in you go through confidence issues, but the majority of reviews have said they wanted to read more of Jimmy’s tale.”

So much so, there are on-going discussions about turning Jimmy’s journey into a play at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Robert, meanwhile, is switching his attention to his next book. “I’m working on a novel about Don Revie’s time as England manager,” he says. The late yet still maligned Revie has long warranted such a new hearing.