"Political parties love to talk about their policies applying to a 'broad church', but there is no broader church than the fanbase of a football club. No wider cross-section of people, united by a common cause, coming together once a week or fortnight, then going back to their own, very different lives, but always remaining part of that single unifying family."
Author Billy Morris is discussing his 'Eighties Leeds trilogy' which has just seen the latest addition to the series, LS65. "The fact that a career criminal could spend every other Saturday sat next to a vicar at Elland Road, or a professional hitman could moan about Bamford to the CEO of a blue-chip company is something you don't really find anywhere else. Criminals are as obsessed with their football team as fans from any other walk of life."
If it's impossible to neatly slot a football crowd into a particular demographic, the same is probably true of Morris's books. Are they crime fiction or football books? Thrillers or popular culture commentaries?
"The common theme is the Leeds underworld, whether that be the protection rackets and pill pushers of the sixties, or the casual soccer firms and rave culture of the late eighties and early nineties, the three books in the series all focus on the activities of people inhabiting those worlds. The common denominator is they're all Leeds fans, and the seasons featured are pivotal in the history of the club."
The first book in the series is Bournemouth 90. Published in 2021, it has become a cult classic amongst Leeds fans of a certain age, with sales well into four figures. The book tells the story of ex-hooligan Neil Yardsley returning to Leeds after a spell in prison, determined to go straight and stay away from any terrace trouble. His release coincides with the final stages of the 1989-90 promotion season and Neil is immediately struck by the new wave of optimism surrounding the club, which contrasts starkly with the dark days of the early eighties that he remembers too well. Neil finds his younger brother immersed in the darker side of the Leeds rave scene with a debt to local gangster Alan Connolly translating into a likely death sentence. There are plenty of twists in the tale with all roads leading to the south coast on that blazing hot May bank holiday that no one will ever forget.
The sequel to Bournemouth 90 is LS92. As the title suggests, we move on two years from Bournemouth, with many familiar characters from the first book, and Wilko's Leeds riding high and chasing a first league title since 1974. At the heart of the team is a certain mercurial Frenchman, and a menacing figure from his past lands in Leeds with some scores to settle in brutal fashion. This time round, the climax occurs on a windy April Sunday where the climactic action switches from the streets of the Steel City to the leafy lanes of Boroughbridge.
The final part of the story is actually the first, with the new book LS65 set twenty five years before Bournemouth. Mods, scooters, coffee bars and protection rackets provide the backdrop, with Revie's Leeds team taking division one by storm in their first season back in the top flight. Young Alan Connolly, the Bournemouth 90 bogeyman, arrives in the city from Glasgow, tormented by a troubled past but with his eye on the future. The story covers the run-in to the end of a momentous season which saw Leeds lose the league and cup double after being forced to play eight games in twenty three days ahead of a Cup final clash with Liverpool.
LS65 (Eighties Leeds)
By Billy Morris
It's Spring 1965, and young Alan Connolly is a man with a plan. Out of jail and out of Glasgow, leaving old wars behind and hoping that the voices in his head allow him to forget the past. New start, new city. Smart suit, the best scooter and the right connections. LS1 is swinging - Coffee bars and clubs,pills and protection rackets. And at Elland Road, Revie's United are chasing a league and cup double in their first season back in the top flight. It's the right place and the perfect time to build his empire and the only thing that can stop him is his own dangerous ambition and the dark memories that torment him.
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All Morris's books try to faithfully recreate the cultural period in which they're set, and the short, punchy chapters are preceded by news excerpts from the Evening Post, which help to set the scene of the time. Morris explains how it's important to get the detail right in his books.
"For Bournemouth 90 and LS92, I found the books easier to write as I was there. I therefore knew the pubs we drank in, the clothes we wore, how we talked. LS65 was more difficult as it's set before I was born. I therefore had to spend a long time talking to people who were around back then. Mods who spent time in the Del Rio coffee bar or the BG club, Leeds fans who squeezed into the Scratching Shed and queued all night for cup final tickets. If you're going to write about it, it has to be accurate. I spent days immersed in the YEP archives at Leeds central library, reading the back pages from Spring 1965. What really hit home was the sense of injustice at being forced to play all those games in such a short space of time. I think that was the start of the feeling that the world really was against Leeds United."
If LS65 required intensive research with those who were around at the time, Morris's other book, the only one which isn’t part of the Eighties Leeds trilogy, was even more challenging to write. Birdsong on Holbeck Moor is set in 1918, at the end of the first World War. Obviously there was no one left to provide first hand information on Leeds at the time.
"I'd wanted to write something about Leeds City FC and the Leeds Pals. I was vaguely aware of the events surrounding the expulsion of the club from the league, but the more research I did, the more confusing the picture became. I trawled through the newspaper archives and actually identified some facts that have been mis-reported in every official history of the club. What was very clear was that this was a tumultuous period for the city. The Pals had been decimated at the Somme, the surviving troops were now coming home, suffering physical and mental problems, to a city in the grip of a flu pandemic and mass unemployment. If they were seeking solace in the fortunes of their football team, they were to be disappointed. Leeds City had made illegal payments to 'guest players' during the war and were under investigation. The situation was ripe for a crime fiction plot and that's where Birdsong on Holbeck Moor came from. It helps tell the story of Leeds United's creation. One Amazon review that I really like said –'For those that know the Leeds story, that we've been cursed for years, then this is where our soul begins, the first stamp of our DNA.' I couldn't have put it better myself!"
A scan through the reviews of Morris's books reveals a few common themes –'Fast paced, dark, unflinching' are all words which appear frequently as do phrases such as 'in-the-know' and 'accurately remembered'. In particular, many readers make reference to Bournemouth 90's depiction of 'the Dean Court dustbowl' as being especially memory evoking. With three significant LUFC seasons covered, the question is whether there's another book to come in the series. Morris is non-committal.
"I'll see how LS65 is received first, though I do have a few ideas. The 72 Cup final, O'Leary's Champions League adventure, the 74 title would all make a good story. Like Don though, for me, there's a big one that feels like unfinished business- the European Cup. And Paris 75 does have a certain ring to it as a title, doesn't it?
You can buy all Morris's books, including the new title LS65 on Amazon >>