The Unforgiven: The Story of Don Revie's Leeds United - Softcover

Bagchi, Rob; Rogerson, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1854109332 ISBN 13: 9781854109330

Publisher: Aurum Press, 2003

Synopsis

Everyone who knows anything about football - wherever in the UK they live - has heard of Billy Bremner and Jack Charlton: two of the greatest and grittiest footballers Britain has produced. Don Revie was not only a controversial England manager but also, above all, one of Britain's finest club managers and one of its most idiosyncratic, if not downright eccentric individuals. How Revie turned Leeds from a struggling Second Division club into League Champions and UEFA Cup winners is the tale of how one man invented modern football as we know it. Revie's legendary Leeds team took no prisoners, pioneering a ruthless, win-at-all-costs professionalism symbolised by the legendary scything tackles of Norman Hunter. And Leeds' unfashionable, outlaw status was hardly unearned, given Revie's bizarre way of running a football club. Team-building sessions meant taking players like Johnny Giles, Terry Cooper and Paul Madely for endless rounds of bingo and carpet bowls. The manager's superstitious rituals included a pre-match stroll to a certain set of traffic lights in Leeds and the exorcism of a gypsy's curse on the ground. But whenever his side were let of the leash - toying with Southampton, for example, to inflict a 7-0 defeat now enshrined in "Match of the Day" mythology - their sheer brilliance made for a spectacle to compelling it was almost cruel. Now the authors of this book, both lifetime Leeds supporters, tell the full story of one of the most defiantly unconventional sides in British football.

About this title

Review

Far more than another dewy-eyed retread of the glory years... it's great fun and immensely informative. -- Neil Jeffries, Leeds Leeds Leeds magazine, December 2002

Written with considerable style. The most important question is whether it could be read by enthusiasts who are not Leeds fans...emphatically, yes. -- Richard Whitehead, The Times, 2 November 2002

[A] well-researched and thought-provoking 'revisionist' history... Well argued and backed by telling statistics. --Harry Pearson, When Saturday Comes, December 2002

About the Author

ROB BAGCHI lasted almost as long at Sportspages bookshop as Don Revie spent at Elland Road. He works for the Guardian, for whom he writes a weekly sports column, and is author of four books.

In May 1972 PAUL ROGERSON, aged five, was a Liverpool supporter when Leeds United won the FA Cup for the one and only time. He switched allegiance just in time to see Leeds lose to Sunderland the following year. An award-winning business journalist, he is currently Editor-in-Chief of the weekly legal magazine the Law Society Gazette.

About this edition

• Publisher: Aurum Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1854109332
• ISBN 13: 9781854109330
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224