Is Leeds The Promised Land?

Anthony Clavane was born in Leeds in 1960. He started life as a history teacher and has been a sports writer at the Sunday Mirror for the past twelve years. He is the author of Promised Land: The Reinvention of Leeds United. 

Why is Billy Liar the story of Leeds? Question By: Wes Brown The book is a classic of modern fiction and was based on the author Keith Waterhouse's frustrations growing up in working-class Leeds after the war. The film is a classic of British New Wave cinema and, although mainly filmed in Bradford, its fantasy war sequences in Billy Fisher’s mythical world of Ambrosia were filmed on the Headrow, the steps of Leeds town hall and an area off Wellington Road. The book was written in the late 1950s, when Leeds - like the rest of the north, in fact the rest of Britain - was on the cusp of a great transformation. Its big issue – its narrative hinge – is whether our anti-hero would dare to act on his fantasies and actually cross the threshold. ‘It’s easy,’ Billy's extraordinary girlfriend Liz tells him. ‘You get on a train and, four hours later, there you are in London.’ To me, Leeds is a schizophrenic city. It has its trapped, fatalistic side (Billy) and its vibrant, adventurous, ambitious side (Liz). Unlike other big northern cities, it has never crossed the threshold. It always gets tantalisingly close to entering the promised land - just like Billy Fisher.

Enter Leeds United. Your book, the Promised Land, is a multi-faceted story. Part memoir, part football, part metaphor for the city. Where did the idea come from? Was even the great Revie side touched by this fatalism? Question By: Wes Brown The idea came from a sign greeting visitors arriving at Leeds station in the 1960s. After journeying past slagheaps they would be greeted by a sign pronouncing "The Promised Land – delivered". A fantastic piece of tragicomedy - to some. Although to me it was a sign of the times. A prophecy. Which has never come true, sadly. Also, as a young Jewish boy growing up in Leeds I was made aware that my immigrant ancestors considered Leeds to be a promised land of sorts. And I was powerfully affected by the exodus story in the Old Testament: the Israelites' journey away from confinement and towards liberation. Of course, Moses dies before reaching the promised land. Typical. The Revie team was more than touched by fatalism - it was steeped in it. There were a whole raft of superstitions. The great man - Don Revie - even believed there was a gypsy's curse on the football ground. As Brian Clough said, they believed too much in superstitious nonsense and had too little faith in their own immense ability.

Liverpool and Manchester have at times produced great sides that dominated English football. What do you think has impeded Leeds United? Why the superstition? Why can't Leeds dare to act on its fantasies?" Question By: Wes Brown Ah, the 64 million dollar question. Or the £60 million question - if you look at the last attempt to act on its fantasies. This was the money borrowed - gambled - to finally turn Leeds into a Liverpool (the 80s version) or Manchester United. Even when they throw money at the club it fails. And what a spectacular meltdown followed that particular failure. It's not all doom and gloom. I would argue that LUFC were one of the best teams in the world over a ten-year peiod - 1965 to 1975. And they have produced thrilling teams - the 1992 title-winning side, O'Leary's babies who reached the Champions League semi-finals. But we have, on the whole, punched below our weight - as a football team and as a city. There is enormous talent there. Take the last crop of kids to come through - Lennon, Milner et al - and before them Woodgate, Smith, Robinson. I think the Guardian review of my book, written by a Leeds music writer, summed it up: "Loathed beyond the borders, defensive, beautiful and brutal, with visions of greatness undermined by a wilful outsider status and crippling self-doubt." Where does that self-doubt come from? We somehow lack the swagger of Manchester - compare, say, Oasis to Kaiser Chiefs - and the chip-on-shoulder Scouse drive is also absent. Since Leeds became an industrial city it has had beautiful moments and great civic pride but also been "undermined by a wilful outsider status" which terms like Dirty Leeds and The Damned United play up to. My favourite quote is by a Leeds fan. ‘I saw a cartoon once,' he said, 'of a mouse looking up as a huge eagle swoops down on it. The mouse is holding up its middle finger at the eagle. And that’s how it feels to be a Leeds fan.’ We would rather be the defiant underdog than the all-conquering predator. Which is an honourable thing to be - but we lack the ruthlessness of Bob Paisley's Liverpool or Ferguson's Manchester United.

Do you think this lack of ruthlessness affects any other areas of Leeds life? What do you feel about the current crop of Leeds writers? Question By: Wes Brown Perhaps ruthlessness is the wrong word here. Certainly there is a lack of 'seeing things through'. Take the Trinity Leeds development- total cost £350 million - which is currently being built in the centre of Leeds. It would be hard to name another regional city in the UK that's getting this much investment for a major scheme during the credit crunch. But it is still at least two years away and, to again quote the excellent Mr Simpson of The Guardian, "is only getting going now after the projected site has looked like Ground Zero for ages... a gaping black hole, right in the heart of the city... The city centre has had a shabby feel again lately which reminds me of the 1980s Leeds... shops are going already and the council's high rates have driven independent shops out of the centre for years... hence the glut of faceless chain stores. Once the cuts bite will there really be takers for Trinity Leeds's gleaming pricey units? I walked through the centre the other day and there are lots of holes in the ground. And let's not forget that Leeds contains some of the most deprived areas in England. In its twelve inner-city districts, which have a combined population of 227,000, one family in three live below the official poverty line. The economic growth of the nineties was tilted towards commuter areas rather than the urban core. The number of office staff increased by a quarter after 1991, but there was an 11 per cent fall in manufacturing jobs. The UK’s ‘fastest-growing city’ offered few opportunities to the semi-skilled workers who’d lost their jobs during the Thatcher years. Most banks pulled out of the poorer districts, leaving residents vulnerable to extortionate interest rates from loan firms. Over the next few years, as the harrowing of the north continues apace, we will be going back to the privations of the eighties. On a more optimistic note I have a very good feeling about the new crop of Leeds writers coming through. Following in the wake of David Peace and Bernard Hare (Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew is a modern-day classic) there are many new 'social realists'. With the likes of Kester Aspden, Mick McCann, Robert Endeacott, Alice Nutter, Dom Grace, Boff Whalley, Mark Catley and, if I may say so, Wes Brown, there appears to be a new Leeds Movement taking shape. Time will tell if it achieves the dizzy heights of the Tony Harrison-Alan Bennett-Keith Waterhouse generation.

You're involved in a new project called Write on Leeds. A communal blog and anthology of new Leeds writing. What sort of impact do you think this could have on the Leeds writing scene? The way Leeds is seen? Question By: Wes Brown I hope it changes the way Leeds have seen in two ways: 1) it changes the notion that Leeds - unlike Liverpool or Manchester - doesn't have a literary heritage. To quote one of its distinguised contributors, Mick McCann, author of How Leeds Changed The World, "writers from the city have provided some telling contributions to the freedom of authors and broadcasters to express themselves however they choose in pursuit of the ‘authentic’, of the ‘real’. There’s a rich seam of gritty, working class life chronicled, and often defended, as the authors map out worlds of survival, drugs, crime, underclass’s, battles with the police and ‘the authorities’, it’s often laced with a blunt, brutal colloquial humour and the fierce resilience of ordinary people." And 2) it will highlight the diversity of Leeds. There are so many voices that need to be expressed - not just gritty working-class ones - and we want all writers to post work and opinions on the site. For example, I love Tom Palmer's writing about being a Leeds United fan but he is now also becoming well known as a brilliant children's writer. Alice Nutter, of Chumbawumba fame, is a fantastic playwight. Iain Duhig is a renowned poet. Then there's Louise Rennison and Kate Mellor...the list is endless!

What's next for Anthony Clavane? Question By: Wes Brown I'm writing a novel - not a gritty, working class one - and I've several thoughts about my next couple of non-fiction books. I'm also eagerly anticipating the end-of-season promotion for Leeds United to coincide with the publication of the Promised Land paperback. But, of course, the team will fall at the final hurdle and lose in the play-off final... www.anthonyclavane.com