With “Sons of Revie – Leeds United’s Decade of Dominance” Rocco Dean has now made it five books on Leeds and while claiming he needs a break, he already has a new project in the making. This time not on Leeds though, but still closely associated with “The Whites”.
“It is a book following Marcelo Biela’s Uruguay through qualifying and all the way to the World Cup. Hopefully with a happy ending,” Dean says with a big laugh as he imagines Uruguay lifting the World Cup trophy in USA in 2026. Tribalfootball teamed up with Rocco Dean to talk about his latest Leeds-endeavor and let him start by explaining the meaning behind the title “Sons of Revie”.
“Don Revie was the Leeds manager in the 60s and 70s and he built a team basically full of kids. Nine or ten youth products came through, and he molded them into one of the best teams that Britain has ever seen. They basically spent their whole careers as one-club-men which sort of created a real family atmosphere at Elland Road. The players were like his sons and the whole team was basically mates that grew up together.”
Dean has written the book from the viewpoint of his father who followed the club through thick and thin during the heydays when trophies were regularly added to the cabinet.
“He started going to Elland Road in 1961 which was Revie's first full season at Leeds. I wanted to get all his memories down as well as his opinions and little stories about pre-match rituals and his opinions on certain players which really helps give it an authentic feel,” Dean says of the book which depicts various big games through the 10 seasons Revie managed the club in the old 1. Division.
Fabulous record against rivals
During this time, he built up a nothing short of an excellent record against other top managers of the day, many of whom are still considered legends today.
“I was sort of aware that Revie’s team were the dominant side of that era um but it wasn’t until I started digging into the facts and stats that you realize how remarkable his record was. It was a period in which England won the World Cup and you had true legends with statues outside the grounds to this day.
“You have to remember; Don Revie’s side was an unfashionable team that had never had any success in the past. With a load of youth players and without even spending any money he managed to bring Leeds from nowhere to tower over everybody.
“In the 10 seasons that Revie was in the top flight, Bill Shankly and Liverpool only finished ahead of him three times. And Matt Busby's Manchester United played Leeds 25 times in that 10-year period and beat them only three times,” says Dean who believes Revie is due a lot more credit that he receives today.
“Look at somebody like Brian Clough; granted he won the title with Derby and Nottingham Forest but the latter only won one title and they fell away very quickly whereas Revie was able to keep the dynasty going for 10 years.”
Even for the age, it was quite astonishing how little money Revie spent during his time at Elland Road.
“After promotion to the 1. Division, they bought one player in the next four seasons! They had a lot of young players coming through like Eddie Gray and Peter Lorimer and there’s a really great quote Revie during that time when he was actually coming under a lot of pressure from the fans.
“For many years, Leeds didn't have a proven striker and the fans wanted him to buy somebody, but Don Revie said; 'if I go out buying players left, right and centre every time the young players show weakness, what's that going to do to the young players' developments? I believe these guys are going to put us on the map'.
No quarters given
Results proved Revie right and Rocco Dean has no doubt it strengthened the loyalty of the players.
“These guys could have moved to other clubs and made more money but Revie was sticking by them, their place was never under threat, so they all just completely focused on achieving something as a team.”
One of the things the book highlights is the insane amount of games Leeds United played during this period, at one point playing eight games in 15 days as Don Revie had his sights of every single trophy imaginable.
“They played Celtic in the first leg of the semi-final of the European Cup on the Wednesday and then on Thursday they had to go and play West Ham away! Revie played almost the same team and Paul Reaney broke his leg in the first half in an age where no substitutes were allowed.
“Reduced to 10 men they still battled back from 2-1 down to get a draw, having played Celtic the night before,” tells Rocco Dean, still with a sense of disbelief of the crazy schedule Leeds-players found themselves stuck in nearly every season. They often also found themselves in a lot of trouble and gained a reputation as being dirty.
“Maybe it's biased but I'm convinced that it was a case of other teams coming up against Leeds aware of the reputation of them being a hard team so they came ready for and also expecting a fight. Also, there were teams who knew they couldn't play Leeds off the park and they had no choice but to sort of fight their way through the matches. And Leeds were always up for the fight. Like I said before, they were a band of brothers, if you start on one of them, they're all going in, no quarters given.”
For all the results and trophies, they did manage to win, the decade under Don Revie is just as renowned for what they didn’t win and Rocco Dean puts it down to the simple matter of fixture congestion.
“In those 10 years there was only two seasons where they were knocked out of the cups before the semi-finals and both times, they won the league. Every other season they were going at least for a Double and they just couldn't cope every year. It was too much.
“There's a bit of hard luck here and there as well the odd choke like in the ‘73 FA Cup final against Sunderland. But watching the games back, Leeds were so unlucky in some of those finals. The two European finals but also the Chelsea-final in 1970 which is famous for being the dirtiest game ever. Leeds hit the woodwork five times and they were just magnificent. Even though I knew the result I was devastated just watching the game back and seeing how they didn't win that match.”
- Rocco Dean’s “The Sons of Revie – Leeds United’s Decade of Dominance” is out now Pitch Publishing and can be purchased here