by Richard Edwards
FOR A decade from the mid 1960s, Don Revie's Leeds United swept all football rivals before them.
As a child growing up in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, Luke Haines, below, found the team's exploits forming some of his earliest memories.
Fast forward more than 30 years, and Luke has committed those memories, and many more 1970s images, to a song.
Titled simply Leeds United, the song namechecks many memories Loiners will have from the seventies, some still with us, others long gone.
There are mentions for Teddy Boys, seen regularly in the sixties and seventies but now a rare breed, Leeds-based DJ legend Sir Jimmy Savile and ITV's World of Sport programme.
Another section of the lyric namechecks much loved motors the Ford Cortina Mark II and the Vauxhall Viva, while there is even a mention for the YEP.
The song is far from being a misty-eyed piece of nostalgia, laying bare some uncomfortable 1970s memories. While Revie's team were fantastic footballers, Elland Road was a fearsome place to visit in the 70s and this is referenced in the song.
And Luke also refers back when the Yorkshire Ripper had the county living in fear with the memorable line "the devil came to Yorkshire in the silver Jubilee."
Luke, now writing and performing as a solo artist after spells fronting The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder, said he has a "love-hate" relationship with the seventies.
He said Leeds United grew from an earlier work, The Rubettes, that saw him criticising the huge nostalgia industry that built up around the 1970s.
"I was a kid in the 1970s and the memories aren't like one of those 'I Love the 1970s programmes'," he said. "I wanted to write about the darker side of the seventies.
"It is not really about Leeds United Football Club, the reason the club is mentioned was because it was the biggest and had quite a reputation for trouble.
"The older you get the more you start writing about what is indelibly stamped on your mind."
Asked whether his view on the seventies is more love than hate, Luke replied: "That is a tough one. It is possibly an obsession.
"When you are a songwriter things pop into your head and you have no choice but to take them to their logical conclusion."
l Luke's new album, Off My Rocker At The Art School Bop, will be released on Degenerate Music on October 30. He will play Leeds Cockpit in November as part of his national tour.
richard.edwards@ypn.co.uk


LEEDS UNITED

When I get home my wife will kill me
She's so house proud, don't tread dirt into the carpet
Stop for a pint in Chapeltown
Lights turn to red and then they go out
And for the price of five pounds
It's what the seventies were about

Baby

Leeds United, Leeds United
From Wakefield to the Ridings
To the ground at Elland Road
Leeds United Leeds United
It's a 13-0 defeat on the front page of the Post
A last minute substitution but we didn't have the talent
We were beaten I was gutted I was sick as a parrot

Leeds United
Leeds United

Every Saturday night at the Teddy Boys' disco
It's good to be young leave the wife at home now
Propping up the bar World Of Sport then fixing the car
You're on a mission from God
It's what the weekend's all about

It's good to be young now
Leeds United Leeds United
Mark II Ford Cortina Vauxhall Viva Ford Corsair
On the terraces of Leeds United
One voice is silent he's the man with jet black hair
And come to bed eyes that's what he had
It's just another wet Saturday afternoon with the lads

Leeds United
Leeds United
Leeds United
Leeds United

Little monsters in the hall
Little blighters in the carpet
They're hidden in the walls
In the attic and in the cupboards
And in the house of Lords
The chamber of horrors at Madame Tussauds
Out with the old we've got to make room for them all

Leeds Utd Leeds Utd
There but for the grace of God we go
Leeds Utd Leeds Utd
Bad season after season at Elland Road
Leeds Utd Leeds Utd

No leads for the West Yorkshire police
In concrete Leeds Victorian Leeds
There's a killer on the terraces better call in Doris Stokes
The devil came to Yorkshire in the silver Jubilee
It could be Kendo Nagasaki Jimmy Savile or the Queen

Leeds Utd
Leeds Utd
Leeds Utd
Leeds Utd

The North, the North
Where we do what we want
The North the North
Where we do what we like