Makers of Take Us Home: Leeds United on creatively capturing Marcelo Bielsa, getting 'sucked in' and exploring a third season

For Leeds fan, chief executive of The City Talking and director of Take Us Home, Lee Hicken, the season was as emotional a rollercoaster as any other Whites supporter.

No one wanted the team to suffer a similar fate to the 2018/29 play-off heartache that made the ending to the documentary’s first season a tough watch for the fanbase. For the sake of his club and his project, Hicken needed a different outcome, he needed the dream to come true.

Escaping the Championship wasn’t ever going to be straightforward and high drama was to be expected but the way in which events unfolded gave life in general, never mind the television show, a shocking plot twist.

“The show changed halfway through with the pandemic,” he told the YEP.

“It changed from a football show to something different, a bit more emotional and bigger, something about human relationships.

“With these shows generally you can have an idea at the start but the format is generally dictated later in the process.

“In season one at one point we were 10 episodes, then we were five, then eight and in the end, it worked as a six.

For season two the intention was to do a 90-minute movie, a one-off special, but then how things unfolded it lent itself to a two-part thing.”

A global pandemic pressed pause on the football season and the way the documentary was being put together.

Once the game got going again, so too did Take Us Home, albeit in a far more challenging manner. Coronavirus made life difficult but the empty streets of Leeds and the way in which PPE-clad medical staff at Thorp Arch dealt with the situation made for compelling viewing.

“We had to edit remotely, which is not that easy,” said Hicken.

“We had a lot of stuff lined up but we tried to make the best of the situation with the Zoom calls with the players, so we at least talked to them in lockdown. It was super tricky at the games to do anything, then we were getting tested for Covid so we could get a little bit closer to everyone but it was still at a distance and everyone was nervous. The last thing you wanted was to cause any problems or for anyone to catch it.”

The pandemic wasn’t the only challenge in telling the gripping story of how Marcelo Bielsa masterminded the club’s return to the Premier League. The head coach, the star of the show, does not grant one-to-one access to journalists, so the interview he gave in season one of Take Us Home was a rarity indeed and Hicken was keen to ensure fans got their Bielsa fix without overstepping the mark with the Argentine.

“He agreed to the one-on-one we did with him at the end of season one and we tried to talk to him about as much as we could in that one interview,” said Hicken.

“We knew since day one before we even pressed record it wasn’t going to be [Pep] Guardiola in the dressing room kicking off type of show, it needed to be something different. But he’s the star attraction of Leeds United so we needed to think of creative ways of getting him involved without demanding interviews. We hope he came across as what he is, the guy who changed it all.”

Candid interviews with other main characters like Luke Ayling helped to give the show what Hicken calls its ‘soul.’

“Ayling is just a lovely guy,” he said.

“It’s not the amount of footage you get, it’s whether people are going to be honest and open up to you. Those lads were really down to earth, really honest and that’s what helps to give the show it’s soul. You need to care about Luke Ayling to care about his goal.

“Finding those personalities underneath it is key to making people care about what happens to them in the end.”

And of course, Ayling and his team-mates delivered the big finish that completed the story arc, after a few little blips along the way.

“At the start of the season of course we want them to go up, that gives us the ending we didn’t quite get on the first one,” said Hicken.

“This is football, nothing is guaranteed. As we’re following it we’re thinking they’re looking pretty good still, this could work and then like all football fans when Leeds lose a couple it’s back to thinking we’ve got a repeat of the first one, then they win a few and we’re okay again. The show needed a different ending, for sure. In the end, if you take it as a block of eight, it almost makes the ending sweeter that it didn’t end right in season one. I think it’s a beautiful ending.”

Hicken counts it as an honour to have worked on the project, having grown up watching the season review videos of the glorious 1989/90 and 1991/92 seasons until he knew every word off by heart. His understanding of the club was key to a successful documentary.

Anouk Mertens, managing director of NEO Studios, the documentary-making branch of Andrea Radrizzani’s Aser Group, said: “We want to tell the story of Leeds right and while doing so we wanted a local director who actually understands the city and the club to tell that story. We ended up with Lee and he has done a great job. We really love how the story turned out.”

Continuity was a big part of Leeds’ strategy when building a team for Bielsa’s second season and it was necessary in the storytelling too, as was honesty.

“We wanted to keep that mix, that combination of the boardroom, the players, Bielsa in the creative format you see him in in the serious but also the fans,” said Mertens.

“There was an agreement that if we were to tell the story we had to tell it as it is, we needed to be able to get the access we’ve had, to everybody we needed - Covid permitting - to tell it as an honest story.

“That was clear from the beginning and Andrea was very open in doing so. That makes it a good product because it’s driven by people who want to tell the story and not something else.”

Mertens knew little of Leeds United before the project began but has been ‘sucked in’ as people who get close to Elland Road tend to. So has her family, on the strength of the documentary.

“During the process, I’ve become a great fan of the club, the city, the people,” she said.

“My kids had never watched a Leeds game, they’ve watched the story and they’ve become big fans and the last two games they were saying ‘come on mum, Leeds are playing it’s time to watch’ and I’m thinking what’s happening, you’re Barcelona fans but they’re saying ‘we’re all Leeds now.’

“I think the authenticity, the warmth, the passion of the fans, it really got to me. They made it the great story it has become. It’s because of the fans, the team at Leeds, all the hard work they put in, everyone with the same passion for this club. It’s contagious.

“In the beginning, it was let’s do a very cool documentary, but then you get sucked in.”

Deals are being done to air the show in territories outside the UK, where Amazon have exclusivity, and all the while a new chapter of the Leeds story is being written.

Mertens is exploring the possibility of capturing Leeds United at home in the Premier League, on film.

“I think we’re definitely looking at that,” she said.

“We need to see if we can find the right partners to broadcast it. I think it’s never done before, a club back in the Premier League. If you look at the last two games they’ve played there’s a lot of excitement, that helps. Like we did for the past two years, wherever it goes it will be a great story.”