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Don of Elland Road

Don Revie sits in bed talking to the Sunday papers, barks out instructions in a game at Liverpool, calls out the bingo numbers, and Terry Yorath collects his weekly pay packet.

Documentary 1974 26 mins

From the collection of:

Logo for Yorkshire Film Archive

Overview

A chance to see this remarkable behind-the-scenes documentary, showing Don Revie relaxing at home and looking after his players – despite shouting at Terry Yorath for losing the ball against Liverpool. The manager of the outstanding team of the time is seen at his most difficult period in the season, losing to Liverpool and Burnley. The documentary was ahead of its time as an observation, without any intrusive voiceover, of the day-to-day life of a football manager.

This documentary on Don Revie and Leeds United over a couple of weeks in March 1974 was directed by Sid Waddell and first aired by Yorkshire Television on Thursday 18th April 1974. Sid Waddell is best known as a TV darts commentator, but he had many more strings to his bow, and at the time of this documentary was working on Yorkshire Television’s current affairs programme Calendar. Despite the two losses during the making of the documentary (they lost only four all season) Leeds still managed to win the league title quite comfortably. Revie left Leeds soon after to take the England job, being succeeded by his arch rival Brian Clough, who, with a rather different style, lasted just seven weeks.