Books on Football » Book Reviews » Bleed White
Bleed White
Bleed White: The Fall and Rise of Leeds United... to be Continued
Phil Merrick
AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1449055710
268 pp, paperback
Reviewed by Marc Fox
Unashamedly parochial, "Bleed White" is the first person account of a Leeds United season ticket holder who has stuck by his side despite their dramatic fall from grace during the first decade of the new millennium.
The journey has taken Leeds from sitting atop the Premier League in 2002 to the third tier of English football when the club started the 2007-08 season in League One on minus 15 points after going into administration.
Although briefly summarising Leeds's pre-Premier League heyday in the 1970s and early 1990s, Merrick focuses on the fallout from the reckless overspending during Peter Ridsdale's tenure as chairman and David O'Leary's as manager.
Written from the heart and at times immediately in the wake of more shattering news about the financial mismanagement of his club, the author certainly speaks for many Leeds fans in lambasting Ridsdale and O'Leary for unrealistically chasing Premier League and European glory.
He catalogues the fruitless seasons spent outside the Premier League since 2004 with a heavy sprinkling of personal opinions not only on Leeds players but also those of their rivals but without – crucially – offering any new or revealing insights.
This myopic stance makes the book aimed solely at fellow Leeds United supporters; indeed, many sections might be a turnoff for fans of other clubs, especially those traditionally considered Leeds's rivals.
What's more, because the bulk of the 257-page book is reserved for the team's slide from the top flight and their struggles to haul themselves back again, fair-weather Leeds supporters might even find this a little heavy and melancholy to digest since it is packed with names likely to be unfamiliar to Premier League audiences.
The title "Bleed White" works well because of its double meaning: officially, it means to deprive slowly of resources, although the phrase has become popularised in English football culture to imply having the blood of your chosen club coursing through your veins (white being Leeds United in this case).
Meanwhile, the subtitle of Merrick's book "The fall and rise of Leeds United … to be continued" implies a follow-up effort might be in the pipeline for Leeds's possible return to the upper echelons of English football given manager Simon Grayson's impact since his recruitment in 2008 and the astute financial management of Ken Bates.
However, the book certainly suffers from a lack of perspective. Merrick's is the lone voice throughout, the author choosing not to offer alterative viewpoints from other Leeds fans or fans of rivals clubs let alone from the protagonists (Ridsdale, O'Leary, Bates, Grayson, et al.).
The chapter on the unruly state of finances in football is also too brief and again falls into the trap of cataloguing well-documented events at clubs with financial troubles but offering only a handful of worthwhile insights and learnings.
Overall, "Bleed White" is a detailed blow-by-blow account of Leeds's demise from a supporter's standpoint that comes across a little too under-researched and under-polished, and this gives the impression that it's a fan's diary rather than a genuine chronicle.
As the book reiterates throughout, you're either Leeds or you're not... and if you're not then this book most likely isn't for you.
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