Interview with Billy Morris, author of Bournemouth 90 and LS92
Back in November 2021 FBR reviewed Bournemouth 90 by Billy Morris and the author followed up his debut novel with LS92 published in January 2022. Both books feature Leeds United in the early nineties set against a background of murky gangland activities. Following the release of the his second title, we caught with the author to find out a bit more about the man behind the books, which Morris himself describes as, “dark uncompromising crime fiction from a time when it was still grim up north.”
FBR: Given the two books you have written we presume that Leeds United is the Club you support, but how did you come to support them?
Billy Morris (BM): I was born into a family of Leeds fans who followed the Club home and away so there was never any chance of me supporting anyone else. I was born in 1966, just as Don Revie’s team were rising to prominence and starting to win trophies, so I guess the excitement and optimism of the time rubbed off on me at a very early age. I have photos of me as a toddler wearing Leeds colours and as a small child in the famous all-white Leeds kit. I guess it was in my blood!
FBR: So presumably it’s a safe bet that your first football memory features Leeds?
BM: It is. I remember standing outside Elland Road to see the team bring back the FA Cup in 1972. My first game was in 1973 season against Chelsea, but I remember nothing of the match. My memories are of being in a pub before the game, the smell of Tetley bitter and cigarettes, surrounded by foul mouthed giants with collar length hair and denim jackets covered in Leeds patches, the smell of boiled burgers and onions, the sense of excitement and potential danger. Then after the game, buying a Green Post outside the ground with the full time match results and a report of the first half, and wondering how they got it out so quickly. (I still struggle with that one!)
FBR: What is your standout football memory from your time supporting the Club?
BM: It probably sounds strange to a lot of people given the events of that particular weekend, but it was Bournemouth in 1990. I came of age watching Leeds. I left school and started work the year we got relegated, 1982, so I had a bit of money to start going to away games. It’s obviously frowned upon now but the whole mid-80s football scene was an amazing buzz for teenagers, travelling round the country with a gang of mates, with the very real possibility that the day could end in a cell or A&E. I was more into the casual fashion than the violence personally, but at that age the risk factor was a big draw, as was the chance to get one over on rival fans and the police. The grounds were awful, the football was usually terrible too, but for those of us of a certain age, they were the best days of our lives from a social angle. Friendships made back then endure to this day. Then in 1987, we got a brief taste of what success could feel like when Leeds reached the FA Cup semi-final, and the play-off final. We were within minutes of a return to the First Division, but in true Leeds style, blew it in injury time against Charlton. The following year, Howard Wilkinson took over and changed the whole culture of the club, much like Bielsa was to again do thirty years later. At the start of the 1989/90 season there was a real feel that this was to be our year. ‘Shit or Bust, this year promotion’s a must’ said the very unofficial T-Shirt displaying the snarling face of Vinnie Jones. Prophetically, the back of the shirt said, ‘Promotion Tour 89/90’ with the last game billed as ‘The Invasion of Bournemouth.’ Last game of the season, knowing a win would take us up, a Bank Holiday at the seaside, 90 degree sunshine…the scene was set, and for once Leeds didn’t blow it. Of course some of what happened down there were terrible, and it really felt like the end of an era and the start of a new one, like drawing a line under the eighties with a bright new decade dawning ahead.
FBR: How did you get into writing?
BM: I always loved writing at school but leaving at sixteen with a couple of O-Levels, I knew I was never going to make a living at it. I did a variety of jobs over the next thirty five years in various places around the world, then as often happens when you reach your fifties, found I had more time to spend on things I enjoyed doing, rather than things I needed to do to make money. I read a lot of crime fiction, dark stuff like James Ellroy and David Peace, and I noticed on social media that there was a real nostalgia for the eighties and nineties era in Leeds. The city has changed so much since then that its almost unrecognisable. I started to think about an Ellroy/Peace style novel set at that time in the city that I remembered back then. That’s how Bournemouth 90 came about, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well received it was. A few people asked about a sequel, and I felt there were still a few unresolved questions, which are addressed in LS92.
FBR: Talking of the two books, what and who were the influences in writing ‘Bournemouth 9’0 and ‘LS92’?
BM: As I said, I enjoy James Ellroy’s noir-style crime writing which is set in L.A. My biggest influence though is probably David Peace. Specifically the Red Riding Quartet, which transplant Ellroy’s dark style into 70s West Yorkshire. I remember reading 1974 for the first time and being totally blown away by the writing style. I enjoyed his later stuff, Damned Utd obviously and also GB84, though I’ve struggled to get into his recent Tokyo trilogy. I’ve tried to capture the feel of late eighties/early nineties in my books – a city struggling with its identity, more Merrion Market than Harvey Nicks and with LUFC struggling to shift the 80s hooligan reputation but knowing that a re-brand was vital to its future in the new millennium. To anyone who wasn’t around then, the place I describe probably feels like a different city altogether, and if that’s the case, I’ve achieved what I set out to do!
FBR: Do you have any other books in the pipeline?
BM: I’m in the research stage of a book set over a hundred years ago at the end of the First World War. To say it was a time of upheaval in Leeds is an understatement – the war is coming to an end, the Leeds Pals were virtually wiped out on the first day of the Somme and families are struggling to cope with the aftermath of that. There is rationing and food shortages and Spanish flu is ravaging the city; At Elland Road Leeds City are struggling to explain how they funded an influx of ‘guest’ players who enabled them to win the 1917/18 League Championship, at a time when match fixing was rife. I’m planning to write another crime fiction story set against this backdrop and the writing challenges are different this time. I’m not writing about an era I’m familiar with, so am immersed in research at present – fashions, language, military and social history and of course, the mysterious events at the football club. Luckily I’m a big history buff so although it’s hard I don’t really see it as ‘work’, more a hobby. That’s actually probably a good way to sum up my attitude to writing in general too!
FBR: Many thanks for your time Billy. Good luck with the sales of your current books and good luck with your new project!