Writers keep their eye on the ball with their celebration of a city

David Peace, Anthony Clavane and Rob Endeacott are in what appears to be a writers' natural habitat – the pub.

With these three, the setting couldn't be more appropriate: wherebetter to celebrate Leeds than a resolutely old-fashioned pub in the centre of the city?

In recent years each has been inspired to write about Leeds and they will come together again tomorrow at Waterstone's.

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"Here in Leeds, the bookstore has been really supportive to all of us, so we thought it would be a great place to have an event like this," says Endeacott, author of the novels One Northern Soul, Dirty Leeds and this year Disrepute.

The three writers will meet at Waterstone's city centre branch to discuss why they are drawn to writing about Leeds, viewed through the prism of Leeds United Football Club.

Peace is unarguably the most famous of the three. His Red Riding quartet of novels became a highly praised television trilogy and his novel The Damned United, which charted Brian Clough's torrid time in charge of the Whites, was turned into a movie starring Michael Sheen.

Endeacott's latest novel, Disrepute – Revie's England, focuses on the period after Don Revie left Leeds to go on to the England job, only to leave it under a cloud.

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Clavane, a sports writer for the Sunday Mirror, has recently seen his first book published. Promised Land similarly looks at Leeds United and its 1970s' heyday, but for Clavane, the team and its changing fortunes also provide a backdrop for a story of the city itself, the story of immigration and the literary heroes he discovered growing up there.

"The football team you support isn't one you choose, it's one you're born into, but whichever team you support, it provides a narrative to your life – often a depressing one," says Peace, a fan of Huddersfield Town.

"The thing about Leeds is that, from its inception to the present day, it provides one of the most dramatic narratives that exists in football.

"It's why for us, I think, our work is not fictionalised. Rob and I write novels, in Anthony's case it's memoir, but they are all linked to reality. There is no point making it up because the real Leeds United will surpass any fiction in the most spectacular way."

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Clavane's recently published Promised Land looks at the two passions which played a major part in his young life – football and literature. He has equal feelings for both and while he reels off his best Leeds United team, he also reveals a Leeds Literary Eleven, with names like Alan Bennett, Willis Hall, Keith Waterhouse and David Storey.

Alongside Peace and Endeacott, does he feel the three writers make up some kind of new movement?

"Those two are fiction writers and I'm dealing in documenting fact, but there clearly is something about here, this city, that inspires us," he says.

"I would include writers like Caryl Phillips (writer of A Distant Shore) and Kester Aspden (author of Nationality: Wog) in that, as writers who find something in the city that fuels their writing."

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The other thing that binds the trio is a fascination with the same era. All are drawn to Seventies' Leeds, whether it is in Peace's writings about the time of the Yorkshire Ripper, Endeacott's fictionalised accounts of Revie or Clavane's memories of his favourite ever midfield.

"I wrote The Damned United while I was living in Tokyo and the truth is all my work is a love letter to the place where I first discovered football," says Peace. "Leeds was a place where I came and bought records, bought books, watched football, it's a place I'm drawn to and drawn to writing about."

Given the ups and downs of the football team in the 1970s, all three writers found great source material. They also believe that the peaks and troughs the club and city experiences today – and has in the past decade – should provide fertile ground for the future.

"Today you have Ken Bates, Dennis Wise. Nothing is more dramatic and spectacular than the rise and fall of Leeds. It's the footballing story of our time, it reflects New Labour, new money, the collapse of the economy. There is no team on earth that can match it."

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Clearly, the other connection between these three writers is passion – expect an evening full of it tomorrow.

David Peace, Robert Endeacott, Anthony Clavane are in Conversation at Waterstone's, Leeds on Tuesday, September 7, 7pm. Tickets are free, but must be booked on 0113 2444588.

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