LEICESTER City’s unlikely Premier League success has highlighted that sporting glory is not just confined to football in that East Midlands city.
Leicester Tigers have been a force at the top of rugby union for many years, the city’s basketball team have won the English division and local boy Mark Selby was crowned World Snooker Champion last weekend.
Contrast that with a much bigger city also beginning with L about 100 miles north of Leicester up the M1.
Sporting success is at a premium in Leeds.
The Leeds Rhinos, who gloriously won the treble last year, are currently propping up the Super League after a dismal start to the season.
Yorkshire Carnegie are a well run club in the second tier of rugby union but struggle to get anywhere near the crowds of their league neighbour.
And Leeds United.
It’s not so much football as pantomime most of the time at Elland Road under eccentric and erratic Italian owner Massimo Cellino.
He’s probably spent more money in employment tribunals than on players so far this year.
But there is a bright shining light on the sporting horizon in the compact form of boxer Josh Warrington.
He’s an unbeaten featherweight who most pundits believe is two fights away from fighting for the world title. And if his Matchroom promotional team can deliver it, he’d love that fight to be outdoors at Elland Road where his beloved Leeds United play.
I met Josh last week ahead of a lunch at the Foundry restaurant in Leeds organised by my old chairman from TheBusinessDesk.com, Chris Jones.
Chris’ friend, Nick Ryle is raising money to make a documentary about Josh Warrington which he hopes will tell the boxer’s extraordinary story and culminate, he hopes, in a challenge for the world title against his British rival, the tough Welsh world champion Lee Selby.
Now this isn’t some kind of pipe dream.
The team looking to make Fighting For A City is same one behind the acclaimed feature documentary called Being AP, about the life and times of great jump jockey Sir AP McCoy.
That was backed primarily by BBC Films and as well as being critically acclaimed, including selection for the Toronto Film Festival, it has performed extremely well commercially.
When you look at the market, there is a growing demand for great sports films telling real life stories. The documentary about Nottingham Forest’s extraordinary European Cup win under Brian Clough, I Believe In Miracles, has recently garnered plenty of praise while other films about iconic sports stars such as Ayrton Senna and Cristiano Ronaldo have been widely watched.
Now Nick Ryle and his team at Moneyglass Films want to tap into the appetite for such films by capturing the story of Josh Warrington, the charismatic fighter who can call on the most passionate and noisy following of working class Leeds United fans who have had little to cheer on the pitch in recent years.
Instead they have packed Leeds Arena for Josh’s fights, cheering him to the rafters of the 12,500 venue and turning it into a cauldron of passion that is now lacking across the city at Elland Road.
There is plenty of back story to this film.
Josh is trained by his father, who keeps his son’s feet firmly on the ground. His father has adopted his grandson because Josh’s brother is mentally challenged and cannot bring up his child.
The backdrop is the city of Leeds, a town that perhaps is representative of 2016 Britain.
Part shiny new businesses and bars, a big student population but also with run down estates and many people who have little aspiration or future.
The film makers say think Rocky meets This is England.
It certainly sounds like a mix of grit, drama and sporting achievement that would produce a compelling documentary.
As for Josh, he’s a film producer’s dream: articulate, entertaining and modest and with an unmarked face that belies 23 straight victories in the ring.
He lacks what they call in the pugilistic trade, a knockout punch, so has gone the distance in all but four of his bouts.
The story and idea for the film certainly captured the interest of the small group of potential investors at the lunch last week.
Listening to the group discuss the tax advantages of EIS and SEIS investments, I worked out quite quickly that I was probably there more for my contacts and the exposure this blog can bring rather than the ability to write a large cheque.
But a journalist loves a good story and in Josh Warrington, his family, his fans and his future, there is certainly a great story for a talented film maker to tell.
Nick wants the film to be made, filmed and funded in Yorkshire and wants investors to experience the whole process.
If you are interested in talking to Nick Ryle about this project, let me know and I’ll put you in touch.
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WHAT I like so much about Leicester’s City’s fairytale Premier League triumph is the fact it was achieved without manager Claudio Ranieri resorting to playing mind games with opponents and blaming refereeing decisions.
Sir Alex Ferguson’s years of what sometimes seemed like psychological warfare and Jose Mourinho’s often bitter and nasty tirades against opposing players, managers, referees and, as the walls began to fall in on his Chelsea regime, his own club doctor, perhaps blinkered us into thinking that was the only way you could win a prize as big as the Premier League.
Create a siege mentality, never blame your own players, just everyone else. That was the recipe that worked. In Ferguson’s case, he even carried on a seven year boycott of the BBC after it broadcast a programme about the activities of his football agent son.
The flinty-eyed son of a Govan shipyard worker never gave much away, only what he wanted to.
It was a mighty contrast to the relaxed, smiling figure he cut at racecourses, watching his horses run.
Ranieri used the media to send messages to his own players rather than to unsettle opponents and undermine the authority of referees.
Early in the season he promised his players pizza if they kept a clean sheet, later he repeated his mantra that Leicester had to fight in every minute of every game if they were to first, avoid relegation, then it moved on to finish in the top 10, after that it was to secure a high enough place to compete in Europe and then, as the season neared its exciting conclusion, it was to finish in the top four and play in the Champions’ League.
Finally he admitted, the title was a possibility.
It might have seemed a bit of an anti-climax for Leicester to finally secure the title without playing after Tottenham conceded a draw at Chelsea on Monday.
It didn’t sound like an anti-climax on Radio 4’s Today programme the following morning as Nick Robinson battled to make himself heard over honking car horns outside the King Power Stadium in the East Midlands city.
Fittingly Ranieri, who cuts the figure of everyone’s favourite uncle, father, grandfather or son, was not even watching as his club achieved what is almost certainly the biggest upset in sport.
He was flying back from Rome where he had been for the day to take his 96-year-old mother out for lunch.
I hope they shared a decent bottle of my favourite Italian red, Brunello di Montalcino.
Dilly ding, dilly dong!
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I GOT plenty of feedback after last week’s piece on the Hilary Benn event at Irwin Mitchell.
Many people were impressed by the Leeds Central MP and Shadow Foreign Secretary’s oratory on Europe and devolution, others didn’t agree with his views but respected his ability to make them.
One email arrived from an old contact, Angus Fraser, a renegade New Zealander who used to be chief executive of Leeds-based quoted electronics group Premier Farnell, then headed Hagemeyer and is now running Doncaster-based renewables business Solcap Energy.
I remembered Angus was always a man with an opinion – something he delivers with passion, power and a good degree of humour.
“Talk is cheap, where was devolution when Hillary Benn was in power for 13 years?” asked Angus.
“I remember meeting him when as CEO of Farnell I was invited to a small group dinner with Hilary about Leeds businesses helping with social causes, particularly prisons.
“I suggested that as 90% of all stealing is drugs related and drugs are a problem in prison why are we not taking the opportunity to spend money getting prisoners off drugs whilst they are in prison? Attendance is not an issue as they cannot leave.
“That would help the prisoners, reduce the power of drug dealers and save some stealing from society at large. Hilary struggled to answer and admitted the concept had not been suggested by his civil servants.
“I hope devolution allows for some conceptual thinking as that is what we need to get the North and Yorkshire in particular humming. Like you I meet some terrific businesses and exciting people that need the liberation of devolution.”
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MEANWHILE architectural consultant Damian Walsh, made another point about Hilary Benn: “David did you know he is your polar opposite? He is a teetotaller and vegetarian!!”
Reading that, I nearly choked on my bacon sandwich. And spat out my glass of Brunello.
Well, it was after 9am.
Have a great weekend.