CONTROVERSIAL author and Huddersfield Town fan, David Peace, is penning another football-themed novel.
The writer has revealed a book about legendary former Terriers and Liverpool gaffer Bill Shankly is in the pipeline.
Shankly famously quit the Leeds Road side in 1959 to take over as Liverpool manager, propelling the red half of the city to decades of trophy-winning success.
Peace, who won awards for his novel The Damned United, about Brian Clough’s 44-day tenure of Leeds United, has announced his novel about Shankly, Red or Dead, will be released in August.
The Damned United, which was later made into a film starring Michael Sheen, caused a flurry of complaints, including from Clough’s family, for its depiction of the so-called "Dirty Leeds" team of the 1970s.
It also sparked legal action from former Leeds player Johnny Giles, who said he did not want to be featured in the film.
Having built a reputation for writing dark novels, Peace said he wanted to turn his attention to a more positive tale.
He said: "I have written about corruption, I've written about crime, I've written about bad men and I've written about the demons.
"But now I've had enough of the bad men and the demons.
"Now I want to write about a good man and a saint – a Red Saint.
"Bill Shankly was not just a great football manager he was one of the greatest men who ever lived.
"The supporters of Liverpool Football Club, and the people of Liverpool the city, know that and remember him.
"But many people outside of football, outside of Liverpool, do not know or do not remember him.
"And now – more than ever – it's time everybody knew about Bill Shankly.
"About what he achieved, about what he believed and how he led his life, not for himself, for other people."
Click on the link below for a gallery showing pictures from Shankly's time at Huddersfield and Liverpool.
The novel will cover Shankly’s rise from lower-league obscurity with teams including Workington Reds and Carlisle United to his dominance of English football with Liverpool and his shock retirement in 1974 having led the club to league and cup success.
Shankly, who started his working life as a coal miner in his native Scotland, died in 1981 and is widely regarded as having laid the blueprint for decades of success at Anfield.
Lee Brackstone, creative director of Peace’s publisher, Faber Social: said "A novel about one of the great good men of British football comes as such a tonic and a wake-up-call in these days of extraordinary wealth, privilege and abuse of both in the Premier League.
"There, quite simply, could not be a better time, culturally and politically, for this novel.
"David Peace’s ninth novel is an epic in scale and ambition.
"If The Damned United re-defined how fiction can make compelling drama and art out of sport, Red or Dead, rips up the rulebook and does so all over again."
