From the mid 1970s, up until the end of the 1990s, Leeds United supporters were portrayed as the most violent and the most racist fans in England. Not only did this period witness hooliganism and the moral panic around it reach their peak, but it also saw fanzine culture take shape on the terraces of British football grounds. These publications, edited by the fans for the fans, enable us to see Leeds United supporters in a way altogether at odds with their representation in the mainstream media. Staunchly militant and antiracist, those fanzines promoted a fan culture contrasting with the violence and the racism of the National Front and British National Party members that had started to gather on the terraces of Elland Road. As such, my paper offers to investigate the way football fans articulated their opposition to racism and nationalism through the edition of fanzines. To do so, I will first analyse Caryl Phillips's works in which he recalls his youth spent supporting Leeds as the only black boy in the crowd. I will study his pieces of writing in the light of local fanzines (Marching Altogether) as well as national ones (When Saturday Comes) to understand how racism manifested itself inside football grounds, and how the fan-led antiracist campaign emerged in Leeds. I will also aim at showing the extent to which this phenomenon reveals a national trend amongst football fans. This paper thus offers to examine the political affiliations of Leeds United football hooligans, and how other fans, the Leeds Antifascist Action, and the trades union council took action to limit their presence at Elland Road.

Aurélien Gérard is a PhD candidate in the English department of Sorbonne Université (France). His thesis, supervised by Alexis Tadié and Paul Dietschy, focuses on football fan culture in Leeds.