Latest Elland Road mural a nod to Leeds United legends — with Eddie Gray on call to lend a hand — YEP 3/6/25
By Kyle Newbould
Leeds United fan Robert Endeacott has done plenty of work
inside Elland Road and is now responsible for a colourful tribute opposite
Billy’s Bar.
It’ll be a couple of months until any real number of Leeds
United fans descend on Elland Road again, but waiting for them just outside the
stadium is another beautiful mural.
Just like the city centre, Elland Road and the area
surrounding it is becoming a canvas for painters and muralists like Robert
Endeacott. You will likely have seen his work inside the stadium. He did the
full-wall tribute to Jack Charlton in the East Stand stairwell, the ‘We Are
Leeds’ piece across the East Stand executive box roofs and plenty more
colourful nods to heroes past and present.
His latest piece is coming along nicely too, this time
outside the ground and over the road from Billy’s Bar. It’s an area fellow
Leeds fan Andy Taylor plans to turn into a Leeds-themed carwash and, for
someone like Robert, presented another blank canvas for which to celebrate the
club.
“We had a good discussion, myself and Andy, because he’s
Leeds through and through as well,” Robert told the YEP. “The first one I
painted was the Billy Bremner one, and I’ve always said that's my favourite
ever image of Leeds United, I'd like to paint that. We then just conferred and
agreed on who else. John Charles, for obvious reasons. He was our first
superstar. Eddie Gray is a good friend anyway, but he's an ambassador of the
club as well, and he is a legend.
“Gary Speed was chosen because he won the [First Division]
Championship in 1992, and obviously we know what's happened since, and I think
it's just a reminder of seeing a great footballer enjoying life - and I’ll try
to put this in a respectful way, he was a good looking lad so I just thought
people would like to see Gary Speed in all his pomp. The last one I did was
Pablo Hernandez, obviously, because he was part of the Championship side in
2020.”
Each selection offered its own challenges, like the mural of
Speed actually being an amalgamation of two separate photos, or Hernandez’s
face being ‘all over the shop’ in the initial photograph. A video snapshot of
Gray also proved difficult, but luckily Robert could call on the man himself to
lend a hand - quite literally.
“Eddie is from video footage of two goals he scored against
Burnley 1970. I took a still photograph of the TV screen, and then just just
really experimented and tried looking for all sorts of different photos of
Eddie with a proper smile on his face looking at the camera. He also had the
Beatles hairstyle at the time. Anyway, I asked Eddie to come down to see
because I wanted to take a photo of his hand.
“The picture has Eddie giving them a peace sign almost,
because he scored two great goals, but I also thought Eddie's such a lovely
guy, he wishes peace on people and peace and love, and he’s smiling at the
viewer. So I got that and the hand that I've fashioned on the wall is actually
his hand, it's not imagined. Anyway, he loves it. Thankfully he does.”
The latest addition, which Robert expects to be finished in
around two weeks, is another marriage of past and present, this time with
Daniel Farke and Marcelo Bielsa holding the Championship trophy they each won
five years apart. When complete, it will become the latest addition to an
ever-growing collection of Leeds United tributes which have coloured the entire
city in yellow, white and blue.
“I love a good mural,” Robert adds. “And I have nothing but
respect for people who try to create their own murals as well, when it’s about
Leeds United then it's even better because of the mutual love. The ones I'm
doing now, and the ones I've done in the stadium with my mate, Johnny and a guy
called Paul Kent, I'm very proud of because I think people do enjoy them.