Roy Battersby writes: Auditioning in a grim Salford secondary modern school for boys to play parts in Roll on Four O’Clock in 1970, Colin Welland, Ken Trodd and I also talked about the big strike of mostly women clothing workers in Leeds that same year. The result was the epic BBC Play for Today film Leeds United!, written by Colin, produced by Ken, directed by me, transmitted in 1974, repeated once in 1975, praised, admired and traduced, and since seen only at festivals, academic film gatherings and the National Film Theatre – but always to great appreciation. By heck, it’s a wonderful script and film, and should be included in Colin’s bio as one of his finest works. He always had such a wonderful way of giving a voice to those without one, but who have so much to tell us.
W Stephen Gilbert writes: Outstanding among Colin Welland’s achievements were a television screenplay and an acting performance.
Leeds United! was an unprecedentedly ambitious BBC Play for Today, depicting union action by women working in the garment industry. Directed with panache and incisiveness by Roy Battersby, it sometimes seemed to have mobilised the whole city. Welland’s script was as confident in the grand sweep as in the intimate detail, as though he might be writing for Cecil B DeMille.
In Jim Allen’s United Kingdom, almost as epic, Welland gave a ferocious turn as a chief constable, clearly based on Manchester’s James Anderton. It’s hard to think of a player who could have captured such intransigent authority. At the same time, self-importance could not be said to be wholly absent from Welland’s make-up. He once declined to visit a film shoot in Belfast, declaring that he was such a famous and desirable trophy that he would be bound to be kidnapped and held for ransom.
