The rise of David Bevan: from forgotten author to Leicester City fan website owner

It’s the middle of 2020 and David Bevan sits alone in his room. This is where he usually writes. He hasn’t written anything for months. Instead, he’s sitting here on Teams talking to his therapist, who is helping him from the pits of depression and burnout. . 

The then-36-year-old from Northampton didn’t really know what to do with his life. He had a stable job at Northamptonshire County Council and was a critically acclaimed author just four years earlier on the back of Leicester City’s remarkable Premier League win in 2016.

But the COVID lockdown meant that David was buried underneath his work. So much to sort out in such little time while lives are on the line, there was no way for him to keep up.

That is when David turned to an old love, one that he had since he was a child and the driving force behind his 2016 book - writing about football and his team, Leicester City. 

He went on a Journalism open day at DMU in 2005 and was impressed with the facilities, but was persuaded against it by his flatmates because of the low starting salaries at the time. “‘God, I wish I wasn't making decisions like that at 21,’” said David. 

David had sent stuff to the local newspaper the Leicester Mercury, some of which was  published but David never earned any money from it.

His writing took a backseat as he concentrated on his work. He didn’t write for three years. That was until February 2015, where an FA Cup match against Aston Villa would change David’s life.

One article about the match was all it took for David to get hooked on writing again, although not for positive reasons. “We were getting relegated and I wanted to capture how it felt as a fan,” he says. 

However, as David started to write about the club, The Foxes pulled off the first of two footballing miracles and managed to stay up in the Premier League. It was a sign of what was to come. 

Leicester City began the 2015/16 Premier League season incredibly, challenging for the top spot and winning matches no- one expected them to. By Christmas, The Foxes topped the league. 

As David's collection of unpublished articles and match reports built up, he decided to pitch it as a book, the unlikely story of Leicester City’s possible title win.

The work was arduous, he had to scrap half of his word count and he needed a total of 50k words for it to even have a chance of being published.

He was writing for seven hours after his work shift ended. He knew that things could change, that this fairytale may not even happen, “they were unnerving times,” he remarked. He had to try though, even if it was to be in vain. 

Finally, after months of waiting, Leicester City’s title win would be confirmed and David knew he had to finish it. “I had about 10 mins to process it and then I had to capture and write about it,” he says.

It was one of the first books released about Leicester’s title win and one of the proudest moments in his life. 

Four years later in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck worldwide and it impacted David hard. His workload and working hours had multiplied. It was too much for David. He had to take time away from work to go into therapy.

“I was making bad decisions,” said David. He knew that he couldn’t keep up with the needs of so many people around him while keeping up with himself. He needed an escape. 

He would soon find it. His love for sports writing returned and David spotted a gap in the market, no-one was writing about Leicester City in a way the fans needed and deserved. He wanted to make the fans' voices and thoughts heard. 

So David, along with three other writers, set up a free Leicester City website - The Fosse Way -  with no paywalls and written purely by fans. It was a stroke of genius

At first the website started small with low readership but word spread and fans logged on. The website grew. David also found new writers who wanted to write about the club on the site, and took them on in unpaid roles, 

The site still runs in 2026, with David at the wheel leading. As The Foxes fortunes plummet, the site and its weary but informed tone, the voice of the club’s knowledgeable fan base, has become more important. Numbers are down - “we were more people when City were winning things.” he says, but the message now is arguably more important. 

When David is back on his laptop, writing in his room, instead of a therapist on his screen it’s countless emails from people looking to put their work on his website. 

The burnout that once plagued his life feels like a distant memory today. His love of writing and Leicester City helped to rescue him and created a popular online haven for countless Leicester City fans and their frustrations.