Revie was made player-manager at Leeds United in March 1961 following the resignation of Jack Taylor, who left after Leeds found themselves struggling in the Second Division. He had initially applied for the vacant job at Bournemouth, but Bournemouth were unable to find the £6,000 Leeds demanded, and the Leeds directors decided to instead appoint Revie as manager. At the time the club was in debt and was located in a rugby league territory, with very little football tradition. Less than 7,000 turned out for the final home game of the 1960–61 season while Leeds's championship game of the 1960–61 Rugby League season had an attendance of over 50,000. He immediately began to institute radical changes such as ensuring the players stayed at higher quality hotels. He instilled a "family atmosphere" at Elland Road, making sure to take an interest in the lives of everyone at the club from the cleaning staff to the star players and ensuring there were no "big egos" at the club. He showed trust in his players, leaving them mainly to their own devices though he always made sure he was fully informed as to what they were up to off the pitch, even going so far as to tell them to dump their girlfriends if he viewed them as unsuitable. He also introduced lengthy dossiers on opposing teams to ensure his players knew every detail about the opposition and were able to exploit weaknesses and nullify threats. Other changes were based on some of his many superstitions, such as his belief that birds were bad luck which resulted in him getting rid of the owl on the club badge and the discontinuation of the Peacocks nickname in favour of the Whites.