It has been widely rumoured that Ken Bates will write no further programme notes after his valedictory musings in the New Year’s Day publication for the Bolton game. The outgoing chairman signed off with his usual hubristic mixture of triumphalism, inferences of malevolent forces at work and general business epithets – it was hard to… Continue Reading
A question we’ve often been asked over the last few seasons is, ‘What will The Square Ball write about when Ken Bates has gone?’
And now that Bates really has gone, our answer doesn’t change: we’ll write about what the various people who have written TSB have written about for over twenty years: Leeds United Football Club.
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Issue two includes all the usual stuff you expect after twenty-three years of Leeds publishing independence, such as:
As soon as we heard the appeal on Yorkshire Radio for fans to contact the club if they knew the whereabouts of Melvyn Levi, we knew we were heading for trouble. Ken Bates had already lost a libel case to Levi, costing £50,000 in damages and an estimated £1.5million in costs. It was no surprise that the ‘Levi-watch’ bulletin – which, it has been revealed in the judgement, Yorkshire Radio considered broadcasting along with the Crimewatch theme – along with comments in Ken’s programme notes, ended up with a court case against Bates, Leeds United and Yorkshire Radio for harassment of Melvyn Levi and his wife, Carole. It was no real surprise, either, that Ken Bates substantially lost the case.
As the curtain mercifully fell on the season in late April we entered the most welcome summer in living memory. Of course we have become accustomed to the off-season being thoroughly unenjoyable, as we clumsily stagger through the dreaded transfer window like an early-hours drunk trying desperately to find any willing suitor to join us… Continue Reading
Finally the season is over, but there’s plenty still to discuss. With the transfer window now open and with Colin’s Clearout well underway, the team gets the lowdown on Adam Clayton from the YEP’s Phil Hay and mulls over all the potential ins and outs this summer. After skimming over the final batch of games,… Continue Reading
TSB can reveal that Leeds United’s academy manager Chris Sulley has left the club, only a year after starting his new role at Thorp Arch. Sulley was appointed by the club early last year after a protracted search for a new academy boss. He started work on 1st March 2011, but TSB understands that his… Continue Reading
The most interesting part of Leeds United’s 2010/11 financial returns, which have become available today, fall after the end of the accounting period. The filings take the assorted companies that make up Leeds City Holdings to the end of June 2011, but at the bottom of the very last page, is this:
‘Post Balance Sheet Events’: Leeds United Football Club Limited entered into an agreement whereby it sold season tickets for both the 2012/13 and 2013/14 season for a sum of £5,000,000 after the year end.
This, it seems, it the £5m facility that was referred to in the official sites reporting of the account headlines: “After the year end we entered into an agreement for a £5,000,000 facility to part fund the East Stand Development.”
At least Warnock has sorted out the defence, eh? After the Forest horror show, the pod – missing a man – reflects on that and the other matches, including a great win at Millwall. The team remembers other humiliations in the history of the Whites. Plus there’s the usual scattergun approach to predictions for the… Continue Reading
Elland Road is awash with optimism and so is the pod – well most of it anyway. In light of recent performances and a great win at Middlesbrough, the team discuss the new broom effect. There’s the usual preview of upcoming matches – including great positivity and hope – and a raft of nominees for the KBVOTF award.… Continue Reading