The pen is mightier than the sword; the typewriter is heftier than the pisshead; the printed word impacts more than the drunken slur. But if what you actually want is both pens and swords, if you’ve a requirement for pissheads at typewriters, if you prefer your drunken slurs to be printed on high quality paper in glorious full colour, and if you’d like it all served in one hefty 56 page magazine, then The Square Ball issue three is what you want. … Continue Reading
There has only been one talking point this week. How do you police football fans? How do you stop them all from running on the pitch and assaulting players, from singing sick songs, from breaking seats and throwing coins? What do we do to make sure none of these things happens inside in a football stadium, ever again? And yet, all week, nobody has responded to these questions by inquiring of the inquirer, “Are you mad?”
Click here to read the rest on Leeds Online!… Continue Reading
International football, like love, is a way of diffusing overwhelming passions in a positive way. Nothing speaks more strongly of the heart’s hidden torment than an exchange of flowers, Football Association pennants, and bodily fluids. But international football, like love, can sometimes fail to contain the torid amours of young men in heat. Things are said that are later regretted – other things are said, and never regretted. Blows are aimed, blows are landed, and what started with a kiss ends with a FIFA charge for disrepute. Oh, love is woe.
Click here to read the rest on Leeds Online!… Continue Reading
We published the story of Noel Lloyd and Positive Action Movement in The Square Ball magazine in November, and now we’re putting the full text permanently online at TheSquareBall.net/Noel-Lloyd.
It’s an incredible story, that follows Ken Bates’ rise through the Lancashire construction business to become chairman of Oldham Athletic, where his schemes for corporate facilities and restaurants, the increased ticket prices, the insulting remarks about fans in his programme column, and the club radio station, will all sound sadly familiar to Leeds fans; to Rhodesia, where Bates had business connections, and where he took Oldham on a summer tour in 1965 and was photographed with Prime Minister Ian Smith, in spite of United Nations Resolutions that imposed economic and diplomatic sanctions on Smith’s “illegal regime … [ruled by] a racist minority”; and then to the British Virgin Islands, where Bates was on the precipice of a success that would be worth almost £200million in today’s money and leave him owner not just of a business, but of an island the size of Manhattan, for 199 years. … Continue Reading
“I honestly don’t know where they get their patience from. They spend their hard-earned money to follow the club – and we turn in a performance like we did at Stoke. It must be heartbreaking for them when they have to watch what we served up for them. They deserve 100 per cent better. If we were up there at the top of the First Division we could not expect more from our fans. I was ashamed that a team of mine could be so lacking in enthusiasm, commitment and effort. It just wasn’t true. It was humiliating and there is no excuse. They are lacking pride in the club, when wearing a Leeds United shirt should be the greatest thing in the world. It was for me.” – Billy Bremner.… Continue Reading
On Saturday, should you care to, you can read my first take on Howson’s sale in the new issue of The Square Ball. Without giving too much away – so promise me you’ll still buy it, okay? – here’s how I end the article:
It seems you can fleece the fans with promises of the Premier League, but you can’t fleece Jonny Howson. If he has looked our board in the eye when they told him, “We want to match your ambition,” and he’s not believed a word – well, vale, kid, and here’s to you. It’s an inherent cruelty of football that means Howson has that option, and we don’t.
I was thinking about this again tonight, as I browsed through today’s news roundup.… Continue Reading
‘That morning, when we hit the road, a lady came up by the name of Louella Harrigan and she said, "Regardless, we got to take back our country from Kenneth Bates, and whatever we’re going to do we’re going to march this morning, and we are going to take our country back! This lease must be revoked, and Kenneth Bates must go!”’ – George Malone in ‘A Patriotic Man’.
It’s an idea, anyway. At the moment, Mike Grella is back in Yorkshire having reported for pre-season training with Leeds United but expecting to leave for pastures new before the season starts, and no nearer to becoming a soccer hero. If it’s ever going to happen for Mikey – and Hollywood dictates that one day, it will – you get the feeling he’s going to have to do something radical first.… Continue Reading
The most disturbing aspect of Ken Bates’ impact at Leeds United has been his effect on us, the fans. We’ve changed; or rather, he has changed us. The most fundamental way this change expresses itself is in the way that we express ourselves – it’s right there, in the way we talk about Leeds United. Ken Bates has stolen our narrative of ourselves; he has blunted our desire to write our own history, to give vocal form to what we want from Leeds United Football Club.… Continue Reading
A-Bloo-Bloo-Bloo.… Continue Reading