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
“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
Today is the first home game of the season, and with it comes the first issue of The Square Ball of 2011/12. Since the last issue, we’ve been named The Football Supporter’s Federation’s Fanzine of the Year for our efforts in 2010/11, and as Howard Wilkinson said after the League title success in 1992, *”All we can say to you all is, ‘It looks as though we’ll have to go and try and win it again.’”* Let’s not dwell too long on how that turned out, shall we?… Continue Reading
With the publication of the report of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry into Domestic Football Governance at noon today, the ownership of Leeds United has become an issue for the football authorities, the government, the media, and for Leeds United fans, who are as ever the people most likely to be adversely affected. With that in mind, then, The Square Ball offers this guide to the parts of the report of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry into Domestic Football Governance that refer to Leeds United.
The committee appears determined, despite Ken Bates’ buyout, to finally unravel the story of Leeds United’s ownership since administration in 2007.
A spirited away performance today completed a fantastic double over QPR who, on the field, deserved their Championship title. The table doesn’t lie and they were clearly the best team over the course of the 46 games with their success built on a strong base. Shaun Derry once again excelled in his position just in… Continue Reading
It’s the last home game of the season, and that means that issue ten of The Square Ball, which goes on sale today, will be our last before we sign off for the summer. But unlike Leeds United, TSB isn’t ending on a whimper. To make sure you’ve no shortage of quality reading material between now and pre-season training, we’ve dug in deep, put some quality on our final ball, and displayed clinical finishing in the box to produce a full-colour sixty-four page monster to end 2010/11. That’s a full sixteen extra pages over and above our regular size; and as if that wasn’t enough, we aren’t charging a single penny more for The Square Ball today than we did in 1989. It will cost you one pound.
And not only is The Square Ball only one pound to buy, but it’s packed full of articles and features by Leeds fans, for Leeds fans:… Continue Reading
Deserted by Michael as he escaped Leeds’ frustrating end of season slump by swanning off on holiday, the remaining three members of The Square Ball podcast team decided to turn to you, our dear listeners, for help. We got a great response to our appeal for listeners to come on the phone and talk to us; and when we rang a few of you up, it turned out we couldn’t shut you up.
Unlike your 606s and your TalkSports and your ‘texts and emails to Lizzie,’ our callers were an informed, amusing and forthright bunch, and you can hear their thoughts on Simon Grayson, play-off disappointment vs mid table solidity, and the power of superstition in our latest pod. It makes a change from listening to us droning on every fortnight, anyway.
Of course, we do plenty of droning on anyway, and we even managed to use the power of Skype to get Michael on the line from Spain for his opinions on recent goings on at Leeds; unfortunately, we didn’t realise that he’d spent all day by the pool drinking until it was too late. That’s the sobering effect of Leeds United: nobody can tell just how drunk you are, until you shuffle into ninth place with vomit on your shoes.… Continue Reading
Out of all the players from the 1993 squad, it hurt the Leeds fans most to lose Whelan; and it hurt Whelan the most to leave. For Noel Whelan was Leeds born, and a Leeds fan to the core. “I got a call from Howard Wilkinson on a Sunday morning to say can you come in,” Noel told TSB, when we asked about the move to Coventry. “Straight away I was sitting in my bed crying because I knew it was happening. I went into his office and he said they’d accepted an offer and I walked out, Billy Bremner hugged me and… you know, it still gets me now.” As Whelan rose to success at Coventry, and then struggled to find a home among a series of clubs after leaving Middlesbrough, there remained a sense that Noel really should still have been playing for us. “You never forget where your heart is,” said Noel. “I only ever scored once against Leeds and I didn’t celebrate, but the Leeds fans did, which says it all really.” When Snowy left the Leeds fans had an uneasy sense that yet again the heart of the club was being sold out; like the clear-out of Gray’s team in the mid-eighties, like David Batty in 1993, and like Alan Smith to come in 2004, the board always seemed ready to sell our own. … Continue Reading
In a revolutionary move that will no doubt change football broadcasting for ever, we’ve decided to turn the podcast over to the fans, and let our listeners have their say. We’re nearly at the end of the season now – well, alright, the season’s over, even with two games left – so we’d like you to come on the podcast and let us know how you feel it’s gone.
Has this season been good enough? Should we have gone up this year? What did Grayson do right/do wrong? What would you have done differently? Which players deserve praise? Who should be shown the door? Are you happy we consolidated this season, or angry that we threw promotion away? What were the high points, and what were the low points?
Whatever is on your mind, we’d like you to tell it to us and to your fellow Leeds fans on The Square Ball podcast. As long as it’s Leeds United related, that is, we don’t want to turn this into the Jeremy Kyle show.… Continue Reading
One of the most exciting things – for us, anyway – about the new issue nine of The Square Ball is the return of a genuine Square Ball legend: Eddie Taylor. Eddie wrote for The Square Ball (and occasionally the official Leeds mags, but we won’t talk about that) between 1991 and 1996, and his article about the legacy of Don Revie in the new issue marks a return to TSB after fifteen years. Welcome home, son.
What with Eddie’s return, and the interview with Noel Whelan we have coming up in issue ten, it seemed like a good time to dig this out from the archives: Eddie Taylor’s report of the FA Youth Cup Final second leg between Leeds and Man Utd in 1993.
The Leeds team that night included Whelan, Jamie Forrester, Kevin Sharp, Mark Ford, Andy Couzens and Mark Tinkler; while the already overhyped Man Utd team included Beckham, Scholes, and both Nevilles (ye gods), among others. Leeds easily beat Ferguson’s kids, of course, 2-1 on the night and 4-2 on aggregate; the game remains memorable for being live on the new satellite channel Sky Sports, for a crowd at Elland Road of 31,307 at the end of what had been a miserable season for the first team, for Jamie Forrester’s spectacular overhead kick, and for being a bone fide cup final victory over the Dirty Reds.
Eddie’s report neatly captures the atmosphere of the time: the utter misery of coming 17th the season after winning the league; the optimism that Howard Wilkinson and Paul Hart’s youth policy would soon pay off; the teenage lust that hung muskily in the night air. It’s also fair to say that, although he didn’t know their names at the time (we’ve added them below), history has proved Eddie to have absolutely nailed his assessment of certain members of the opposition.… Continue Reading