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Episode twenty-one of The Square Ball, recorded on 6 January 2011, brought Dan Moylan, Michael Normanton, and Daniel Chapman (Moscowhite) together to process a run of four consecutive draws that had left the season in an uncertain place — promising enough to remain interested, frustrating enough to warrant a proper accounting.
White Watching covered four results: a 2-2 draw at Leicester on 26 December, a remarkable 3-3 at Portsmouth on 29 December — in which two Robert Weston own goals complicated a match that Leeds had appeared to be controlling — a 1-1 draw at Middlesbrough on 1 January, and a 2-1 win over Cardiff City on 3 January that finally broke the sequence. The Portsmouth result generated the most discussion: drawing 3-3 at a club in the kind of financial disarray Portsmouth were experiencing at the time felt like a result Leeds should have made more of.
Referee David Webb’s performance in one of the draws became the episode’s animating grievance, giving it its title. The panel’s assessment of Webb — measured against specific decisions they felt had cost Leeds — was direct enough to generate the quotable verdict that named the episode.
Off the pitch, the episode examined two significant issues. Season ticket pricing for 2011-12 was being discussed at club level, and the panel put the numbers in context for supporters trying to plan. Max Gradel’s name had been linked with Newcastle United, and the rumours were enough to prompt a discussion of his value to the side and what his departure would mean — a conversation that echoed the Becchio contract anxieties of earlier episodes.
The Levi/Weston story — concerning a Levi jeans advertisement and a familiar face — added a lighter thread to an episode that was otherwise doing the serious work of mid-season audit.
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