March 16, 2011

#26: One Don Revie

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Episode 26 of The Square Ball, recorded on 16 March 2011, is titled One Don Revie in recognition of the 50th anniversary of Revie’s appointment as Leeds United manager — and that occasion gets the extended tribute it deserves. Dan Moylan is joined by Michael Normanton, Daniel Chapman (Moscowhite) and Paul O’Dowd (Oddy).

The White Watching covers three games. A 5-2 home win over Doncaster Rovers on 5 March — emphatic, though with two defensive lapses to argue about — is followed by Moscowhite’s account of his journey home from the match, which at some point involved a police car, a wall in either Bramley or Horsforth, and a degree of uncertainty about how any of it had happened. The officers were kind enough to take him where he needed to go. He acknowledges he may have run into some of the cast’s listeners at some point during the evening and apologises preemptively. A 2-1 win at Preston on 8 March — Neil Kilkenny and Billy Paynter on the scoresheet — makes it a productive Tuesday night. The 0-0 at home to Ipswich on 12 March provides a different kind of material: a poor referee, a penalty not given, and a Sun match report that focused largely on Kieron Dyer’s return and the question of whether he was still good. The episode’s conclusion is that he was not.

There is good news on the youth front: Jordan Snodin, 17, son of former Leeds and Everton midfielder Ian Snodin, has signed as a scholar at Thorp Arch. Barry Bannan, on loan from Aston Villa, is assessed after his first appearances in the squad.

The main event is the Revie tribute. The cast cover his background, the state of Leeds United when he arrived, the transformation he engineered, and the complicated legacy — the trophies, the fines, the establishment’s hostility, and the England job departure. Robert Snodgrass’s appearance on Goals on Sunday also gives the episode an unexpected bulletin: he revealed that Jermaine Beckford had a falling out with Simon Grayson midway through last season.