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Episode 33 picks up after three games of the 2011-12 Championship season — two league defeats and a League Cup win — with Dan Moylan, Michael Normanton, Daniel Chapman (Moscowhite) and Paul O’Dowd (Oddy) attempting to stay positive on a diet of sweets sent in by a listener. The opening game magazine was put together by Dan while his wife was in labour — his son was born on 11 August — which is noted with appropriate admiration by the rest of the panel.
The Southampton defeat sets the tone. Michael was there; the consensus is that it was as bad as Leeds had played in months. Andy O’Brien’s habit of dropping into midfield to contest headers — leaving gaps all across the defensive line — is identified as the root cause of most of Southampton’s goals, and the same pattern had appeared in the League Cup against Bradford. The absence of Bradley Johnson in the air is felt almost immediately. Max Gradel’s penalty is noted as the only genuine positive, alongside Adam Clayton, who catches the eye enough for the panel to wonder why Simon Grayson had been so reluctant to play him before.
The Bradford League Cup tie is reviewed as profoundly uncomfortable — a narrow win that felt far too close. Ramon Nunez is highlighted as a positive, showing the kind of footwork and positioning that could make him a real asset. Tom Lees impresses enough that someone on the forum immediately asks why he was dropped for the next game — a question Grayson struggles to answer on the radio. The Middlesbrough match is assessed as unlucky — Leeds the better team when equal in numbers — but Andy Lonergan makes two excellent saves, and referee Anthony Taylor is handed the inaugural Ken Bates Villain of the Fortnight award for a sending off that the panel cannot defend.
Andy Keogh’s arrival on loan from Wolves provides a focal point for the transfer discussion. He is welcomed as better than sticking Tom Lees up front, but his arrival via a statement from Wolves saying they were lending him out of pity generates some amusement. Luciano Becchio is apparently running again. The midfield remains one experienced body — Michael Brown — surrounded by players still finding their feet.
Ken Bates’s recent public interventions take up a substantial portion of the episode. His car park confrontation with protesters, his dismissal of dissenting fans as morons, his weekly radio appearances deflecting responsibility onto agents, players and holiday schedules — all are picked apart in detail. Attendances are down for the opening home game, membership figures are falling, and the East Stand is half-built in cream cladding that somehow manages to clash with every other colour in its vicinity. The Leeds United Supporters’ Trust opening its membership for free gets a supportive mention as a constructive alternative.
The second half of the episode revisits early-season memories — Tranmere away in League One, Tony Yeboah’s 1995 goals at West Ham, Newcastle putting five past Leeds on the opening day of the 1989-90 season — before previewing Hull City, West Ham and Doncaster. The Gladiators theme that runs through the episode title delivers a closing flourish when the panel considers what the show might look like if they stopped covering Leeds entirely.
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