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The fifth Square Ball Podcast, recorded 2 March 2010, opened with a mild betrayal. Michael Normanton had appeared on BBC Radio Leeds’s Leeds United Unplugged programme during the previous fortnight, a move his co-hosts — Dan Moylan, Daniel Chapman (Moscowhite), and Paul O’Dowd (Oddy) — framed as a treachery requiring explanation. Downloads were also coming in from South America and Mexico, and an open invitation was extended to any listeners in those regions to make themselves known.
White Watching covered four results of distinctly mixed character. The Walsall defeat was described as traumatic — not angry, just demoralising. Normanton, having been asked about the disputed goal on air, confirmed no camera angle showed conclusively whether the ball had crossed the line. The consensus was that it hadn’t mattered: results elsewhere that evening had closed the gap at the top of the table, and Leeds hadn’t deserved to win regardless. The Brighton draw felt like two points dropped. The visitors came for a draw, time-wasted from kick-off, and barely threatened going forward. The referee distinguished himself by running backwards the entire length of the pitch to check on an injured player — with the physio already on the touchline — before repeatedly summoning the captain for conversations that led nowhere. Leeds equalised in the 95th minute. The Oldham win (2-0, Becchio scoring both) was underlaid by a familiar frustration: in the move leading to the goal, Howson stood in the centre circle with the ball, waited long enough for Aidy White to come and take it off him, and then watched White run, play the pass, and create the goal. Howson was still standing in the centre circle when it went in. The Huddersfield draw was 2-2 — Leeds fell behind early, recovered well in the second half. Kevin Friend officiated, for the second time that the hosts had noticed, and gave them plenty of material.
The talking points covered Becchio’s return to scoring form — “his last three goals cover a very combined distance of about six yards” — and Paul Dickov’s imminent arrival, received with weary inevitability rather than active opposition. Clark Carlisle had won his Countdown episode and was then slated by Alan Hansen on Match of the Day for being on a game show instead of concentrating on his football. Sean Gregan’s appearance in the Oldham match was noted specifically: the hosts described his physique with a reference to the Jurassic Park water-glass scene.
Part three brought in a phone guest: Wayne Gamble, the Square Ball’s designer and creator of the Visit Beeston campaign — a full-colour centrespread poster in the magazine, riffing on 1950s American tourism art, aimed squarely at Ken Bates’s proposed hotel development at Elland Road. The conversation broadened into football’s financial crisis. Portsmouth were doing a Leeds, their debts estimated at 70-80 million pounds. UEFA had just released statistics showing that 56% of all European football debt was concentrated in England. Ken Bates’s Evening Standard quote — that a football club is “a property business that doesn’t trade 340 days a year” — returned for a second examination, with specific focus on his proposal to borrow 90 million pounds to build the hotel while simultaneously citing cleared debts as his main achievement at the club. The German model (fan ownership, terracing, eight euros a ticket) was held up with admiration and some ambivalence about what it might mean for European competitiveness.
Looking ahead: Brentford at home, Tranmere away, and Southampton away — which the hosts described as the big one, the real test, the game they’d been quietly dreading. The closing note was defiant rather than confident. The title of the episode said it all.
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