Glad tidings
The Square Ball: Season 35, Issue 04
This is the fourth issue of TSB’s 35th season and Leeds United’s 2024/25 title-winning campaign.
Remy Walker‘s superb cover art is hopefully a portent of what we’re going to see more of this season — Largie Ramazani celebrating goal after goal with backflip after backflip.
As well as all your favourite regular contributors, we’ve also revamped the front section with a lot more fun, shorter bits and pieces that would look great if you posted photos of them on your Twitter or Instagram feeds. Just sayin’!
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- Anthony Crewdson interviews Ashley Coffey, the boyhood Leeds fan who didn’t let an unsuccessful trial under Neil Warnock stop him enjoying a pro career beyond his wildest dreams
- Chris McMenamy visits Italy, turning his back on the San Siro to catch up with a 40-year-old Mirco Antenucci playing in the third tier
- Rob Conlon on LUFC’s proud history of amateur acrobatics, from Jimmy Hasselbaink to Largie Ramazani, via Tresor Kandol and Bill Ayling
- Our new agony aunt — AKA Michael Normanton, AKA Problem Chimp — offers advice on how to keep your energy bills down
- Plus Allan Clarke having a boogie, the season Leeds looked and played (a bit) like the best team in Europe, and why Christmas will always belong to Max Gradel
Support The Square Ball
Subscribe to TSB+ Mag
- ⬢ Yearly TSB+ membership
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- ⬢ Click here for one month free trial
How do I subscribe? Or read online?
Click here for more info on subscribing, and choose either TSB+ Mag or TSB Magazine.
Getting the magazine delivered to your home is a very good idea, as it will arrive free of beer stains and torn corners, unless your postie is having a bad morning.
The best way to buy The Square Ball is to subscribe and get every regular issue delivered to your home for the next twelve months.
That way we know how many to print, and we have the money up front to pay the printer. We’ll post anywhere in the world and you won’t miss an issue.
You can get £10 off a subscription to the paper magazine if you buy an annual membership of TSB+. TSB+ gets you all our podcasts advert free, early access and live streaming video of The Match Ball podcast, a digital sub to the magazine, a daily email, discounts and more — and that tenner off getting the paper version delivered.
If you don’t want to subscribe — why not?! — you can buy this issue on its own by clicking here, and we’ll post it out as soon as it’s printed.
Can I buy the magazine at Elland Road?
As always since 1989, barring pandemics and badly timed World Cups, The Square Ball magazine will be on sale outside Elland Road, for the match against Derby on Saturday 7th December 2024. Just look out for our windswept but friendly sellers by the Lowfields tunnel, Billy’s Statue, the Kop gates, and anywhere else someone is holding a fanzine in the air, until about fifteen minutes before kick-off.
I’m a TSB+ member, where is the online magazine?
TSB+ members can read the magazine online now, either of two ways:
What else is in this issue?
Our now twelve times-nominated and two-times FSF Award winning fanzine, plus one for the podcast and as of 2022 one for ‘Fan Media’, includes lots of pages of articles and artwork about what used to be the pain but now is the glory which still involves pain of being a Leeds United supporter, for more than 100 long, long years.
Can I read something now? For free? Ah go on?
Free to read from this issue is an article by Chris McMenamy on a trip to Italy to watch a 40-year-old Mirco Antenucci, SPAL’s returning hero, but at a very different club — stuck in the doldrums, playing in a half-empty stadium, under an owner everyone hates. Sound familiar? — Click here to read that for free.
Also free in this issue, Calum Archibald on why the true Christmas spirit will be possessed by Max Gradel — click here to read that one.
You can order paper copies of issue four from our online shop now, and they’ll be sent out as soon as they’re printed. To read a digital version online, please become a TSB+ member, with a one month free trial, here.
As Howard Wilkinson always used to say, thank you for your magnificent support. ⬢
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Not Crawley, or Sutton, or any of the others
- By Chris McMenamy
