The Square Ball: Season 36, Issue 02

Written by: The Square Ball

This is the second issue of TSB’s 36th season and Leeds United’s 2025/26, erm, title-winning campaign? Maybe not, but we’ll happily take a place in the Champions League.

It’s a wonder what a three goals and three points can do to your mood, and our cover is a celebration of our new number 9 and scorer of Leeds’ first Premier League goal from open play this season, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, by Shannon Marriott.

Inside the mag, you’ll find from your favourite regular contributors:

Rob Conlon watches back the 96/97 season review and amid the gloom of such a dour campaign discovers an unintentionally comedic masterpiece
Paddy Gunn asks when Leeds United will start taking the Women’s team seriously and give them the help they need to prosper
Luke Brennan gets to know Sam Rodon through his Vinted profile and gets dangerously close to catfishing Big Joe’s big brother
Chris McMenamy on thirty years of thunder — Tony Yeboah’s thunderbastard at Wimbledon that has crossbars around the country still trembling three decades on
Plus making football shit again, deciphering the deadline day PR spin, a first away day and our proud heritage of hitting the first man from corners
Subscribe to get this issue cheap with TSB+ — click here for info

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 Bournemouth on Saturday 27th September 2025. 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 here:

Download the PDF here

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 Chris McMenamy on thirty years of thunder, and the moment Anthony Yeboah enshrined his Leeds United legacy — click here to read that for free.

Also free to read from this issue is Richard Finn on the misery of the Premier League and how Leeds United can find joy in Trojan horsing the competition by making everything shit. Read that for free here.

You can order paper copies of issue two 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.⬢