I’m Daniel Chapman, a writer and editor, also known as Moscowhite, because of the internet. From 2013 to 2017 I edited The City Talking magazine, and since 2011, have co-edited The Square Ball fanzine, seeing it through its 25th anniversary. During that time, The Square Ball has been shortlisted for the Football Supporters’ Federation Fanzine of the Year award eight times, and won twice.
100 Years of Leeds United, a new history of the club, is a 432 page hardback that will be published by Icon Books in 2019, to coincide with the club’s centenary celebrations.
In 2017 I wrote Do You Want To Win?, a book and film about Leeds and Leeds United from 1988 to 1992, the years when Howard Wilkinson took over from Billy Bremner, and took over everything. You can watch the trailer and order the book and DVD here.
You can support my writing on Patreon and get a daily email about Leeds United from twenty pence per week.
I’m on Twitter here (and here), Instagram here (and here). You can sign up to a mailing list here, and email me at moscowhite@thesquareball.net.
Leeds United, in The Square Ball
Player Reviews: 2014/15 — End of season reviews for the last issue of TSB, 2014/15. • May 2, 2015
Ken Bates Does Not Come Back — It’s one of his few good traits. When he’s gone, Ken Bates does not come back. • Oct 25, 2014
Player Reviews: 2013/14 — Player (and more) reviews for the last TSB of 2013/14. • May 3, 2014
We Can’t Say… — We can’t say we weren’t warned, but if we have to, we will. • Apr 12, 2014
Bournemouth 4 – 1 Leeds United — Are you used to this yet? Because I think we’ll need to get used to this for a while yet. • Apr 12, 2014
The Last Word: Doomsday — Gulf Finance House “made a net profit of $5.2m in the three months to December 31, up from $2.5m in the prior-year period,” reported Arabian Business.com in February. “For the 2013 full year, GFH’s net profit fell 37.2 percent to $6.3 m.” • Mar 22, 2014
The Kebe Zone — We’ve heard a lot about Prozone at Leeds United this season. • Mar 22, 2014
Leeds United 1-1 Ipswich Town — The plan before the game was to get back to just that: the game. Football. The game, the sport, the thing about people kicking a ball around as a contest and an entertainment. • Feb 15, 2014
All Light and No Heat — The article in the Yorkshire Post began: “The financial nightmare is over.” • Feb 15, 2014
Tradition and the Individual Lack of Talent — A lot of things were missing, presumed lost, from the performances against Rochdale and Sheffield Wednesday. Not just small things, but things that go into making a football club a football club; things that define what Leeds United are all about. • Jan 18, 2014
Noises Off — If Leeds United is a play, then the pitch at Elland Road is the stage, the scene for ninety minute bursts of drama in a series of two-act performances from August to May. • Dec 21, 2013
The Last Word: Wilko ’70 — Howard Wilkinson just celebrated his 70th birthday, and I’m glad. At least, I assume he celebrated. I hope he did. • Nov 23, 2013
Hold Me, I’m For Sale — We almost made it to eleven months. Some parts of the world would be pleased with eleven months of peace, but in Beeston it doesn’t seem all that long. It was cold, and there was a takeover, then it was warm for a bit, then it got cold and there was another takeover. Or, at least, there was talk about it. • Nov 23, 2013
Huddersfield Town 3 − 2 Leeds United — Drunken ebullience is rarely rewarded. Oh, a headache? My, what a prize! In this case I won something even worse. ‘Ooh, a ticket in with the Huddersfield fans? I’m spoiled!’ • Nov 23, 2013
Matching Image to Leeds — For a while there, back in 1998, Leeds United’s club magazine was much, much cooler than its team. • Oct 20, 2013
What It’s Like — I don’t want to give away too many trade secrets before you read the book for yourself. But here are the last two words of Neil Warnock’s The Gaffer: “Be lucky.” • Aug 5, 2013
Tricky Disco — There’s a feeling that sometimes returns to me from my childhood, and it’s not a good feeling. It’s the feeling I had when I bought my first single – well, cassingle. I got it on a tape in the end. • Aug 5, 2013
Player Reviews 2012/13 — Aidan White, Andy Gray, Jamie Ashdown and Rodolph Austin’s contributions are picked over. • Apr 25, 2013
Tuesday Night Lights — Before I can say anything Colin, the landlord, is pouring Stones into a pint glass for me from the kind of electrically operated drink dispenser I thought was banned since the eighties. I haven’t known anywhere with Stones on draught since about 1989 either, but Colin insists that I like it and that it’s my usual. The lovely Natasha gets a vodka tonic. • Apr 14, 2013
Leeds United 1-2 Derby County — McCormack was understandably pleased with his effort. Running towards the fans, he paused to turn towards the dugouts. “Fuck off!” he yelled, placing an uppercut from distance square on to his manager’s chin. • Apr 2, 2013
Central Leeds — Moved to the wrong side of the Pennines, with a family that had no real interest in football, I was an armchair supporter before the facilities to be one even existed; and I had to work hard to develop my own supporting strategies. • Feb 14, 2013
Public Image — On New Year’s Day, when a mobile phone was placed before me and I first saw the now infamous photo of ten year old Leeds fan Kai with El Hadji Diouf, I didn’t really know what to think. It made no sense to me that a ten year would wake up, liberally apply tanning lotion around his blonde mohican, and make his way to Elland Road without anyone stopping him and saying, ‘Let’s just think through what we’re doing here.’ Why, after all, would anyone let a young boy run the risk of enduring ridicule and causing offence, by walking the streets of Leeds dressed up as a Leeds United player? • Jan 15, 2013
Leeds United 1-0 Bolton Wanderers — And the players came out on the pitch and everyone in the crowd was like, ‘ROOOAAARRR’ and I don’t know how the players weren’t frighted cos it was dead loud and it must have been louder where they were cos they were in the middle and we were at the side. • Jan 2, 2013
Leeds United 1-5 Chelsea — It shouldn’t require blind optimism to imagine that Leeds United can compete with Chelsea. A short decade ago, after all, our chairman was their chairman; only one division separates our two clubs; and football, after all, is eleven against eleven. • Dec 20, 2012
The Last Word: Grey — Yvonne Stella Allen was known at Chelsea as Yvonne Todd, where she was Ken Bates’s finance director from 1988 until 2003, when the club was rescued from impending finanical collapse by Roman Abramovich’s billions. She then took up the same role at Leeds United, where Bates described her as his “rottweiler.” • Dec 20, 2012
Leeds United 1-2 Charlton & Birmingham — Go to Elland Road for the game or don’t, listen on the radio or the internet or just follow on Twitter or check the result the next day, on the BBC Sport site later on or get a ticket, get a ticket in the Kop or the South Stand, West or East, upper or lower or don’t, and get there for kick off or don’t • Oct 28, 2012
Tom Lees Fever — What I am keen to endorse, though, is the sight of Tom Lees, the unassuming 21 year old centre half from Leeds United’s Academy, tearing across the pitch to defend his former Leeds youth team-mate Danny Rose as Serbian players, staff and fans bore down on him. • Oct 25, 2012
Leeds United 1-0 Barnsley — Luciano smashed the glass. • Oct 7, 2012
Ordinary Champions — Among the things that Leeds United’s champions of 1992 did last, and did best, was to make themselves unforgettable as a 1-11. • Sep 20, 2012
Luciano’s Ghost — Luciano Becchio scored against Wolves, a kneeling header from a keen McCormack cross, and as he ran to the south-west corner to celebrate, he ran into the past, and I ran with him. • Sep 20, 2012
Taking Over — Leeds United crossed a line this summer, and we left Ken Bates languishing on the other side of it. He might physically go for another week, a month, a year, but Bates is history as far as Leeds are concerned. • Aug 16, 2012
Where The Hope Is — It has been odd to mark the progress of Promised Land, from its first appearance as a slightly tweedy monologue in hardback, to a ‘Northern Love Story’ in paperback, and now to a piece of musical theatre, West Side Story on the sixties Gelderd. • Aug 16, 2012
The Last Word: Diouf — I can’t be arsed writing the same story yet again, I thought. Just take what I wrote last year about Gradel, or in January about Howson, and where it says ‘Max’ or ‘Jonny’ just cross it out and put ‘Robert Snodgrass.’ • Aug 16, 2012
It Made Me Want to Cry For The Fans — At some point in the hours and days after a 7-3 defeat, there comes a period of calm analysis and inward reflection. Of course, if our players had tried a little calm analysis and/or inward reflection during the game, maybe none of this would be happening, but anyway. • Apr 10, 2012
How To Lose, and How To Win: by Billy Bremner — I’ve written about losing. You can probably guess which game inspired this. • Apr 9, 2012
We Have to Talk About Colin — I tried to write a considered, analytical article to work through this uneasy feeling I have about Neil Warnock, to set out in a coherent way the arguments both for and against and hopefully alight on the answer to my diffidence and thereby overcome it. This is what I wrote instead. • Mar 15, 2012
Evolution Not Revolution: The Ken Bates Plan — There has been a lot of talk lately in football, and in Leeds, about plans and about vision. • Mar 15, 2012
Gone — To me, whether Simon Grayson was up to the task, or had taken us as far as he could, or had lost the dressing room, or whatever else, is almost secondary. • Feb 16, 2012
The Diary of Gary McSheffrey: Part 3 — 31st January Transfer deadline day again. Doyler phones to say he’s heard 31st January Transfer deadline day again. Doyler phones to say he’s heard more rumours linking me to Old Trafford, but yet again Jim White fails to mention potentially the biggest transfer of the day on Sky Sports News.more rumours linking me to Old Trafford, but yet again Jim White fails to mention potentially the biggest transfer of the day on Sky Sports News. • Feb 15, 2012
Sold Down The River — We’re not going up this season, after all. Jonny’s sale says no promotion. • Jan 21, 2012
Gentlemen Prefer Leeds — With apologies to Anita Loos. Coo-ee! Mwah, mwah. Say, y’mean this ole thing? New? Ha! You ain’t been keeping up with little ole me, have you? • Jan 20, 2012
Jonny Howson: The Singing In The Sighing — In the wake of Howson’s departure, should sensible offers come in, can you really imagine either McCormack, Clayton, Snodgrass, Becchio or White choosing not to move? • Jan 18, 2012
Leeds United 2-0 Millwall — There are a lot of people who will tell you that football isn’t a sport anymore, and that it’s now a business. They’re wrong. • Dec 3, 2011
Bartleby O’Brien: The Defender — With apologies to Herman Melville. I am a football manager. The nature of my work has brought me into contact with an interesting and somewhat singular set of men – I mean defenders. I have known very many of them, but Bartleby O’Brien was the strangest I ever saw or heard of. • Nov 29, 2011
Gary Speed — To lose Gary Speed is to lose a lot. • Nov 23, 2011
Six-One — It’s a big event in the world of football when one title challenger goes to the home of another and beats them six goals to one. • Oct 29, 2011
The Maximum — I wanted to wring his scrawny little bastard neck. Not right when it happened, not when Beckford then Doyle then Hughes were trying to restrain his incoherent anger; I was too deflated then. As Max Gradel finally left the pitch after his famous Bristol Rovers blow-up, I only felt bewildered, unable to believe that such a stupid petulant strop was going to what kept Leeds in League One. • Aug 30, 2011
KO — Match of the Day is always worth watching when it promises the extra frisson of a Chelsea player being punched unconsciousness. • Aug 29, 2011
The Little Black Kit — Don Revie and Coco Chanel may seem like unlikely partners, but as so often with such obvious opposites, there was more common ground than you would expect. When it came to clothes, for Don and Coco, simplicity was the rule. • Aug 12, 2011
About Mike Grella, Carl Shutt, and the Cult of Soccer Dog — It was no surprise to learn that, having been transfer-listed by Leeds, Grella spent his summer training with the newly revived New York Cosmos. • Jul 8, 2011
What We Talk About When We Talk About Leeds — The most disturbing aspect of Ken Bates’ impact at Leeds United has been his effect on us, the fans. We’ve changed; or rather, he has changed us. The most fundamental way this change expresses itself is in the way that we express ourselves – it’s right there, in the way we talk about Leeds United. Ken Bates has stolen our narrative of ourselves; he has blunted our desire to write our own history, to give vocal form to what we want from Leeds United Football Club. • Jun 24, 2011
Leeds United 0-0 Reading — Ah, Easter. A time of rebirth, of new flowers coming into bud, of little chicks cracking out from eggshells, of uncertain lambs unsteady on their legs; all around us are the blossoming fruits of a cold, harsh winter spent indoors, shagging. It’s an inspiring time to be alive. • May 11, 2011
Derby County 2-1 Leeds United — My mum always used to tell me, “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.” And sometimes she would say, “If the wind changes, your face will stay like that.” I wonder if Robbie Savage’s mum ever said that to him. I suppose if she did, he didn’t listen. But anyway. • May 11, 2011
Noel Whelan: The Square Ball Interview Preview — Out of all the players from the 1993 squad, it hurt the Leeds fans most to lose Whelan; and it hurt Whelan the most to leave. • May 5, 2011
Isn’t it Ironic — So all Billy Paynter needed, in the end, was a bit of encouragement. • Mar 10, 2011
About Howard Wilkinson, Part 2 — I admit: my heart skipped a beat. Sitting in a quietish corner of a pub in central Leeds, on the phone to a Leeds fan in London, and to Howard Wilkinson, who announced himself as “Howard Wilkinson,” in Howard Wilkinson’s voice, and then spoke to us: it was a big moment for me. • Feb 18, 2011
About Howard Wilkinson, Part 1 — Nostalgia has a way of emphasising the good and diminishing the bad, and you could almost feel resentful towards Howard Wilkinson for taking hold of our football club at the end of the eighties and dragging it by the scruff into the modern era. • Feb 17, 2011
The Diary of Gary McSheffrey Pt.2 — With Gary due in Leeds this weekend, for his first visit to Elland Road since he stank the place out like a backed-up bog while on loan, we got back in touch with our Coventry insider who supplied The Square Ball with more fragments from Sky Blue Thinking: The Secret Diary of Gary McSheffrey. • Feb 4, 2011
About Selling Thorp Arch — For a football club with its own radio station, internet-tv channel, and media-happy chairman, Leeds United sometimes uses the oddest outlets to tell fans about the most important things. • Jan 28, 2011
Side Before Self: About Billy Bremner and Andy Hughes — I feel quite sure that Billy Bremner, had he lived to see him play for Leeds, would have been enormously proud of Andy Hughes. • Jan 22, 2011
Oh Striker-Jinxing Shirt-Buying Supporter of Leeds — The introduction of names on the back of football shirts, like most ‘innovations’ in modern football, brought many troubles upon the average football supporter. • Jan 21, 2011
About Season Ticket Prices — Leeds United Football Club is only a business because the people who run football – and profit from it – tell you it’s a business. • Jan 15, 2011
Love to Hate You — My name is Moscowhite. I love Leeds, and I hate Manches-; I hate Manc-; I hate Manchester Un-; no. Won’t work. My name is Moscowhite. I love Leeds, and I hate the Scum. • Jan 7, 2011
Endorsing The Beaten Generation’s Back-to-Front Inside-Out Upside-Down United — It is a mark of Leeds fans – “gloriously anarchic” – that we can rarely agree about anything. • Jan 6, 2011
Remember The Date — Division Three was a cold, hateful place to be, and Leeds fans may suggest that we should just forget that the whole thing ever happened. If we cease to speak of League One, who will ever remember we were there? • Jan 3, 2011
Revered — Don Revie died at a terribly early age – he was just 61 years old – and that has left a gap into which, in Don’s absence, we can put pretty much whatever we like. Where we should look first, to stand in for Don himself, is to this book by those who knew him, and who loved him best. • Dec 8, 2010
Sky Blue Thinking: The Diary Of Gary Mcsheffrey: Part One — ‘Michael Doyle played 55 games for them last year and I think the first two signing they should have made in the summer were me and Doyler.’ • Nov 10, 2010
Indomitable Leodis — A look at connections between Leeds United and Africa. • Oct 3, 2010
Book Review: ‘Promised Land’ by Anthony Clavane — Alongside Keith Waterhouse and Billy Liar, argues Clavane, add Don Revie and Super Leeds. • Sep 3, 2010
The Ballad of Burton’s Window — The 86-88 ‘Burton’ kits are odd outfits. They shouldn’t work. Umbro really cocked around with the famous all-white – triangles, a centred badge, a seam across the middle, everything short of sticking a hoop around it and a stripe down the side – yet somehow, they’re classics. • Aug 4, 2010
Robert Snodgrass is Tired — Night creeps stealthily across the grass, its shadows extending dark fingers that brush your three-stripe boots, your shinpads. You try to move away but you can’t, you are powerless to resist the embrace of evening’s first sirens, calling you to their pillowy breasts from somewhere near the home dugout. • May 7, 2010
Becchio: I am Maradona — As his name was sung by the 40,000 inside Elland Road in one of the most spine-tingling celebrations I’ve ever experienced as a Leeds fan, I thought: nobody deserves to be Maradona more than Luciano Becchio. • Feb 21, 2010
The Ken Bates School of Contract Negotiations — Andy O’Brien has given us an insight into the Ken Bates school of contract negotiations. • Jan 5, 2010
The Trial — Someone must have been telling lies about Jari Litmanen, for without having done anything wrong he was yelled at by Mick Hennigan one fine morning. “Pack your suitcase,” shouted Mad Dog. “You’re shite!” • Sep 1, 2009
‘OWL (for Carl Shutt) — With apologies to Allen Ginsberg. • Aug 1, 2009
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