Sport Football The Saviour Twenty months ago Leeds United were close to extinction. Under their new chairman Ken Bates they have just settled with their final creditors. Will Buckley went to Monte Carlo to meet the man with and unparalleled record of saving stricken clubs
Tweet this The Observer, Sunday 31 July 2005 00.47 BST Article history Ken Bates is sitting at an outdoor table at the Cafe de Paris, contented. Ken loves Monte Carlo. He loves the fact the buses run on time. He loves the fact the streets are clean. He loves the ordered efficiency of the place. Most of all it tickles him that however much, to use a Bates phrase, 'fuck-off money' you have there will always be someone at the next table who makes you look a relative pauper. Like the FA Cup, Monte Carlo is a great leveller. All of this and no taxes. A state of affairs bought about by the Principality owning all the utilities and the casino. And not spending any of the money generated on social security or a health service or any of the fairer things in life. Inevitably, Bates knows the waiter, but the service is lamentable. A failure in efficiency that stuns Bates to such an extent that he leaves his mobiles behind in the cafe. Like a lackey, I scuttle after him with his phones. We take a bus to his favourite restaurant. This too is late. Monte Carlo is falling apart. On the way to Lorenzo's we pass the newsagent where he picks up his British newspapers - the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph- every morning at 8.30am. His wife, Susannah, is waiting for us. It is generally agreed that Bates, 73, has mellowed during his third marriage. In part because it would be hard to keep up his former intensity for decade after decade. In part because Susannah keeps an eye out for him, congratulating him whenever he answers a question without reigniting one of the grudges that have studded his life. One of Bates' predecessors as Chelsea chairman, Brian Mears, wrote a rather sad book called Chelsea The Real Story after he left the club. In the final chapter entitled 'What Next?' he concluded: 'One of the first letters I received after I finished as chairman cruelly reminded me that now a supporter is probably all I seem to be to some people.' The letter informed him that he needed to pay a £5 sub if he wished to join the supporters club. I mention the book to Bates. He laughs. 'Was it subtitled "I love me"?' he says. 'He was sacked long before I came on the scene. A very weak man, very weak. His wife was the strong one. I liked Brian.' There was never any chance that Bates would disappear as quietly as Mears. He speaks softly but the passion is undimmed. 'We missed our football,' he says. 'And I felt there was one more challenge left in me. I'm flattered to have been approached by over 30 clubs to join them in one form or another. There was no point joining a club unless, a) it was basically a club with the potential to regain, hopefully, its former glories, and b) it had a bit of a history.' He dallied with Sheffield Wednesday and told the then chief executive at Elland Road, Trevor Birch, he wouldn't 'touch Leeds with a bargepole' and then a man walked into a bar. 'Actually I was in the Dorchester Bar,' he says, 'and a guy I've known for 30 years says, "I've got a fellow called Sainsbury coming to see me this afternoon, can I introduce you?" So he came across and said, "Oh, Mr Bates, I'm a great Chelsea supporter, I admire what you've done blah, blah, blah. Why don't you give me a bit of advice on how to take over Leeds. I've got a consortium of 25 million blah, blah, blah." I said, "I could be interested. You can put me down for £10million, sounds all right." So then I said, "Who are the other members of the syndicate." And he said, "I can't say, they're confidential." The next day he's in the bloody press saying Ken Bates is involved.' The Sainsbury bid collapsed. 'He buggered us all about for four months.' Bates was not deterred. He embarked on a secret raid, leaving a train at Wakefield on a Wednesday last January to meet lawyers in an underground car park. He spent two days incarcerated in a hotel room before the announcement was made at 4pm on the Friday afternoon. On the next Monday, the club would have had to apply for bankruptcy, not receivership. 'The previous board had done everything they could, to be fair,' says the current manager, Kevin Blackwell. 'But we were within 48 hours of finishing as a club. I dread to think what would have happened.' 'We put £4.9m in,' says Bates, 'and bought 50 per cent, and bought the other 50 per cent in June. The 4.9 paid the wages, which they were all sweating on. Thought they weren't going to get their wages - the staff and players. And then we reduced the credit facility. Consolidating the debts that they had probably saved a million and a half. 'One of the basic problems at Leeds is that it was such a badly run club. I was quite surprised that there were still far too many people doing far too little work being paid far too much money. After a few weeks I said this club's motto is that if you can do it the difficult way and do it slowly, do it that way. 'The previous board had saved the club, but they didn't really have any experience in running a football business. I went to lunch the first day in the boardroom, it was like McDonald's on a Friday night special offer. All their friends, all the bloody hangers-on, the usual thing. You couldn't speak to people, get to know anyone, it was like a bunfight.' Bates solved this problem by renaming 'quite a nice room downstairs' the boardroom and making the old boardroom the new chairman's suite. The press conference to announce Bates had bought a 50 per cent stake in Leeds was hated by the press, loved by the fans. 'We got a standing ovation,' says Susannah, 'and as we walked out one chap said, I can't do a Yorkshire accent, "Ayup love, you sure he's not a Yorkshireman. He's that blunt, isn't he? We like that up here. You look after him, love".' But, says Bates, there were others whose attitude was, 'We don't want a bloody Londoner running Leeds'. 'I said you've got a problem then haven't you. Nobody in bloody Leeds wants to run Leeds, do they? I see all these bloody millionaires with money coming out of their ears, talk about long pockets and short hands. 'There's this guy, who better be nameless, who was giving me a hard time. So I said, "You're a Leeds man, a Yorkshireman, a Leeds supporter. Why don't you take over?" And he said, "My backer's pulled out." And I said, "You're worth a hundred million quid, you are the fucking backer".' Last Wednesday, administrators acting for Leeds settled with the final creditors still owed money by the club's former owners. 'Don't talk about it, do it,' says Bates. 'We've actually signed eight players very quietly.' They include Robbie Blake from Birmingham for £800,000, which would have been inconceivable last Christmas. 'We want to sign kids who think it a privilege to come to Leeds,' says Bates. 'Robbie Blake said, "I've dropped a division, I've gone up a club." 'Leeds has a number of natural advantages. It's the fastest-growing city outside London. And it has overtaken Manchester as a financial and professional centre. We're sitting within 50 acres of land, we're three minutes off the motorway and there's a railway line past the ground, which only needs a little station putting in. We think Leeds will recover step by step and brick by brick. 'I think it's very interesting that when I took over at Leeds I got loads of messages, telephone calls, emails and letters from Chelsea fans saying, "Good luck Ken, I'm sure you'll do well there. Make sure you get them up and then we can stuff the bastards".' In the early 1970s, Chelsea and Leeds were the two totemic clubs. Bates, by buying a once great club languishing in a lower division and in a parlous financial state, has, 23 years on, repeated himself. 'The situations are very similar but they are very different,' he says. 'The Chelsea ground was crap. At Leeds there is a big ground but it's rather shabby. But of course Leeds are terribly insolvent compared with Chelsea. At Chelsea there was a chauffeur to drive the directors around because of problems with parking. He went on day one. 'I'm with one of the former big clubs. At the end of the day there is no substitution for good scouting, good coaching and good management. And ingenuity. At Chelsea now it's a rich-man's plaything so nobody's under any pressure to be efficient.' 'What comes under "ingenuity"?' I ask. 'Is that what you bring to the club?' 'I think you have to be a lateral thinker. I still support the old Chelsea and I'm delighted they won the Premiership for the fans and the players,' he says. 'I have no warmth towards the current regime.' Perhaps because a man happy to talk of having fuck-off money has been replaced by a man with seriously fuck-off money. 'They are trying to wipe me out of history,' says Bates. 'The day that Ken left they were told there are two words you can no longer mention, one is Ken and the other is Bates. Bit silly really,' says Susannah. 'There we are. We keep talking about Chelsea again,' says Bates. 'We've been drawn in. I'm one of these people for whom life's a period of chapters. One chapter ends, you turn the page and you start the next one. Never look back, always look forward. You can't change what's happened, anyway.' That said, it must be confusing for a man who lived over the club and day-in, day-out fought their business battles to have been supplanted by a man for whom it is a hobby. 'I spent 10 years fighting to get the ground. That was a distraction,' Bates says about the battle with Marler Estates. 'We don't have that problem at Leeds. We can concentrate on the football.' Among many ingenious ploys he adopted to frustrate those who wanted to get their hands on Stamford Bridge was complaining about the proposed brick-work on aesthetic grounds. Having secured the ground, Bates then had to fight off the challenge of Matthew Harding. Their battle swiftly resembled the one that has crippled the Tory party in recent years: no one can quite remember exactly what they are arguing about but they are certain their opponents must be wrong. All people remember is that Harding died and Bates won. His rival's death did little to douse his contempt. Bates carries grudges beyond the grave. After all that striving it is perhaps inevitable that he should wish to receive some of the glory for last season's success. 'On the morning Chelsea were presented with the trophy,' says Susannah, 'we happened to be in London and we were mobbed by the fans, absolutely mobbed, and it was almost impossible to get into the lift. And one of them shouted, "I hope the Leeds fans are supporting you, because they bloody better." He always looked after his fans, that was the phrase, looked after the fans.' 'I left Abramovich with a £150m team,' says Bates. 'Cudicini £160,000, Huth nothing, Terry nothing, Melchiot nothing, Flo £120,000 sold for £12m, Forssell nothing, Gudjohnsen £4m.' It was a £150m team Abramovich promptly disbanded in order to buy a £300m team. 'All the ex-players adore him,' says Susannah. 'He's godfather to one of Di Matteo's kids and one of Wisey's.' Is he more like a parent or a teacher to his players? 'Parent,' he says with a smile. Over the limoncellos Bates talks about being asked to speak at Eton. 'I spotted this notice before I was about to speak and whipped it off the wall. Then I started by saying, "I hope you guys realise how fortunate you are. I'm just a mere grammar-school boy. However my grammar-school education did enable me to spell the word controversial correctly," and I waved the notice at them. At the end, this little arsehole, the son of one of the high grandees of the Conservative Party, says, "Can I ask you, would you ever have sent your sons here?" And I replied, "Oh dear, didn't you do your homework? Both my sons came to Eton".' Limoncello drained, Bates consents to be photographed and poses almost camply. 'We went to visit Hemingway's house,' says Susannah, 'in Key West and Ken says, "Why is everyone looking at me?" He could be a Hemingway look-alike.' 'He couldn't write like me,' says her husband. Although I am repeatedly informed not to mention Chelsea, there is nothing to stop Bates doing so. 'Let me tell you something very interesting about both Gullit and Vialli, OK. I was talking to Colin Hutchinson about going continental. And I said if we take Gullit on he knows nothing about management, we are giving him the job because of his soccer genius. So we had to create a management framework whereby he does nothing except coach, pick and play. We do everything else. And then he went to Newcastle and it's, "Ruud, hi, here's the key to the office, see you Saturday." First time in his life he had to manage, not coach. Same with Vialli. Because we were so good at Chelsea, although I say so myself, people thought that was the norm. They didn't realise it was the exception.' We repair to his flat and sit on the balcony overlooking the Japanese Garden, a memorial to Princess Grace. 'They are the best-fed koi carp in the world and they know it,' says Bates. 'The great thing about sitting here is that you can see the wood from the trees. We're looking at strategies, not tactics. The fans are concerned only with next Saturday, chairmen have to take a more Olympian view. You have to think immediate, short-term, mid- term, long-term. At Leeds everybody is equal and they are expected to conform to the responsibility of equality as well as enjoying the rights.' Righty-ho. The flat represents the nerve centre of the new Leeds United. 'I've an English landline, two mobiles and a fax. With that you can rule the world,' says Bates. 'Emails just clog you up. If Philip Green can run BHS from Monte Carlo I think I can run Leeds. 'I saved Oldham, saved Wigan, saved Partick Thistle, saved Chelsea and Leeds. The common theme is that I took clubs in trouble and built them up. What amuses me is that people pay increased council tax, petrol, every other tax you can think of and don't complain. But put the price of their football ticket up and they go apeshit. So I've said this is the price of watching Leeds - if you want a Leeds. If we do well, if we do well, the fans will come back. That is the challenge facing us.' This campaign fans in the two main stands - the John Charles (formerly the West Stand) and the Revie (formerly the Kop_ - will be paying almost 25 per cent more for their season tickets. Bates sees Leeds' main rivals this season as 'Palace, Sheffield United, possibly Wolves [although he has doubts about Hoddle being a winner], Norwich, Southampton [whose chairman Rupert Lowe, Bates finds, ever the contrarian, socially amusing]. As for Burnley, comme ci, comme ca .' The conversation veers hither and thither. 'The new executive suite, the Lucas Radebe suite, will be named after Leeds' most fantastic player of the last 10 years,' he says. 'I've achieved a lot, made a lot of friends and had a lot of laughs,' he says. 'That will do as my epitaph. 'The three most interesting questions are: Why? Why not? And what for? They were when I started and they still are now. So few people challenge the established view. They just keep their head down and are happy to do what they inherited.' At one stage he even issues some parenting advice. I suggest he might write a childcare manual. He finds the suggestion facetious. He has another book in mind. The Ken Bates Story as told by chairman Ken to his wife Susannah. 'Cunt,' says Bates repeatedly. 'Prick,' says his wife repeatedly. At first I assume this to be a rather fetching display of wifely support. After a while, I twig that Susannah is merely trying to moderate Ken's language. Fat chance. Bates does bombast, Bates does bluster. But amid all the noise and haste, some of his achievements tend to be overlooked. It was Bates who argued for a more equitable distribution of the Premiership's television revenues and established the principle of parachute payments to relegated clubs when they drew up their constitution. When clubs threatened to join a European Super League, it was Bates who reminded them that the remainder of the league controlled the fixture list and they might just find their European fixtures clashing with their Premiership ones. When I mention that CCTV cameras in the ground transformed football, he replies: 'Excuse me, who introduced that?' His belligerence knows no bounds, which can be effective when facing up to bullies. Your enemy's enemy can be your friend. As I stand in the lift to leave, he says: 'If I had my time again I'd be a general or a bishop.' Why not both, Ken? 'Yeah, General Bishop.' How Leeds unravelled: the key numbers 23 Number of months the Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer trial hung over Leeds - from the time of arrest to the final trial in December 2001. 4th Leeds' position in the Premiership in May 2001. They missed out on the Champions League. £11m Fee paid for Robbie Fowler in November 2001. It followed more than £50m being spent on Mark Viduka, Rio Ferdinand, Seth Johnson and Robbie Keane - a gamble to secure Champions League football. 5th Leeds' position in the Premiership in May 2002. Missing Champions League qualification again meant the sack for David O'Leary as the financial crisis emerged in public. £30m Amount raised by selling Rio Ferdinand to Manchester United. Bowyer, Woodgate and Fowler followed - Leeds agreeing to pay £10,000 a week towards Fowler's wages at Manchester City. £20 Monthly rent on Peter Ridsdale's office goldfish. The sum was among the figures revealed by new chairman Prof John McKenzie in April 2003 - figures that included details of private jets and company cars. 'If Leeds had been more prudent in the past,' said McKenzie, 'we could have carried on living the dream.' £200k Consultancy fee taken by McKenzie for his nine months' work, plus £100,000 basic salary. 8 Terry Venables' reign as manager, in months. Agreed pay-off: £2m. 22 Peter Reid's reign, in games. Agreed pay-off: £800,000 £1.2m Roque Junior's pay-off after five games at Leeds. 'It's love at first sight!' said Roque in October 2003. 'I love this country and this city! I wake up happy.' £100m Leeds' reported debt in October 2003. Pre-tax losses for the year broke a record at £49.5m. (research by James Schofield) Starting line-up August 2000: Martyn, Kelly, Radebe, Woodgate, Harte, Bowyer, Dacourt, Bakke, Bridges, Smith, Viduka Likely line-up August 2005: Sullivan, Kelly, Marques, Butler, Harding, Gregan, Derry, Bakke, Lewis, Blake, Healy Thirkers _______________________________________________ the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors. Leedslist mailing list [email protected] http://list.zetnet.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist and the hardest time in a sailor's day is to watch the sun as it sails away
