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
* The Observer, Sunday 31 July 2005 00.47 BST
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
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