Times 2/1/07
Leeds still in trouble despite welcome win
MATT DICKINSON
Our columnist on Ken Bates’s battle to stop Yorkshire club sinking to a new low
“Big win, that,” one man said to his friend as they hurried away from Elland Road yesterday,
and a big win it was. They all are when you are in Leeds United’s dire straits.
All you need to know about their predicament was summed up as Dennis Wise and Gustavo Poyet, manager and assistant, threatened to squeeze the life out of each other, so tight was their embrace at the final whistle.
The cause of this delight was a 2-1 win over Coventry City, one achieved with no little anxiety and that still left Leeds second from bottom in the Coca-Cola Championship. It was a first victory in eight league matches. The outpouring of joy must be set against a grim context.
Sensibly, Wise resisted any temptation to hail this win as a turning point in Leeds’s fortunes. Ken Bates, his boss, has been peddling hope to the Yorkshire public ever since he took over almost two years ago but he has found it a hard sell.
They have heard too many false promises in the five years since Leeds stood, on New Year’s Day in 2002, at the summit of the Premiership table. The decline has been exhaustively chronicled but it still comes as a shock to drop in at Elland Road and to see the empty swaths of seats and the hoofing clearances of mediocre players.
Relegation to the third tier of the English game for the first time in Leeds’s 88-year history remains a real threat and, even if it is avoided, it is clear that the road back to respectability is a very long one, even for a man with Bates’s reputation for getting things done. He used to hang a sign in the lobby at Chelsea declaring that “the Romans did not build an empire by organising meetings. They did it by killing anyone who got in their way”.
Age — he is 75 — has not mellowed him. He still bans critical newspapers, which was a favoured weapon in his time at Stamford Bridge. The Yorkshire Evening Post has been banished from the press box for attacking the dismissal of Kevin Blackwell this season. The YEP’s reporter has to buy a ticket, which is one way of trying to arrest the marked slump in attendances.
Bates is also facing a court battle with Blackwell, who is suing his former employer for compensation. Bates has refused to negotiate, despite handing Blackwell an extended contract. Yesterday, he took the opportunity to denigrate further his former manager’s stewardship.
“Wisey was particularly scathing of the former fitness regime and some overweight players,” Bates wrote in his programme notes, “causing Gus Poyet to say that the Leeds United club song should have been ‘Who ate all the pies?’ ” As a reminder, Blackwell led Leeds to the play-offs final last season, a considerable feat in difficult circumstances, as well as a huge boost to revenues.
Bates has also been at odds with Leeds supporters for hiking the ticket prices. Manchester United fans pay the same as Leeds fans forked out yesterday to watch Jonathan Douglas grab the second-half winner with a miskick.
No surprise, then, to report a half-empty ground with an attendance of 18,158, more than 10,000 down on the average when Bates took over. “It’s the unofficial capital of Yorkshire and a huge market,” Bates once said, but he might get more takers if he did not charge £26 for the cheapest seats and £36 in the main stand.
Bates was welcomed by many as a football man with far more to offer than Gerald Krasner, his hapless predecessor, yet some distrust remains. He would help his case if he cleared up the mystery of who owns the stadium.
It was recently revealed that Elland Road is in the hands of the Teak Trading Corporation, based in the British Virgin Islands and therefore under no obligation to reveal its directors. Is it owned by Bates? Friends of his? Leeds say only that they still have a long lease, which hardly reassures supporters. Ownership of Chelsea during Bates’s time was similarly opaque.
Bates has talked about building a couple of hotels, which suggests that he has the co-operation of whoever does own the bricks and mortar, although those plans revive memories of his spectacular overreaching with Chelsea Village.
Roman Abramovich spared Bates from financial ruin, enabling him to write up his Chelsea reign as entirely successful. Yesterday he painted a similar transformation in West Yorkshire.
“Twenty-five years ago it was exactly the same situation at my former club; bankrupt, some poor players, low spirits and no organisation,” he wrote yesterday. “Leeds was just like that in 2005.
“Today all the parasites have gone, the dressing-rooms have been cleansed of the attitude problems, the players are fitter and more determined, the new management are dedicated to success and are not obsessed with being heard or seen on the media.”
Bates talked of improved facilities, increased revenue and an overhaul of the squad this month that will create “a very different Leeds, a stronger squad, fitter and more ambitious”. Some of that hope was immediately dampened when Wise gave warning yesterday that “there is not too much money”. Plus ça change, as they don’t say in Pudsey or Harrogate.
“We will be marching on together — make sure you don’t lose your place in the parade,” Bates added, although citizens of Yorkshire need not panic. A revival might be under way at Leeds but it will be a while coming. As for places in the parade, plenty of spaces remain.
Leeds still in trouble despite welcome win
MATT DICKINSON
Our columnist on Ken Bates’s battle to stop Yorkshire club sinking to a new low
“Big win, that,” one man said to his friend as they hurried away from Elland Road yesterday,
and a big win it was. They all are when you are in Leeds United’s dire straits.All you need to know about their predicament was summed up as Dennis Wise and Gustavo Poyet, manager and assistant, threatened to squeeze the life out of each other, so tight was their embrace at the final whistle.
The cause of this delight was a 2-1 win over Coventry City, one achieved with no little anxiety and that still left Leeds second from bottom in the Coca-Cola Championship. It was a first victory in eight league matches. The outpouring of joy must be set against a grim context.
Sensibly, Wise resisted any temptation to hail this win as a turning point in Leeds’s fortunes. Ken Bates, his boss, has been peddling hope to the Yorkshire public ever since he took over almost two years ago but he has found it a hard sell.
They have heard too many false promises in the five years since Leeds stood, on New Year’s Day in 2002, at the summit of the Premiership table. The decline has been exhaustively chronicled but it still comes as a shock to drop in at Elland Road and to see the empty swaths of seats and the hoofing clearances of mediocre players.
Relegation to the third tier of the English game for the first time in Leeds’s 88-year history remains a real threat and, even if it is avoided, it is clear that the road back to respectability is a very long one, even for a man with Bates’s reputation for getting things done. He used to hang a sign in the lobby at Chelsea declaring that “the Romans did not build an empire by organising meetings. They did it by killing anyone who got in their way”.
Age — he is 75 — has not mellowed him. He still bans critical newspapers, which was a favoured weapon in his time at Stamford Bridge. The Yorkshire Evening Post has been banished from the press box for attacking the dismissal of Kevin Blackwell this season. The YEP’s reporter has to buy a ticket, which is one way of trying to arrest the marked slump in attendances.
Bates is also facing a court battle with Blackwell, who is suing his former employer for compensation. Bates has refused to negotiate, despite handing Blackwell an extended contract. Yesterday, he took the opportunity to denigrate further his former manager’s stewardship.
“Wisey was particularly scathing of the former fitness regime and some overweight players,” Bates wrote in his programme notes, “causing Gus Poyet to say that the Leeds United club song should have been ‘Who ate all the pies?’ ” As a reminder, Blackwell led Leeds to the play-offs final last season, a considerable feat in difficult circumstances, as well as a huge boost to revenues.
Bates has also been at odds with Leeds supporters for hiking the ticket prices. Manchester United fans pay the same as Leeds fans forked out yesterday to watch Jonathan Douglas grab the second-half winner with a miskick.
No surprise, then, to report a half-empty ground with an attendance of 18,158, more than 10,000 down on the average when Bates took over. “It’s the unofficial capital of Yorkshire and a huge market,” Bates once said, but he might get more takers if he did not charge £26 for the cheapest seats and £36 in the main stand.
Bates was welcomed by many as a football man with far more to offer than Gerald Krasner, his hapless predecessor, yet some distrust remains. He would help his case if he cleared up the mystery of who owns the stadium.
It was recently revealed that Elland Road is in the hands of the Teak Trading Corporation, based in the British Virgin Islands and therefore under no obligation to reveal its directors. Is it owned by Bates? Friends of his? Leeds say only that they still have a long lease, which hardly reassures supporters. Ownership of Chelsea during Bates’s time was similarly opaque.
Bates has talked about building a couple of hotels, which suggests that he has the co-operation of whoever does own the bricks and mortar, although those plans revive memories of his spectacular overreaching with Chelsea Village.
Roman Abramovich spared Bates from financial ruin, enabling him to write up his Chelsea reign as entirely successful. Yesterday he painted a similar transformation in West Yorkshire.
“Twenty-five years ago it was exactly the same situation at my former club; bankrupt, some poor players, low spirits and no organisation,” he wrote yesterday. “Leeds was just like that in 2005.
“Today all the parasites have gone, the dressing-rooms have been cleansed of the attitude problems, the players are fitter and more determined, the new management are dedicated to success and are not obsessed with being heard or seen on the media.”
Bates talked of improved facilities, increased revenue and an overhaul of the squad this month that will create “a very different Leeds, a stronger squad, fitter and more ambitious”. Some of that hope was immediately dampened when Wise gave warning yesterday that “there is not too much money”. Plus ça change, as they don’t say in Pudsey or Harrogate.
“We will be marching on together — make sure you don’t lose your place in the parade,” Bates added, although citizens of Yorkshire need not panic. A revival might be under way at Leeds but it will be a while coming. As for places in the parade, plenty of spaces remain.