Posts
Ken
Bates is the kind of owner that football fans should be terrified of as soon as
he even mentions your club in a sentence. He’ll save you from an apparent
oblivion, give you a couple of solid years and relative highs, sucking you in
all the while. And once he’s got you, it’s either his way or the highway.
There
has, for a long time, been opposition to Bates’ ownership of the club. It might
not have been as vocal as the Manchester United or Liverpool equivalents but it
has been there; in the stadium, on the forums, on the blogs and on Twitter.
And
now it is becoming more vocal, to a damaging extent. Leeds season ticket
holders were sent a letter
recently as Bates tried to tempt them into renewing their tickets. The letter
is as bizarre as it is offensive to Leeds fans.
The
general tone of the letter smacks of ‘stop criticising me, just pay your money
for the tickets and shut up’. As this post
points out, it’s an awful attempt at writing a sales letter, the main issue
being that Bates mentions the recession and how times are hard and then goes on
to say that the squad will be cut down. There’s no strong call to arms, or
anything that will make fans want to part with their much-needed money to pay
for luxuries such as football matches.
The
strange thing is that the letter is not even needed: a simple summary (or list
of excuses) of what has gone on in the last year and a reason for fans to
really get behind the club (as well as the team)
would have sufficed.
Nonetheless,
many Leeds fans have had enough and won’t be renewing their season tickets. It’s
an incredibly depressing situation but one that is far too prevalent in modern
football: people who genuinely hold great affection for their football club –
as pitiable as that might seem – not wanting to put money in the owner’s
pocket.
Attendance
figures at Elland Road have been dropping for some time, with an average gate of
28,000 this season – under 60% of capacity. It has reached the point now where
Bates merely assumes that fans will attend games out of irrational loyalty to
the club. An assumption which, right now, appears to be misplaced.
Leeds
are currently 11th in The Championship, a fair reflection on the
squad in Simon Grayson’s possession. Bates, though, said recently that Leeds
should be aiming for the top, putting more pressure on the manager while,
at the same time, refusing to invest money in way of transfers.
Of
course, while Bates is the major problem, there are slight grumblings to be had
with Grayson too. The Whites have been poor defensively for the best part of
two seasons now, while replacements have not been found for key players who
have left for bigger and better things. As much as great sympathy must be had
with Grayson for managing with limited resources, three seasons in The
Championship is – surely – long enough to consolidate and improve. Bates is the
main enemy here but Grayson isn’t perfect either.
If
the season ticket letter didn’t dampen the spirits of Leeds fans, the imminent
sales of two of the club’s best players certainly will. What do the departures
of captain Jonny
Howson and top-scorer Ross
McCormack say about the state of Leeds now? As many have pointed out, they
are (and have been for some time) a selling club, but then isn’t every club
below the top tier easy prey for the Premier League? As well as that, though: Howson,
a born-and-bred Leeds fan, wants to leave in search of Premier League football because
he’s realised he isn’t going to get it with Leeds. The contract negotiations
with the club have been going on for 12 months – nothing has happened in that
time to change his mind.
A
precedent was set with the sale of Jermaine Beckford in 2010 and Kaspar
Schmeichel, Max Gradel, Neil Kilkenny and Bradley Johnson since then. The money
from those quite substantial departures has not been reinvested in the playing
side of the club, and it remains to be seen whether this will be the case with
the Howson and McCormack deals.
But
who next? What must Tom Lees, the supremely promising young defender, be
thinking now? Lees
has apparently garnered interest from Bolton, and why wouldn’t he leave
when the club are at best rebuilding and at worst looking set to sit contently
in The Championship?
Bates
continually talks about long-term planning, and in a purely financial sense he
maybe is here. But selling your best players over a series of months and
bringing in inadequate replacements is hardly the most fortified of plans.
Bates will probably still expect Grayson to steer the club to the playoffs, at least,
even though it’s his lack of investment that is the ultimate indication of the
club’s lack of ambition.
Photo from: FletchtheMonkey
