On Saturday, should you care to, you can read my first take on Howson’s sale in the new issue of The Square Ball. Without giving too much away – so promise me you’ll still buy it, okay? – here’s how I end the article:
It seems you can fleece the fans with promises of the Premier League, but you can’t fleece Jonny Howson. If he has looked our board in the eye when they told him, “We want to match your ambition,” and he’s not believed a word – well, vale, kid, and here’s to you. It’s an inherent cruelty of football that means Howson has that option, and we don’t.
I was thinking about this again tonight, as I browsed through today’s news roundup: Howson to Norwich, we know about that one; here’s McCormack to Wigan, that’s a change from Wolves being after him; Clayton’s contract talks have “broken down,” so here are Bolton set to swoop; as well as the ever-present speculation about Snodgrass and Becchio and, more recently, Aidy White (another contract hitch, there).
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? Indeed, I can foresee this window ending with Leeds United actually rejecting offers, while the players demand to be allowed to leave.
Is it possible, then, that the anti-Ken Bates protest that actually, finally works will be one carried out by the players?
A lot of Leeds fans feel that the club is going nowhere under Bates’s ownership, but feel powerless to do anything about it. Protesters outside the ground are dismissed by Bates as “morons.” Chants inside the ground are met with flicked V signs from the owner. Resolutions not to buy merchandise don’t hit the bottom line hard enough to bother him. Resolutions not to renew season tickets or to stop going to games might work, but to cut LUFC from our lives so drastically feels like a way of letting Bates win – it’s the one thing that might work, but it’s the one thing nobody wants to do.
Apart from, that is, the players. It was always assumed that Jonny would stay at Elland Road whatever happened, because he’s a local lad, captain of his boyhood club, a youth product with deep affection for LUFC and the local area. That dam has been breached now, so what is there to stop our other good players – none of whom can be expected to have any particular strength of feeling for Leeds – from packing it in and taking their careers elsewhere?
Bates knows that no matter how he runs Leeds United, the core supporters will keep coming – and keep paying – because they have no other choice. But a club also needs players, and the players do have a choice. They can respond directly to the way Bates runs this club, exactly as it seems Howson has, and say: No. The way you are running this football club is not going to result in successful football, so I am leaving. Whether it’s an intentional player-protest against Ken Bates or not – and we could ask Neil Kilkenny about that – the result is the same. Like Canute, King Ken is left bellowing at the modern footballer as the tide of modern footballers rushes past him on their way to a proper football club, and his corporate facilities cling worthlessly to an increasingly dire and failing team.
It’ll ultimately hurt the fans the most, of course; it always does. I don’t want to see Snodgrass or Clayton leave, let alone Howson. The team will suffer – and if players won’t stay under Bates, who will join? Not Jason Puncheon, for one – and our target will change from hoping for promotion to fighting off relegation. But levering Bates out from his new East Stand perch was never going to be easy, and however it happens, we’re likely to need serious rebuilding when it’s done – although not in the East Stand, obviously. But we know this already, and can prepare ourselves; and besides, it’s not like we haven’t been through it all before.
This transfer window, and the summer that follows, will be interesting to watch. Howson’s desire to play for a club with ambition could have finally kicked away the wedge that has kept the fans deadlocked with Ken Bates. To withdraw labour has always been an effective weapon of the worker, but the conundrum for Leeds fans has been, what do you withdraw when yours is a labour of love? The players just might have the answer.
Nicely put
I’ve been boycotting ER this season. Ok, I’m not the most prolific visitor, having a 300mile round trip to make and the kids every other weekend, all of whom hate footy with a vengeance. But by this stage I’d have made 8-9 home games. I’m part of the roughly 5000 who are missing this season. And you know what? After a few weeks, I didn’t miss it. I actually enjoyed the feeling that yes, I could resist the call. Sure, I have urges, but like a determined cig smoker who wants to stop, I fight it and each time it’s easier.
To all those who say that they “have” to go to a game, that to not go is letting the team down, I say this: Short-term pain, missing a few matches, possibly a season’s matches, perhaps longer, is worth it to get rid of the parasite with a beard that pledged, a few years ago, that he would not read until our club and fans, were thrown out of football.
*not rest
Bloody iPhone…
Ken Bates is a reactionary right-wing Tory arsehole who is infecting our club, he has not saved Leeds in any way whatsoever. He is only interested in property development, has no interest in the team or how Leeds perform, and he has no place in Leeds United. To answer Moscowhite’s question: It might be a labour of love, but as is the case in any abusive relationship, the only solution is to leave it. In this case its Bates that must go: Bates out now!
Ken Bates as a reactionary right-wing Tory arsehole who is infecting our club, he has not saved Leeds in any way whatsoever. He is only interested in property development, has no interest in the team or how Leeds perform, and he has no place in Leeds United. To answer Moscowhite’s question: It might be a labour of love, but as is the case in any abusive relationship, the only solution is to leave it. In this case its Bates that must go: Bates out now!
Just devestated. It can’t get much worse and i dread to consider the effect this may have on the squad who already appear somewhat subdued. We all assume that Howson loves the club as we do. i’d like to beleive he does, and perhaps he is as gutted as the rest of us. Perhaps not with his acquired knowledge of the inner workings of the club(Bates)i wish him well and personally beleive that Norwich will stay up and establish themselves if they can hold on to Lambert. A great place to further your career as a hopeful young player, but are the proverbial floodgates now well and truly open. If Jonny can go, why should anyone else in the squad feel obliged to any loyalty. Even Lorimer doesn’t seem to give a monkeys about his status with the fans.
Great article.
I actually think that £2m for a player out of contract at the end of the season and currently recovering from a serious injury is pretty good business. Cahill only went for £7m in comparison.
What I can’t accept is that the club allowed the situation to happen in the first place. Have we not learnt from the Beckford saga.
If SG really has been given the proceeds from player sales then he must have a relative fortune to spend by now.
Bates must be asset stripping the club and I reckon he will go down in folklore as the most hated individual ever by Leeds fans.
How do you remove him from the club? As ‘customers’ we can’t take our business elsewhere so we are stuck waiting for him to pop his clogs or hope that someone will buy him out.
Boycotting games etc will just mean that he will sell more players to recoup his lost revenue. Perhaps we need to go backwards as a club before someone can afford to buy him out? I’d take relegation to league 2 if we got rid of Bates in exchange.
Enough of all the negativity. Support the team. Don’t turn up? We’d have to sell another player. Leeds need cash as attendences need to be > 25.000 to break even. The time to complain is when we are out of the race and safe or end of season. Leeds can not afford to pay howson more than £15,000 per week in this division. Leaving is the simple option, staying, getting promoted and getting a pay rise is the difficult option. We all hate the rubbish that we have seen this season, but we have to stick together and hope somehow Grayson can turn it around. I can’t see any white knightng knocking on the door to give Leeds cash! If we had attendences of 35,000 we may have a few knocking on the door begging to invest, until then we are stuck with bates and the long way to promotion via financial security first and lady luck or damn good manager that can motivate average championship/div 1 players.. Stick together, support the team!
Well said mate
We supported the team through 2 relegations and it made no difference. If we don’t make money we sell players. If we make money we spend more on stadium development. What is the point of it all? It’s like we’ve ceased to be a football club.
Urghh Good Grief,your living in a dream world. I’m sure Bates laughs to himself when he thinks of the average Leeds fan now, The real enemy are the people who have let him do it year on year on year; the enemy within; the simpering LUTV subscribing, Eddie Gray phone in lovies… Ken Bates could break into these people’s homes, steal their belongings and rape their mothers, and all they’d still probably say…Enough of this negativity….come on get a grip!
“we’re all in it together… you fools”
tory attitude methinks, the only ones profiting are the usual crooked cronies.
DrD you are a mug & Bate’s breakfast
Howson isn’t moving for money but to better himself, which he feels moving to Norwich is, how damning is that!? Howson knows Leeds who he loves are at best a mediocre Championship side with no ambition so he has acted, Snodgrass & Clayton will do the same before next season, when will us fans do the same???
Is Bates now more hated by us fans than Ridsdale? Discuss
Yes, without a doubt in my mind. Bates has has ripped the back bone out of this proud glorious club because he doesn’t care about its future its past or what it stands for….he’s just after the money and always has been. Ridsdale may have made a complete cock up of it but in the end he was a fan. Which is more than you can ever say about Bates…Saved LU ha dont make me laugh, manipulated and masqueraded as a creditor more like to avoid any bid competition. Then slowly raped the club dry, whilst “The morons” as he calls us pay handsomely to watch it….Live a dream or watch a slow painful death.
Ken Bates die soon.
I can’t believe the news today
Oh, I can’t close my eyes and make it go away
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long? How long?
Batesy, Bloody Batesy
batesy, Bloody batesy
batesy, Bloody batesy
And the battle’s just begun
There’s many lost but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, squads torn apart
Batesy, Bloody batesy
Batesy, Bloody batesy
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long? How long?
the only way thing will change is by consumer demand. Blind and misguided faith is not an option. Do not renew and do not attend. I plan not to.
Totally spot on. Can’t contemplate boycott the team, but if the players are walking Bates will feel it in the pocket, as attendance continues to fall and hence sponsorship and TV money dries up. My only vague hope is that he is selling assets to buy ER and Thorpe Arch and to make the books look healthy before selling! Delph return is going to be seen for what it is.. a desperate effort to get at least some fans onside. I hope now that the quiet morons become more vocal, with the rest of us! Reports on TV and in press about how unhappy the majority are may do little to oust the stubborn bastard, but the publicity will remind the FA and Football League that they are still supposed to be investigating his dodgy dealings! Wind him up enough and he may have to retire through ill health!
Agree with the comments regarding boycotting the club shop, can’t see how that will reduce income sufficiently to have any effect. By boycotting games it will further reduce income and could lead to more player sales. Perhaps a more visible protest would be to boycott the Southampton game. It is televised and would surely result in a televised debate if the crowd was under 16000. It would only be for one game and at least would get the problems out there in the public domain.
If you are a promising player with prospects, you owe it to yourself as an individual to play at the highest level in what is a limited career time span. It must have been heartbreaking in one way for Howson BUT reality is that he felt such ambitions would remain unfulfilled at Leeds and made the sensible decision…..in so doing sending a clear message to his team mates.
What seems like an intentional “leak” of this story in the cloak and dagger world of Bates must have been a disaster in alerting us season ticket holders to the potential implosion.
How many transfer requests in the next 10 days? AND has Grayson resigned…..rumours abound….. and he has been “silent” all week.
Best of luck to Howson…..I for one wish him well
I hear the ‘reported’ £2m will go a fair way towards the soft furnishings bill in those lovely new exec boxes. Come on lads, cushions don’t grow on trees and it’s all a matter of priorities after all.
Fine article. Question: isn’t it possible to continue going in our thousands, supporting the lads on the park to the maximum and yet when it is all over, express our discontent vocally inside the ground, while refusing to move from our positions ? In short, we demonstrate our solidarity, yet also distance ourselves from the regime running the club. I honestly cannot see a positive outcome from refusing to attend games. And in any case, I have no choice; I am bringing up another generation on the club: and ‘going on’ is what we do. It saw our family through the ‘eighties; it will do so now.
The club captain wears the white shirt with pride and passion, he now has waved the White flag of surrender. just like the italian captain of a sinking ship hes abondoned early. We can only watch the mass exodus that is sure to follow. A poud club on the rocks. I wont be going to ER again until bates leaves or dies.
Ah, music to my ears, morons. You just keep on giving me your money. I’ll be charging Champions League prices I two years time and still you thick Northern bastards will come through the turnstiles, buy my beer and pies and the overpriced shite in my shops. And if I die? Why, my family will keep on screwing you.
You are a cash cow and I’m sucking on your never-ending tit.
The only way I’ll leave your stupid club is if it stops making me money but as you are mostly too stupid to see that, I’ll not be going anywhere fast.
Now, which Premier League club wants a Scottish winger?
I’ve had enough – i can’t stand this anymore . . . . . (sound of single gun shot).
http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/394388_10150533766434726_516234725_8568729_775342225_n.jpg
Me & my Mrs will almost certainly renew our season tickets (2 x £516) but today we’ll continue our campaign of not spending a single penny on match days. We stopped buying programmes, drinks & food a couple of months ago. We’re fed up feeling like we’ve been mugged every time we go to Elland Road & we’re not the only fans who feel this way.
Bates’ public relations is appalling – for a so called intelligent & successful businessman, he is amazingly out of touch with his customers. It appears that Bates doesn’t believe that ‘the customer is always right’ or that ‘it’s easier to keep an existing customer than find a new one’. He can dismiss the “morons” and “dissidents” as much as he wants but if he’s not careful his misjudgement of the value of the fans will bring his business to it’s knees.
All the average fan wants is to see a reasonable amount of our vast annual income to be directed towards the football side of the business. The perception amongst fans is that multi millions is being spent on ‘the business’ side of things (Billy’s Bar, Radebe Suite, Bremner Suite, the new Centenary Pavilion, Howard’s Restaurant & the West Stand development) with relatively little being invested in the team. Bates tries to convince us that he is spending substantial funds on the team by way of wages for the existing squad & loan players, however, the problem is that we, the fans, can’t see this investment (whereas the £7m spent on the East Stand stares us in the face at every home game).
So back to what i said earlier, Bates’ has a severe public relations problem – we simply don’t believe anything he has to say. Until he addresses that issue, he’ll continue to see his customers become more disillusioned & hostile and ultimately drift away.
Here’s hoping we all have a good day today – at the end of the day all we want is for Leeds United to thrive – Bates needs to convince the fans that he feels the same way.
Leeds 3 Ipswich 1: One of the most abysmal performances I’ve ever seen! How the hell did we win that?!?!
By rights we should have lost the last 3 league games but due to 3 bizarre red cards we’ve somehow found ourselves repeatedly playing against ten & miraculously turning each game around.
7 points from last 9 – unbelievable!
A win is a win & maybe we can push on from this, however, let’s be honest, does anyone out there really believe that we look like a promotion winning team? I certainly don’t.
If Bates is/was the saviour I would rather be in league with the devil.He is the epitome of all that is wrong in society , greedy , self serving , tax evading tw*t! I believe in the old adage that you ‘reap what you sow’ so that’s him taken care of no matter how long he lives.
Simon Grayson is doing a fine job given the circumstances and at least he has Leeds in his heart more than I can say for some of the players , Snodders excepted (and the young lads).
I have been a Leeds fan since I was 9 in 1974.I am born and bred in Manchester and went to a comprehensive school and have put up with the abuse ever since but when a Leeds lad who captains his team wants to leave and has since left you have to ask if the soul of the club has gone.I have watched Leeds live at O/T , Maine Road and of course at Elland Road hundreds of times and use to stand on the Lowfield Road terraces in the 80′s or until those scouse barstewards made us sit down.I remember watching us when there were only 13,000 at the home games in Division 2 but I also remember that after 8 years we came back strong enough to make the red half of Manchester wait a further year for their run of success , 26 I think.
Point is , we came back and will again but as we all know we need funds to help , Bates obviously is not the answer so where are the millionaires who do support Leeds , get your short hands into your deep pockets you tight yorkie gits and save our club from the hideous Mr.Bates now!!!!
Great piece Moscow. Absolutely spot on assessment and beautifully written. A craftsman at work.
You say “Bates knows that no matter how he runs Leeds United, the core supporters will keep coming – and keep paying – because they have no other choice.” Yet as someone who’s gradually weaned themself off Leeds United in favour of watching local non-league football instead the past couple of seasons, I’m seeing more and more people also doing the same. They still have an emotional attachment to Leeds United – some even turn up in Leeds scarves/hats/+shirts with names on the back of of players who’ve not even been sold yet – but not to the extent of giving the club their money regularly any more. (Aside, that is, from the bloke I met last week who had his season ticket with him, but refuses to go to ER any more while KB is in charge, and won’t be renewing by 31st Jan either). Whilst many may well return in the future, others won’t be back at all, and personally I can’t see it ever being anywhere near the extent as previously – even if the club did start to feel mine again one day.