Having managed to link my heroes from the Smiths, the Who and Elland Road into one article on Wednesday night, I now go back to the late 1980's when I first began avidly following the whites' and the music scene back then may give an indicator of GFH's strange decision to retain the services of Bates and having a has-been on board.
Yes we have heard how dear Ken saved us from the abyss in 2005 from Peter "Lickspittle" Lorimer and even Danny Mills et al and it is hard to argue against the fact that nobody else stood up and was counted when the bullfrog-esque Gerard Krasner had sold every last chattel in LS11 and the tax man was still looming for his pound of flesh. However Bates' supporters, including two old men at Derby away last season who berated me for joining in the "Bates Out!" songs conveniently forget the chapters of evil that have taken place under his stewardship so here is a recap:
- The alienation of the Leeds United Supporters Club in favour of Regional Members Clubs.
- The fiasco of administration whereby Bates basically said "Sell to me or I am taking my ball home" eg liquidate the club.
- Constantly selling our best players, particularly those who have gone to Norwich.
-The treatment of Simon Grayson, who is doing very nicely thank-you now down the road at the Dog Botherers under a supportive chairman.
- Calling your paying customers "morons", "sickpots", "empty vessels" and losing over 5000 of them in a couple of short years.
-The obsessive pursuit of Melvyn Levi, former Director, in effect an elderly, Jewish businessman with sinister anti-Semitic undertones thus costing the club a reported £4m in legal fees and compensation.
- Driving Neil Warnock to the verge of resignation over the Joel Ward fiasco.
The list goes on.
So why the hell do GFH wish to keep him? yes, he is capable of some good but also prone to reckless bouts of bizarre, eratic and costly behaviour?
My only explanation is that we have gone full circle since my early days following Leeds United in the late 1980's. Back then, Ben Fry was probably still in nappies and we had "Uncle" Tom Schofield spinning the tunes beneath the diamond floodlight pylons from his platform in the North West corner.
The sort of tracks Tom was playing at the time indicated that hip and cool artists of the era were gaining credibility by reviving washed-up, long-forgotten musical has-beens, whether from the Betty Ford Clinic or the Caberet and Cruise-liner circuit, artists of my era were duetting with faded stars only my parents had heard of.
Conversely, the GFH "dudes" David Haigh and Salem Patel seem hip, happening guys. They are young, good-looking, nice hair, suits, their own teeth - they tweet regularly! They are potentially a breath of fresh air, so why are they aligning themselves with a dinosaur like Bates?
In 1987, The Pet Shop boys were one of the top acts in the country which was a remarkable achievement given they were a gay act. Homophobia was still very much alive and kicking however the boys captured the hearts of the nation and had our parents wowing when they collaberated with Dusty Springfield, who had vanished off the radar years earlier into a haze of alcoholism and lesbian trysts. "What have i done to deserve this?" yes Dusty was back! big peroxide hair, lashings of black eyeliner helping the boys get yet another massive chart hit, a UK number 2 - all of this a good 12 months before Kelvin MacKenzie unleashed his infamous, vile, homophobic Sun editorial on Brighton being a nasty town full of "drugs, gays, aids and drunks".
At the centre of the Madchester craze was the chaotic Happy Mondays, who even played a summer gig at Elland Road in 1991. Two years earlier, the Monday's coaxed Karl Denver to duette on their song "Lazyitis". Yodelling Glasweigan Denver had not been seen or heard in public since Billy Bremner was a cheeky, wee, ginger-haired bairn from Raploch, Stirling but there he was sharing a stage with a group who at the time were the hippest on the planet.
Finally, one-time Leeds undergraduate Marc Almond, once of Soft Cell managed to revive his own career by covering a long-forgotten Gene Pitney song from the 1960's which was not "24 hours from Tulsa" but "Something's gotten hold of my heart". Better still, he persuaded Pitney to duette on it with him and scored a massive UK number one in January 1989 reviving a flagging career and bringing another briefly back from the dead!
So despite my initial unfavourable reaction to Bates remaining, maybe my answer lies in the second coming of washed-up pop stars in the late 80's? Unlikely double-acts can work and maybe all will be well if GFH keep Ken away from the microphone!