As the club continues with the transfer policy of “let’s sign everyone we can from Portsmouth because they’re cheap”, our latest transfer target is believed to be none other than the legendary Charles Dickens.
Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812, and Ken Bates has long been an admirer of the characters Jacob Marley from ‘A Christmas Carol’ and McMicawber from David Copperfield. Bates is trying to tempt Dicken’s quill pen to come out of retirement, in the hope that with such a literary figure on board people might think the club programme is actually worth the exorbitant price of £4.
And as Bates continues to exploit Portsmouth’s financial crisis, he is fortunate that another giant of the Victorian age was also born in the city. With Adam Clayton likely to be sold, the club is hoping to bring Isombard Kingdom Brunel to Elland Road to add some much needed strength to our midfield, while his engineering skills will come in handy as our supremo dabbles in all sorts of madcap property developments around the stadium.
Another possible signing from the south coast is the versatile Peter Sellers, who can operate in a number of different positions, including left side of midfield or as an emergency strike. But he could also be asked to reprise the role of Inspector Clouseau, if the West Yorkshire Police decide to withdraw their services from Elland Road due to their dispute with Ken Bates over the size of their bill.
Our forward line next season will be Brian Howe (lead singer of Bad Company) and Henry Ayres. When we asked the club “who the hell is Henry Ayres”, a spokesman told us “He was premier of the colony of South Australia and he had Ayers Rock named after him. And despite the fact he died in 1897, he’s still an awful lot more mobile than Billy Paynter was last season”.
Ken Bates is also keen to sign HMS Victory, with the intention of putting it in a dry dock in the car park beside the Peacock Pub. Bates reckons that if he can bring a major tourist attraction to Elland Road he might actually persuade someone to stay in a hotel in Beeston, but he faces competition Middlesboro, who have made a late bid of their own. The ship might prefer to move to the Riverside Stadium, although it’s creaking old timers might not stand up to the heavily polluted waters of the Tees.
Finally, the club is in talks with the track ‘Portsmouth’ by Mike Oldfield, which we needed as a cheap alternative if they can’t persuade the anthem ‘Leeds, Leeds, Leeds’ to sign a new contract. Bates knows that the track ‘Portsmouth’ won’t be popular in Yorkshire, but if anyone disagrees with him he can always stop them buying tickets, so they won’t have to listen to it anyway.
With these exciting new signings, there is no way that Ken Bates can be accused of lacking ambition!