a re-cap of incompetence at Elland Road

May, 2007

by Jerrad Peters

Whatever the outcome of Leeds United’s fateful summer, this much is certain – barring considerable and immediate turnaround, the football club is only at the midpoint of its downward spiral to oblivion.  On Friday, 01 June, chairman Ken Bates will face his creditors.  If they vote against bankrolling the club’s 35M-pound debt, Leeds United Football Club could be disbanded within weeks.  At the very best, the club will be hamstrung with another, insurmountable financing package which will cripple the team’s competitive aspirations for years to come.

    Bates, not unlike his predecessors, has refused any share of the responsibility for the crisis at Elland Road.  In fact, he has laid the blame squarely at the feet of his financiers.

    “If creditors want a club in Leeds,” he remarked, “they should make sure they vote the right way.”  The chairman continued, “Otherwise, I can assure fans it’s unlikely there will be a Leeds United.”

    After the club entered administration – otherwise known as Company Voluntary Arrangement – on 04 May, Bates arranged a deal which saw the team purchased by his newly struck Leeds United Football Club Limited from the KPGM group which had overseen the transition to administration.  The agreement was finalized – pending approval from the club’s creditors and the Football League.

    Considering that Leeds United were involved in a Champions’ League semi-final just six years ago, their tumble into obscurity is often measured as the period between 2001 and the present.  In actuality, the club’s recent history is only the latest bit of instability to shake Elland Road since the team’s founding in the wake of World War I.  In actuality, the slow demise of Leeds should come as little surprise.  Repetitive patterns of mismanagement and poor decision-making have systematically hampered the club since its inception.

    Leeds United Football Club emerged from the ashes of Leeds City in 1919.  As it happens, City had been expelled from the Football League for rule-breaking and was forced to disband in October of that same year.

    For what it’s worth, City were never more than a middling side in English football.  Their highest placing was 4^th-spot in the old Second Division under the guidance of Herbert Chapman in 1912.  It was Chapman’s regime, moreover, which was banished from the Football League just five years later. Citing financial irregularities and the illegal payment of players during wartime, the Football Association revoked City’s league membership after eight matches of the 1919-1920 season.

    Chapman, of course, denied any part in the unlawful goings-on at Elland Road.  While a number of club executives were served life-time bans for their part in the illegalities, Chapman escaped the bees-nest for a job in arms manufacturing.  On 17 October, 1919, the players and property of Leeds City were auctioned-off at the Metropole Hotel.

    That same year, a new football club entitled Leeds United were admitted to the Midland League.  Having taken the place of City’s youth squad, United soon usurped Yorkshire Amateurs as primary tenants of Elland Road.  In 1920, just months after City’s collapse, Yorkshire made way for United’s place in the Football League.

    Fast-forward a half-century.  In 1961, Leeds United made an unusually astute appointment – hiring Don Revie as manager.  Under the 1955 Footballer of the Year and Manchester City icon, the club turned its back on a mediocre history in league football and began to challenge for the top honors.

    After barely keeping Leeds in the Second Division in 1962, Revie initiated a slow turnaround which would see the club claim its first pieces silverware in 1968.  That League Cup and Inter-Cities Fairs Cup double was followed by the First Division title in 1969.  It was one of two championships that Revie would win in his thirteen years at Elland Road.  The second came in his final season of 1973-1974.  In between, he guided the club to its first FA Cup in 1972 and another Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1971.

    Revie left Leeds to become the England manager in 1974.  His departure signaled the end of the club’s glory-days; and eighteen trophy-barren years followed his exit.  As a replacement, the board of director’s tabbed Brian Clough for the top job.  In six years at Derby County, Clough had earned promotion from the Second Division, won the First Division title in 1972, and advanced to the semi-finals of the European Cup in 1973.  Despite a forgettable six weeks in charge of Brighton & Hove Albion, Clough brought an impressive pedigree to Elland Road.

    He lasted all of 44-days.  After clashing with many of the club’s senior players and criticizing Revie’s tactics, he was given the sack and replaced by former England captain, Jimmy Armfield.  While Armfield righted the ship in time to earn a berth in the 1975 European Cup Final against Bayern Munich, the core of the team was well past its prime.  Seven lackluster seasons and four managers later, Leeds were relegated to the Second Division.

    Clough, for his part, went on to have one of English football’s most successful managerial careers.  At the time of Leeds’ demotion in 1982, he had already won six trophies at Nottingham Forest.  That United so quickly dismissed his opinions and abilities speaks volumes as to the ineptitude and impatience at board level at Elland Road.

    As if dismissing Clough was not bizarre enough, the board also fired Jock Stein after the Celtic legend had spent just six weeks at the club in 1978.  In less than three years, Leeds had ousted two of British football’s most distinguished managers.

   Hope, and good sense, returned in the form of Howard Wilkinson in 1988.  After just two seasons at the helm, the Sheffield man had the club back in the First Division and contending for silverware.  In 1992, after a mere two years in the top-flight, Leeds were champions of the First Division.  True to form, United followed-up their achievement with a 17^th-place finish a year later.

    A rebound of sorts saw Leeds earn 5^th-place finishes in 1994 and 1995.  It was their best showing under Wilkinson in the new English Premier League, however.  After concluding the 1996-1997 season in the bottom half of the table and losing to Aston Villa in the FA Cup Final, Wilkinson was shown the door and succeeded by George Graham after a heavy loss to Manchester United the following autumn.  Graham’s appointment came with no shortage of controversy.  The future Spurs boss was fresh off a one-year ban for taking illegal payments from a football agent.  After a single season at United, he was off to White Hart Lane.

    In 2000, under David O’Leary, Leeds produced their best-ever Premiership result.  The 3^rd-place finish, however, was spoiled when defender Jonathan Woodgate and midfielder Lee Bowyer were involved in a bust-up which left a student in hospital.  The result was an extended 2-year court battle and the transfers of both players in 2003.

    Still, their rank in the table ensured a Champions’ League berth ahead of the 2000-2001 season.  As it turned out, Leeds’ progress in the competition seemed too good to be true.  They advanced all the way to the semi-final round and a tie with Valencia.  Buoyed by the accomplishment, chairman Peter Risdale withdrew substantial loans against the following season’s Champions’ League revenue.  It seemed a reasonable risk at the time.

    However, a late-season skid saw Leeds drawn into a three-way battle for 3^rd-spot.  In the end, Gerrard Houllier’s Liverpool pipped United for the final Champions’ League place by a single point.  Risdale was unable to repay the debt; and, as a result, sold Rio Ferdinand to Manchester United for 30M-pounds.  The sale of the young England defender came as a devastating blow.  O’Leary’s fury at the transaction led to his sacking in June of 2002.

    Terry Venables was hired the following month.  From the get-go, his rift with key midfielders Olivier Dacourt and David Batty looked to have the club heading in the wrong direction.  After premature eliminations from both domestic cups, Jonathan Woodgate was sold to Newcastle in the January transfer period as the club continued to languish in debt.  Venables was outraged at the sale of his best defender, fell-out with Risdale, and was fired in March.  Risdale, himself, resigned later that year.

    Ahead of the 2003-2004 campaign, Gerald Krasner and a conglomerate of businessmen assumed control of Leeds United.  With Krasner serving as chairman, the club underwent a massive sell-off of assets and players to finance its debt payments.  Despite the efforts of manager Eddie Gray, the club finished second from bottom and was relegated to the League Championship – the squad reduced to barely a skeleton of a football team.

    The liquidation process continued well into the following summer.  Remaining players were jettisoned at bargain-basement prices, the training-ground was auctioned-off, and Elland Road was sold ahead of the 2004-2005 season.  The following January, Krasner sold a 50% stake in the club to Ken Bates for 10M-pounds.

    Bates, the current chairman, will face the music when the future of Leeds United is determined by its creditors on Friday.  In all likelihood, the football club will survive and commence play in the third tier of English football for the first time in its history.  It is hardly a flattering set of circumstances.

    For one thing, it appears unlikely that the team will survive its lower-league existence in the cavernous Elland Road.  One can hardly imagine that Leeds will bounce back into the Championship a year from now.  A smaller, sleeker ground would serve as a far more realistic home to a club in desperate need of a makeover.

    To that effect, Bates and the board of directors should be careful not to pressure Dennis Wise, or whoever the manager is in August, into making the sort of band-aid transactions intended to garner an immediate bounce-back into the Championship.  The manager should be given adequate time to assemble an appropriate squad.  In other words, Leeds must recognize that, for now, their reality lies in 3^rd-tier football.

    If the club is ever going to make a return to respectability, they must make changes on three fronts.  Firstly, they should temporarily abandon Elland Road for a smaller venue.  It would be far more becoming of a League One side to fill a more modest ground than to have their current stadium half-filled week after week.  They could still host cup matches at Elland Road.  But, for the time being, a ground-swap is in the club’s best interest.

    Secondly, the manager should build a squad from scratch.  Instead of trying to lure expensive veterans in hopes of pushing into the Championship, his concentration should be geared toward stocking-up on talented youngsters.  In so doing, he will be economically staffing the squad and, more importantly, growing assets from within.

    Finally, the board should make financial stability its primary goal.  Forget about quick promotions and cinderella cup runs.  Leeds United should focus on becoming and remaining competitive in League One.  Their immediate ambition should be to contend among the likes of Oldham, Yeovil, and Nottingham Forest – not Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester United.  This is where a small stadium and younger, cheaper squad all intertwine.  The organization as a whole must become sleek and downsized.  The club’s following is large and loyal and will return after the re-building process.

    As humiliating as the current situation is for the club’s staff and supporters, in truth, Leeds United has never been operated with any substantial degree of competence or stability.  Their relegation and current financial turmoil is, if nothing else, the ideal opportunity for the club to re-invent itself.  Ken Bates and his board will lead the organization down one of two roads – to a Leeds City-styled implosion or a slow, effective, top-to-bottom revolution.