When any dictator falls, there is without doubt a period of transition and this time it is no different as new leaders GFH intiate de-Kennethisation. One by one they have stripped back the laws imposed on our club by El Presidente to build a brighter, better Leeds United.
Every good dictatorship has a good propaganda machine and Uncle Ken's was no different. The weekly tirades which would be launched against former directors, the Labour party and immigrants, too name a few victims, frequently landed Leeds in a number of lawsuits which were a drain on club finances. When GFH moved in, they removed the programme notes of Ken Bates and instead wrote their more politically correct version, landing us in no lawsuits to date.
How will good dictators be remembered? Well, for Joseph Stalin it was in a number of statues and huge photos that adorned every city in the Soviet Union. Ken was no different. He built and built more and more projects to show the rest of the country how advanced we were in LS11. The other teams may have had better players, but did they have cream cladding on the East Stand? Did they have a restaurant on site at the ground? Could Manchester United boast a pavilion that looks like a Midlands industrial unit? The short answer, is no. Well, GFH have come in and got rid of Howard's restaurant, which like many other 'Ken Bates projects' were losing money.
Propaganda, check. Vast building projects, check. But dictators don't tend to have good social skills so they surround themselves with their 'cronies' (see Hitler and Goebbels, Goering and Himmler). This is exactly what Ken did at Leeds as Shaun Harvey and Gwynn Williams were brought into the club. However unlike the Nazi crew, Williams and Harvey didn't seem to have clear roles at the club despite the party line being that Harvey was 'working' his socks off for Leeds United, a job which he took home over £250,000 a year for. Williams, is a man credited with discovering Becchio, but even Neil Warnock professed in his recent memoirs that he didn't have a clue what Williams' role at the club was. This summer, GFH have demoted Harvey and parted company with Williams as Ken's legacy at the club began to crumble.
Dictators, generally speaking, aren't that bothered by what the average person thinks about them. This was lucky as Ken's relationship with the fans was poor at best. Constantly lambasting us as 'sickpots', 'dissidents' and 'morons', chairman of LUST, Gary Cooper, was also the subject of defamatory remarks. Despite this, Ken decided to charge us, the fans, full whack for football where the ball spent more time in the air than on the ground, the majority of fans wouldn't have minded if they could see reinvestment on the pitch rather than more cladding at the club. GFH have come in and run things differently, treating fans with a little more respect, Right In The Gary Kelly's, another Leeds blog will be writing in the programme next year, prices have also been cut and the creation of a 16-21 ticket will surely appeal to the city's large student population. They've also been quite nice to us and haven't called us 'morons'; which always helps.
Where do those 'dissidents' turn to voice their anger? The media, and Ken was fantastic at censorship. He created his own state radio and TV stations and banned the BBC from the ground. Also banned was Guardian journalist David Conn, because he asked too many questions surrounding the leadership structure at the club. Not only that, but Ken planted 'club legend' Peter Lorimer in the YEP as a mouthpiece for the regime, again causing friction between the fans and the 'party'. GFH have recently announced that BBC Leeds will cover all of Leeds' matches this coming season as they secured the FM contract, something which they haven't had since 2007/08 also David Conn has seen his ban rescinded.
Often dictatorships are corrupt and little wealth trickles down to the masses and so it was at Leeds as we had to make do with sub standard replacements. After all, who needs a goals scoring striker to replace Becchio, when you have the comical Habib Habibou on the books? It seemed like the attitude was that Leeds wouldn't spend money on players,( Mikka Varyryryryrynen anyone?) and in doing so, condemned the team to a lifetime of mid table mediocrity. The very day Ken left the club, GFH launched a £1 million bid for Luke Murphy, a player who it seemed was actually quite good. Leeds fans all over the world rejoiced, no longer would we have to see the favourite of the regime, Michael Brown, plod around the pitch before lunging wildly, like some kind of rabid dog, at anyone who came within a 10 metre radius of him.
So as we enter a brave new world with GFH at the helm, Ken's 'Beeston Wall' is slowly being demolished and we can look forward to a season where the fans can be united behind our new leaders rather than be bitterly arguing about whether Ken really was the saviour of the club. No longer will fans have to chant Bates Out (we probably will anyway) and we can get behind the players at Elland Road, a place that should be a fortress, not some crumbling communist remnant of a bygone era. So from all at Yeboah Constrictor, it's goodbye Ken, hopefully we'll never see you again.