Article: Sad to see Lorimer so out of touch with the Leeds fanbase and community | Football, Leeds

Why is he particularly better than other chairmen would have been? As far as I can tell, if we'd had someone half competent in charge, we wouldn't have frittered all this money away on lawyers, court cases, radio stations and unprofitable building projects. We'd actually have invested in rebuying vital facilities and strengthening the playing squad. We'd have spent half of the six years since 2005 in the Premiership rather than in League One. Six-and-a-half years of stagnation and regression, and you call it 'rebuilding'?

If that's the case, he's just as bad for not telling the fans where their money's going, a stupidity which has driven them to demonstrate and boycott. No. He might be a colossal ****rag, but Bates is also a semi-logical man, and if he were saving up for ER/TA, I think he'd have the basic common sense to save his skin and he'd let everyone know, as he unfailingly does with every other close detail in his Wednesday rants/programme notes.

Informing us about this would do neither him nor the club any harm. It's not like Somma's revealing of his injury where it could have had a perceived bad effect on our 'activities' in the transfer market. So why would infamous motormouth Ken Bates not tell us information that would do him no harm whatsoever and actually improve his standing with the fans?

We don't know for certain (we can't know anything in any walk of life for certain if we're being picky), but we can reasonably and intelligently speculate that Bates is not saving the money up for Elland Road, since there's no plausible motive for him not to tell us.

Yet again, the force of your opinions is blinding you. Have you read the Scratching Shed piece people have provided? You yourself say you don't like Bates as a person up above. So surely you're criticizing yourself there. But anyway, here's a small catalogue of reasons why I don't want Bates at my club:

• Bates' past business dealings, showing the way he operates.
• Bates' programme notes from his time with Oldham, again showing his timeless methods of running football clubs aren't excusable with, or exclusive to us.
• Scratching Shed's top five reasons.
• List of questions which reasonably show that Bates is running the club in an irresponsible and unaccountable way.

As well as a wage cap that's clearly too low. Thanks Ken. And if you genuinely believe Grayson's been given enough to spend, why have we been forced to go for Michael Brown on a free rather than Jack Cork, Aron Gunnarson, Jonathan Greening and Neil Danns, just to quote four examples? Don't seriously tell me Grayson wouldn't rather have had any of those players if he'd been given the means. It would defy all sense.

They say before the start of every season that together, Grayson and Williams draw up a list of transfer targets and they go about getting them. Of course he's identified them and found them, and it's hardly been for a lack of trying that the summer's been so unsuccessful transfer-wise. We've done our level best with a whole host of players, it's just that we've missed out on the vast majority of them because of one obstacle. I'll let you guess what that i$.

So would I but that's impossible. You can't get experience, quality and leadership (particularly in defence and central midfield) when you're working on a budget of next to nothing for transfer fees and next to nothing for wages due to the limitations from the boardroom. Time and time again, I quote this statistic. The six clubs in the playoffs last season spent at least 3m in transfer fees (and no doubt as much as/more than us in wages) between 09-11. We've half of that amount at the very most and that's also including this transfer window which I didn't do for those clubs.

It's sad, sure, but you have to spend to get promotion.

So you admit he's not a good owner? I don't understand why you feel a need to stick up for the club just because you're a supporter of it. I support the team, not the boardroom. Supporting a club is about wanting the best for it, whether that be by going to games or by boycotting or by liking a good owner or by disliking a bad one. One doesn't have to cling blindly to a poor owner just because you'd do the same for the eleven men on the field, which is understandable.

The level of communication between the board and the fans is shocking and offensive. An all time low. The fans put 63% of the money into the club and you tell me we don't have a right to demand we're told where it's going when we see an appalling lack of investment, are outflanked on all sides by tin-pot clubs and receive no answers from the club whatsoever? I'd like you to justify that statement please.

 

I understand the frustration and i would change alot of things about the way the club is run if given the chance however... You asking me to say why we dont have a right to know, thats easy.

We are paying for entertainment, going to watch the club play football, which gives us entertainment. A bit like a bar, however in a bar you do not know how or where that money is going to be spent. Football or rather clubs of sport somehow have a different meaning and fans see this as a 'we need to know what is happening to the club at all times'. Sad fact is we dont have a right. Thats not to say that i wouldnt prefer to know what is going on with the club though.

All the 'facts' that you are giving to me have been manipulated or dont really give the full story. Or all these stories about how he is a bad person judging on his past. I dont really care about his past in truth.

All i see is he is running Leeds United, the club i love. Bringing in profit every year, keeping the club going forward. Not really spending enough on players however grayson is still bringing in players of good quality and we still have a quality squad albeit not as good as if bates put more money into the club. The rest about him in the media, i couldnt care less about or his ownership issues or whatever. The club is going well

 

Bars are a really poor analogy. They're run entirely for a profit and the owner will take out of the business as much as possible; it's not like football where the owner isn't expected to get rich and is also constantly obliged to reinvest. But I'll try to extend the metaphor anyway. If I bought a season pass or membership at the bar and there was a tacit understanding that they'd reinvest all members' funds, I'd be furious if I found out they were spunking money on a new conservatory when the beer tasted of piss and was lukewarm. If I also knew they had a huge membership base which was paying massive prices to attend that bar but the money wasn't being directly reinvested, I'd also demand to know what was being done with it. It's a really poor piece of imagery but you get my point.

If I'm not told where the money's going; if I don't deem that acceptable, then I won't be going to any more games next season as long as Bates is in charge. If he's saving the money for Elland Road, he's a twat for not telling us and if he's not, he's a twat for not saving it or spending it wisely. Pretty simple: man's a twat. Agreed?

Tell me which ones they are and why they're wrong.

His past is the same as the present. That's the point. You can see exactly how Leeds is going to end up: saddled in debt like Chelsea due to this stupid East Stand Village scheme. Distanced from fans.

Which are utterly dependent on us selling our best talent. Which are then further decreased by his stupid spending on lawyers, court cases, radio stations and construction playthings. 99% of chairmen would bring in better profits.

Six and a half years of his involvement and we've gone backwards on the pitch.

Bringing in a few good attacking players, but it's as plain as day that you don't get leaders and winners with cheap offers. That's why Bates' plan is always doomed to fail in this day and age. It's totally unacceptable, not just "not really enough". We've had the funds and he's shat them down the bog and laughed at us.

It's in the second division. It got relegated to the third for the first time in its history and spent three years there. It's Leeds United. Much of the time with unaccountable owners who wouldn't show their shameful faces and sold the club to a destroyer. How the **** is that "going well"?