Thoughts of Chairman Ken

I was sorry to hear that Ken Bates, the former chairman of Chelsea Football Club, had died, albeit at the grand old age of 94.

In September 2000 I interviewed Bates for Freedom Today, the Freedom Association magazine I edited for two years before I was sacked for being too libertarian. (Seriously.)

The issue that featured Bates was the first following my appointment as editor. My Forest colleague Jo Gaffikin was deputy editor and together we completely redesigned and relaunched what had previously been a rather stuffy publication that rarely went beyond the Freedom Association’s traditional preoccupations with the EU, the monarchy, and Magna Carta.

For our first issue I commissioned the journalist Mary Kenny to write about the ‘politics of sex’ and the need to reconcile liberty and morals. In truth, this was an excuse to feature, on the cover, the word ‘SEX’ in large capital letters. That first issue also featured a light-hearted Q&A style interview with Boris Johnson who was editor of The Spectator but was also the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Henley-on-Thames.

The article I was most invested in though was the interview with Ken Bates who, though not exactly a hero of mine, was someone I admired for having kept Chelsea afloat when the club was in danger of sinking in an ocean of debt that he inherited when he famously purchased the club for £1 in 1982. Over the next two decades, not only did he successfully turn the ailing ship around, in July 2003 he sold it to the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovitch for a reported £140 million. And the rest, as they say, is history.

In September 2000, however, Ken Bates was still very much in charge of the club. He had a reputation for not liking journalists very much so I was a bit nervous as I sat waiting to interview him. I needn’t have worried though because he was perfectly pleasant and the only problem I had was the fact that he spoke so quietly I struggled to hear everything he said.

To this day I don’t know if this was a deliberate strategy, but as someone with a loud voice I have come to understand that having a quiet voice can often be more effective because if someone is speaking softly it forces people to listen more closely to what you’re saying.

Anyway, here’s the interview which was published in the October/November 2000 issue of Freedom Today.

Alamy / PA Images / Steve Mitchell

KEN BATES: WHY I HATE THE EURO

“You haven’t asked me about the euro yet.”

It’s true. As a Chelsea supporter since 1967 (although I didn’t tell him that) I was far more interested in talking football politics: the Glenn Hoddle fiasco when Tony Blair intervened to suggest the manager of the England football team should be sacked for making comments about the disabled; the Government’s Football Task Force headed by fellow Chelsea fan David Mellor; the new Football Commission headed by ‘Junket’ Jack Cunningham; the Government’s role in the development of the new Wembley Stadium; and attempts by the European Union to abolish the football transfer system.

Ken Bates, chairman of Chelsea Football Club and chairman of Wembley National Stadium Limited, had plenty to say on all these issues. But as we sat in his office on the fourth floor of the new Chelsea Village complex, it was clear there was something other than football he wanted to get off his chest. OK, Mr Bates, tell me about the euro.

“What I don’t understand is, no-one has ever stood up and given me a cohesive argument on why we should join the euro. They keep saying, ‘Oh, the markets’, but we’ve got the markets now. Then they find some two bob Japanese manufacturers who are not doing too well at the moment and they say, ‘If you don’t join it’ll be a disaster’. And yet, what you have here, despite Blair’s government, is less bureaucracy, unemployment is lower and productivity is higher than in Europe. You don’t have to be an economist to understand it. All you need is a bit of common sense.”

Something tells me that Ken Bates is not in favour of what he still calls the ‘EEC’. “This all goes back to Edward Heath, who was the worst Tory prime minister we’ve ever had. The EEC is a disaster. I thought the idea was that it would make life simpler because everyone within Europe would become buddy-buddy and it would be a war free zone. Some people argue that the cost of the EEC’s incompetence and corruption is still cheaper than war so, somewhat cynically, you could regard it as a peace tax.”

He shies away, however, from calling for Britain to quit. “I am dead against going into a common currency and I see no reason why we should get more involved in Europe than we are now. They’re talking about having a European army, a European police force. We’ll end up like Russia. You have trouble in the Ukraine and you send the Cossacks in to sort the Ukraine while the Ukrainians are busy keeping the Lithuanians quiet.”

Chairman of Chelsea since 1982 when he bought the club for just £1, Ken Bates is a legend in his own lifetime. To those of us who experienced years of second division football in a near derelict stadium, what Bates has achieved is a near miracle. Today you are richly entertained by some of the world’s best players in a refurbished stadium that continues to grow before our eyes.

Refreshingly outspoken, he’s a gift to the media (with whom he has a love-hate relationship) and a pain in the backside to politicians, many of whom he treats with ill-disguised contempt. Attempts by the European Union to abolish the transfer system is typical of what Bates believes is unnecessary interference by politicians in things that don’t concern them. Clubs, he says, will stop developing young players. “What’s the point?” You’ve spent all that money and the player says, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m leaving you next week. I’m going somewhere else’. Abolish transfer fees, he argues, and ‘The whole system will collapse and you won’t have any professional football. It has to be stopped.”

Political interference in the new Wembley Stadium development is another bugbear. And yet, given that it’s supposed to be the national stadium and some of the money comes from the Lottery, surely the Government has a right to be involved? “It’s got nothing to do with the Government. The Government regards the Lottery money as its own but it’s not. It belongs to the thousands who play the Lottery every week. Anyway, this is a commercial operation. We’re raising £475 million in the market and we will pay it off. What can government contribute? Hold another committee? Another enquiry? That’s all it ever does.”

The trouble over the new [Wembley] design, says Bates, was caused by Kate Hoey who replaced Tony Banks as sports minister after the latter resigned to lead the 2006 World Cup bid. “It was a complete mess, a classic example of government interference.” The result is that Bates is determined to keep the Government out of it. “They can huff and they can puff, but what can they do? We’re not going to be pushed around by government.”

Following his appearance before a House of Commons select committee earlier this year, the Daily Telegraph reported that Bates’ appearance demonstrated the gulf between politicians and real people. He agrees. “If you look at the present government, and many of the MPs, how many of them have actually worked in the real world? How many have actually left school, gone and done a job, got their hands dirty, and then been responsible for wages to the workers who depend on their efforts? Very, very few, I suspect.”

Archie Norman, I tell him, often attracts criticism because he’s a businessman and not the greatest debater in the House. He snorts derisively. “They dislike the fact that he knows what he’s talking about and that upsets their cosy little elitism.”

Given his aversion to meetings, committees and – no doubt – consensus, does he believe in democracy? “Yes, but I also believe that the problem with the present [Labour] lot is that they were so anxious to win the [1997] election that when they got in it was like, ‘Great, what do we do next?’. Cut the bullshit, cut the lies like 5,000 more nurses, 10,000 more doctors, reduced waiting lists, all that crap. What have they actually achieved other than greatly complicating people’s lives?”

The new bill designed to stop hooligans travelling abroad is a total farce, says Bates. “Like the law on touting, it’s impossible to enforce and so the law falls into disrepute and people carry on regardless.” Nor is he impressed by Jack Cunningham’s new Football Commission. The Government, he believes, is merely jumping on a bandwagon. “Football, by and large, is very well run.”

Before I leave he tells me a story that probably sums up his attitude to government policy in general and politicians in particular. Back in the Sixties he was preparing to set up business in Rhodesia, post UDI. “Questions were asked in the House. Denis Howell, sent to do Harold Wilson’s dirty work, said, ‘We won’t be able to protect you if you go to Rhodesia’. I said, ‘You can’t protect me in Trafalgar Square at midnight on Saturday!’.

“So then he said, ‘The Prime Minister doesn’t approve of you going’. So I said, ‘Well, you can tell the Prime Minister that I don’t approve of a lot of things that he does but he doesn’t take any notice of me so I won’t take a notice of him’.”

Ken Bates for PM? We could do worse.

PS. Featured in a side bar were his thoughts on several high profile people including:

Tony Blair: “Done nothing yet.”

Margaret Thatcher: “Best thing since sliced bread. Without her we’d have been a banana republic.”

John Major, Chelsea fan, former PM and chairman of the Government’s Football Task Force: “He’s a former friend of mine but I blame him for presiding over the dissolution of the Tory party. Too weak. Talked tough, did nothing.”

Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United and a member of the so-called ‘New Labour elite’: “He’s a Scotsman. He shouldn’t be part of any bloody elite. The Scots are now getting their own back for Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie because, having got devolution, which is the first step to independence, they’re still coming down here and running England.”