Evil Furry Face PT 1

FOUND THIS VERY MOVING.

Ken Bates did not save our club. To view Ken Bates in any way as the saviour of LUFC completely misunderstands the man and his motives for purchasing the club in the first place. Let me be clear, Ken Bates has no love of LUFC. He doesn't care a dandy for the club, its supporters or its history. Nor does he care about its future. Ken Bates bought LUFC seven-odd years ago because he knew he could make a fortune.
At the time Ken bought LUFC, the club was around £30m in debt if I remember correctly. The vast majority of Ridsdale's wild excesses had been paid off. And while there were undoubtedly still issues to be addressed, the immediate problems were under control and the top flight contracts which had haemorrhaged cash were all either a thing of the past or at least coming to an end within the foreseeable future.

At the time Ken Bates bought LUC there were a great many English football clubs with comparable debt. Many of those club's remain saddled with those debts today yet continue to operate as viable businesses and enjoy the usual highs and lows of football. Debt does not in itself spell the death knell for a football club - or for any business in fact. It is also important to remember that whatever the debt at the time Ken bought LUFC that is not the amount he paid for it. He bought the club for tiny percentage of the debt – I think I've read £350,000 to a few million. When he bought the club, he bought the debt. He took on the liability for it. Although he of course didn't. The club was bought by a myriad of offshore businesses with random names, untraceable accounts and unknown owners. Ken was merely appointed chairman and given the task of running it as if it were his own business – which of course we all know in reality, it was.
And here is where those Ken Bates apologists must stop looking at him as if he were a football fan, as if he were one of us. We are fans. We want what is best for our club. We want the glory, the passion, the excitement.

We want that 93rd minute winner on a wet, cold Tuesday night that makes even the most tedious away performance worthwhile. Ken Bates is not a fan. He is not a fan of LUFC, nor is he of Chelsea, nor Oldham, nor any of the other club's he has dabbled in over the years. Ken Bates is not even a fan of football. Ken Bates is a businessman. Beginning, middle and end. He buys businesses to make money. It just so happens that football clubs tend to be the businesses he buys. And he buys them because he knows how to make money out of them. And when he took one look at LUFC those seven-odd years back, he knew he could make a fortune....cont...