Post by Taxigirl on Aug 7, 2005 8:07:55 GMT
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2093-1724347,00.html
Joe Lovejoy
Barely a year ago, the Leeds manager was struggling to field a team. He faces Millwall today believing the club can return to the Premiership
REPORTS of Leeds United’s demise were, it seems, greatly exaggerated. The Yorkshire phoenix is stirring, rising from the ashes of the most spectacular meltdown the game has seen. The resurrection is down to Kevin Blackwell, whose unscheduled baptism of fire in management produced a minor miracle.
Debts that peaked at £121m have been slashed to £10m after a ruthless firesale that left him relying on what he calls “pub players”, and now the club is in a position to move forward again.
Blackwell, a 46-year-old livewire from Luton, took over as manager in June last year at a time when, thanks to the profligacy of previous regimes, there was no money to pay the laundry lady, let alone the players. Leeds’s debt was well over £100m and rising, with an annual wage bill of £42m.
Blackwell said: “We had apprentices on £80,000 a year. My youngsters are on £60 a week in their first year and £90 in their second. Then, if they get a pro’s contract, they’re on £300 a week.”
A year ago, everybody for whom there was a buyer had to be sold. “Going into August,” Blackwell said, “I had two contracted players available, Gary Kelly and Michael Duberry. There were two others on the books, Seth Johnson and Eirik Bakke, but they were both injured. The place was like the Marie Celeste.
“I got 64 triallists in, from all over the world, panning for gold. They were hard times. People say I’ve got still got a wage bill of £12m, which is true, but that’s because we’re paying nine players who aren’t here any more — Robbie Fowler, Danny Mills, Ian Harte, Nick Barmby, Olivier Dacourt and others who have long since moved on.”
After a good start to the season, there was more bad news away from the playing fields. “The Inland Revenue started calling in debts, and all our money was disappearing into a black hole again, so we sold James Milner. On the Monday he was ‘The New Face of Leeds United’, by Friday he was a Newcastle player. That’s how it was then — like walking on quicksand.
“Then one Friday in January, out of the blue the stock exchange pulled the plug. It was a terrible day, with staff crying all around me. We weren’t going into administration — that had already been done and all the assets had been sold — it was straight to liquidation. The doors were going to be closed on the Monday. We’d all had e-mails, saying we wouldn’t be paid. The wages had only been paid in December because I sold Scott Carson to Liverpool.”
Enter the Bearded Wonder. Ken Bates came to the rescue with hours to spare, Leeds’ fourth chairman in two years.
“Ken came in and immediately faced a winding- up order,” Blackwell said. “We owe everything to him.”
The great wheeler-dealer somehow worked the oracle again and, buoyed by their reprieve, the team went on a run that took them to within four points of the playoff places in February, before injuries bit deep into the smallest squad in the division.
“Ken has been brilliant”, Blackwell said. “He’s a football man, and all his decisions are made with football in mind.”
Bates’ financial wizardry has conjured £2m to enable his grateful manager to sign Rob Hulse, Robbie Blake and Dan Harding. Blackwell has also brought in Steve Stone and Eddie Lewis on free transfers to provide the width Leeds lacked last season, and he expects a top-10 finish this time, “at the very least”. He is ambitious and single-minded, and determined to get off to a winning start at home to Millwall today.
“I just want to get Leeds back in the Premier League, that’s all I’m interested in at the moment,” he said. “It’s where we belong. We’re starting to get our pride back. We’re not in the newspapers for misdemeanours off the pitch or financial irregularities but because people are saying, ‘Hold on, something is moving again at Leeds’, and that’s a great feeling.”
Leeds Utd v Millwall
Today, Sky Sports 1, Midday, kick-off 12.15pm
Joe Lovejoy
Barely a year ago, the Leeds manager was struggling to field a team. He faces Millwall today believing the club can return to the Premiership
REPORTS of Leeds United’s demise were, it seems, greatly exaggerated. The Yorkshire phoenix is stirring, rising from the ashes of the most spectacular meltdown the game has seen. The resurrection is down to Kevin Blackwell, whose unscheduled baptism of fire in management produced a minor miracle.
Debts that peaked at £121m have been slashed to £10m after a ruthless firesale that left him relying on what he calls “pub players”, and now the club is in a position to move forward again.
Blackwell, a 46-year-old livewire from Luton, took over as manager in June last year at a time when, thanks to the profligacy of previous regimes, there was no money to pay the laundry lady, let alone the players. Leeds’s debt was well over £100m and rising, with an annual wage bill of £42m.
Blackwell said: “We had apprentices on £80,000 a year. My youngsters are on £60 a week in their first year and £90 in their second. Then, if they get a pro’s contract, they’re on £300 a week.”
A year ago, everybody for whom there was a buyer had to be sold. “Going into August,” Blackwell said, “I had two contracted players available, Gary Kelly and Michael Duberry. There were two others on the books, Seth Johnson and Eirik Bakke, but they were both injured. The place was like the Marie Celeste.
“I got 64 triallists in, from all over the world, panning for gold. They were hard times. People say I’ve got still got a wage bill of £12m, which is true, but that’s because we’re paying nine players who aren’t here any more — Robbie Fowler, Danny Mills, Ian Harte, Nick Barmby, Olivier Dacourt and others who have long since moved on.”
After a good start to the season, there was more bad news away from the playing fields. “The Inland Revenue started calling in debts, and all our money was disappearing into a black hole again, so we sold James Milner. On the Monday he was ‘The New Face of Leeds United’, by Friday he was a Newcastle player. That’s how it was then — like walking on quicksand.
“Then one Friday in January, out of the blue the stock exchange pulled the plug. It was a terrible day, with staff crying all around me. We weren’t going into administration — that had already been done and all the assets had been sold — it was straight to liquidation. The doors were going to be closed on the Monday. We’d all had e-mails, saying we wouldn’t be paid. The wages had only been paid in December because I sold Scott Carson to Liverpool.”
Enter the Bearded Wonder. Ken Bates came to the rescue with hours to spare, Leeds’ fourth chairman in two years.
“Ken came in and immediately faced a winding- up order,” Blackwell said. “We owe everything to him.”
The great wheeler-dealer somehow worked the oracle again and, buoyed by their reprieve, the team went on a run that took them to within four points of the playoff places in February, before injuries bit deep into the smallest squad in the division.
“Ken has been brilliant”, Blackwell said. “He’s a football man, and all his decisions are made with football in mind.”
Bates’ financial wizardry has conjured £2m to enable his grateful manager to sign Rob Hulse, Robbie Blake and Dan Harding. Blackwell has also brought in Steve Stone and Eddie Lewis on free transfers to provide the width Leeds lacked last season, and he expects a top-10 finish this time, “at the very least”. He is ambitious and single-minded, and determined to get off to a winning start at home to Millwall today.
“I just want to get Leeds back in the Premier League, that’s all I’m interested in at the moment,” he said. “It’s where we belong. We’re starting to get our pride back. We’re not in the newspapers for misdemeanours off the pitch or financial irregularities but because people are saying, ‘Hold on, something is moving again at Leeds’, and that’s a great feeling.”
Leeds Utd v Millwall
Today, Sky Sports 1, Midday, kick-off 12.15pm