Skip to content
View in the app

A better way to browse. Learn more.
The Shed End - Chelsea FC Forums

A full-screen app on your home screen with push notifications, badges and more.

To install this app on iOS and iPadOS
  1. Tap the Share icon in Safari
  2. Scroll the menu and tap Add to Home Screen.
  3. Tap Add in the top-right corner.
To install this app on Android
  1. Tap the 3-dot menu (⋮) in the top-right corner of the browser.
  2. Tap Add to Home screen or Install app.
  3. Confirm by tapping Install.

Ken Bates: The Chelsea Years

just
in General Chelsea FC

Featured Replies

Has anyone seen the SKY Sports documentary which was aired last week? Still sharp as a tack at 86 years old with his love of Chelsea clearly undiminshed. By Christ we could do with him back in our boardroom.

Any other club except Chelsea would have a statue outside the ground for someone who did all he did to keep them alive and make them successful. 

    Would love to see this documentary.

    I still have huge respect for what Ken achieved at the club. He revolutionised our club through the 1980s and 1990s and set it up to become an appealing brand not only in English football, but in European and worldwide football as well.

    Great to hear he's still going strong even at 86 years of age.

    • Author
    2 hours ago, Jezz said:

    Would love to see this documentary.

    I still have huge respect for what Ken achieved at the club. He revolutionised our club through the 1980s and 1990s and set it up to become an appealing brand not only in English football, but in European and worldwide football as well.

    Great to hear he's still going strong even at 86 years of age.

    Jezz, if you have SKY sports you can go on catch up TV and under SKY Sports All search Ken Bates: The Chelsea Years. You can download it from there. 

    On 23/04/2018 at 06:25, Jezz said:

    Would love to see this documentary.

    I still have huge respect for what Ken achieved at the club. He revolutionised our club through the 1980s and 1990s and set it up to become an appealing brand not only in English football, but in European and worldwide football as well.

    Great to hear he's still going strong even at 86 years of age.

    I'm not a big Ken Bates fan. I find him self-serving and revisionist. How, with Leeds United on the brink of bankruptcy, could he imagine it was in that club's best interest to hire a private plane and a helicopter to get him to home games from his home in Monaco where he lived to avoid paying tax?

    I haven't seen the documentary but it wouldn't surprise me if it was full of misrepresentations.

    10 minutes ago, just said:

    Self-serving? Don't think we would ever see Roman help selling match tickets from a Portakabin in the club car park like Batsey did sometimes.

    Watched it this evening, very good watch, it's as if your back in the 1980's as old uncle Ken doesn't seem any different. He said we are always the first thing he looks out for is our result. 

    • 10 months later...
    1 hour ago, robdog said:

    I guess we should call April 2nd Mr. Ken Bates Day. On this day back in 1982, Ken Bates bought Chelsea Football Club for only a pound. If this didn't happen, I believe the club would no longer exist. So I suggest any Chelsea Fan around the Globe raise their pint Glass for Mr. Bates today.

    kenbates20110817.jpg

    "And if you don't like it, bugger off"

    Will have to try and watch this at the weekend - sounds good.

    We have a great deal to be thankful for to old Batesy - you really do have to question where we would be (if at all?) if it wasn't for him. He did a lot of good things for the club, the major one being saving The Bridge (and probably The Club) but the Chelsea village was a bad decision and it was all very shady back in the '80's / '90's with avoiding the question of who actually owned CFC and you'd never get to the bottom of it. Will never forget the day me and a couple of mates went to The Bridge one weekday to get some tickets and also collect our Chelsea Collection watch (still have it must be worth at least 50p now - piece of sh*t!!) As we approached a portacabin Bates appeared and really looked down his nose at us. Maybe he was just having a bad day but although I will always admire him, like @Ewell CFC, I would never trust him.

     

    I wrote him a letter about the ridiculous telephone booking line - you could spend a lifetime waiting in a queue for that- and the new Shed End End which was underwhelming.

    Got a letter back “ So sorry you don’t like the new ground, it’s all your gonna get”

    Great administrator overall I’d say, though he didn’t come cheap.  Believe he was one of highest paid football executives in the country. Dont  know whether he saved us or otherwise- Banks don’t normally pull the plug on football clubs because of the bad will publicity.

    Saw him at Stanstead coming back from some Uero trip and had a brief natter. He was pleased as punch that Newcastle had sacked Gullit.

    • Author
    20 hours ago, Ewell CFC said:

    I wrote him a letter about the ridiculous telephone booking line - you could spend a lifetime waiting in a queue for that- and the new Shed End End which was underwhelming.

    Got a letter back “ So sorry you don’t like the new ground, it’s all your gonna get”

    Great administrator overall I’d say, though he didn’t come cheap.  Believe he was one of highest paid football executives in the country. Dont  know whether he saved us or otherwise- Banks don’t normally pull the plug on football clubs because of the bad will publicity.

    Saw him at Stanstead coming back from some Uero trip and had a brief natter. He was pleased as punch that Newcastle had sacked Gullit.

    What other club executive would have brought us with the debts we had and not owning our ground? And perhaps a bit ungrateful Ewell to write him a letter saying you didn't like the ground redevelopment given the years of fighting Batesey had to actually wrestle back control of it from the property speculators and then get the investment to rebuild.

    Take your point about the telephone booking line, but to be fair it did get better over time. Do you remember Eddie Barnet the old box office manager? Always found him a really helpful bloke.

    1 hour ago, just said:

    What other club executive would have brought us with the debts we had and not owning our ground? And perhaps a bit ungrateful Ewell to write him a letter saying you didn't like the ground redevelopment given the years of fighting Batesey had to actually wrestle back control of it from the property speculators and then get the investment to rebuild.

    Take your point about the telephone booking line, but to be fair it did get better over time. Do you remember Eddie Barnet the old box office manager? Always found him a really helpful bloke.

    Yup. Suppose it did sound a bit ungrateful. Timing is everything- when the Shed/ Hotel was built Bates’s logic was that football is only played 30 odd times a year, and clubs should look at alternative revenue streams such as Hotels and conference fascilities.

    Not long after the game boomed and analysts were saying that more profit would have been generated by building a bigger end. Hindsight etc, but it was and remains a bit of a QPHa Stand IMO.

    He wasn’t all good and he wasn’t all bad. I’ve heard stories about driving fans back from games in his Roller, and laying on a banquet for scores of supporters after promotion in 84....

    He was like a dog with a bone with Marler Estates, when many others would have capitulated.

    On the negative side get the impression that he thought Chelsea only existed after he took the reigns in 82- bit like Pol Pot- year zero. Ex players were ostracised- he saw them as freeloaders- many only returned after Roman took over and gave them some respect.

    His slagging off of Matthew Harding after he had died, calling him an evil man, was beyond the pale to many.

    Here’s an interesting one; when the TV money started to materialise there was a meeting of Premier League Chairman.

    Alan Sugar proposed that a set percentage of revenue only should be set aside for wages- In Sugars words “ The players and agents will get greedy and this extra dough won’t touch the sides”

    Bates replied with “ Stop telling us what to do with our money”

    Interesting how that scenario played out over the subsequent couple of decades.

    Edit: He f... d up royally with that stupid badge. He should have realised after a while that many fans hated it, and didn’t buy merchandising/ kits which displayed it. Being a stubborn sod, he never did. We had to wait until Roman came in and rehashed the rampant lion.

    I think that cost a fair bit of money over the years.

     

    Edited by Ewell CFC

    Whatever your opinion on Bates is my main gripe is and I know all the issues about the ground but it was falling to pieces, we had years of terrible football we got relegated in 88 and yet we were the most expensive club in the country to watch football.

    Create an account or sign in to comment
    Go to topic listing

    Recently Browsing 0

    • No registered users viewing this page.
    Background Picker
    Customize Layout

    Account

    Navigation

    Search

    Search

    Configure browser push notifications
    Chrome (Android)
    1. Tap the lock icon next to the address bar.
    2. Tap Permissions → Notifications.
    3. Adjust your preference.
    Chrome (Desktop)
    1. Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
    2. Select Site settings.
    3. Find Notifications and adjust your preference.