Kenneth William Bates, good for your club?

Bates was honestly somewhere between number 5 and number 1. One category that no football fan who has ever had Bates own their club would ever put him into is number 3, trust me he will never ever sit around and not say or do much, it just wouldn't happen. He has far too much ego and determination to get his own way for that to happen.

The highest compliment that I can pay Bates was that he was the right man, in the right place, at the right time. Having said that I am glad that he is no longer at our club, and that is nothing to do with having RA, it is just that his rear-guard action, war of attrition and fighting for survival capabilities, are thankfully no longer needed.

He is not a man that I liked, but he didn't let our club get shafted and for that, I like all Chelsea fans must be grateful to him.

^

Well, at Chelsea we do owe our existance to Bates saving the club in '80's.
Of course, we did get in trouble again which to be fair wasn't entirely Bates fault (i.e. dispute with the Harding estate). He also instigated the Chelsea Pitch Owners scheme which secured our immediate future but now seems to be coming back to bite us.

blueboy83

The situation in 1983 is paradoxical. In my opinion he probably antagonised Viscount Chelsea and David Mears with his personality to such a degree that they quietly sold out to SB Properties to spite him and us, despite them, supposing to be members of the CFC board, and have our club's best interests at heart.

Such betrayal left KB with no option than to remove the pair of them from the board of directors and black their faces out in the programme. After what seemed like a terminal blow for the club, Uncle Ken fought a long war of attrition against a large group of unscrupulous individuals that wanted to throw us out and build flats on the site of Stamford Bridge.

Some men would have lacked the determination to see it through and would have sold out long before but his resolve to win was incredible and after an 8 year long battle, when it nearly came on top for the club many times, they broke before he did and he pulled off an incredible victory against the odds.

In my opinion he was not blameless in causing the problem with an irascible personality but he more than redeemed himself after that with an iron resolve.

The rest is history and he left us better than he found us.

Shouldn't he be known as High Master Bates?

I have to say I am a little surprised by the support for him so far. I had the feeling he was hated by the majority of Chelsea fans. I stand corrected (so far) though it is late.

It still does nothing to change my own personal dislike of him however.

guys

Go-Bates, there is a general appreciation toward Bates for what he done during his time. When he bought us, we were in division two; when he officially left, he'd just sold us to RA and we were on verge of joining european elite.
However, don't mistake it for being universal. He made some bad decisions in his time and some of the things he said about Matthew Harding were shocking.

It was all because of that bloody East stand An ugly pile of carp if ever there was one

I have to say I am a little surprised by the support for him so far. I had the feeling he was hated by the majority of Chelsea fans. I stand corrected (so far) though it is late.
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Go-Bates. I did admit in my original comment that I didn't like the man (still don't) but credit has to be given where due and the parasitic property developers that he was fighting against (and at times was almost losing), were absolutely despicable individuals.

I think it is fair to say Leeds fans, the vast majority of us, despise what he did to our club.

We feel he totally ripped us off.