Ken Bates, the football rogue who didn't give a f**k about anything but him and his clubs

Ken Bates (below), the former owner of Chelsea who kick-started the foreign ownership of major English football clubs by selling Chelsea to Roman Abramovich in 2003, has died at the age of 94.

Bates was abrasive, combative, elusive, secretive and hugely mischievous. He was probably the most litigious person I’ve ever dealt with in 30 years in national newspaper journalism. He was the first person who tried to sue me, in 1999, more of which in a moment. He lost.

But he would also quite happily call a journalist on their mobile phone early on a Sunday morning to tell them they were a “f**king c***” and their story was “total bollocks” and that he would be willing to call off the lawyers if there was a retraction. But I can only speak for myself.

I’ll keep this short and sweet, with just three of my many interactions with Bates included.

My first run-in with him was in 1999, when he was a witness in a court case that was trying to determine whether the TV deals in place at the time between the Premier League, Sky TV and the BBC were illegal.

As my report for The Independent at the time said: “The Office of Fair Trading maintains that the deals - which forbid the clubs from making individual television deals with broadcasters - are not in the public interest and that the public should have a wider choice of televised football.”

Bates made headlines by testifying, in effect, that nobody was too poor to afford a Sky TV subscription, and this story led the back page of The Independent the next day with the headline “Bates dismisses football’s poor.”

A few days later, a chunky letter arrived at the desk of my sports editor, Paul Newman, from Carter Ruck, arguably the most infamous legal firm working for some of the world’s dodgiest folk in all walks of life. Carter Ruck were Ken Bates’s go-to law firm, and, typically, a letter from them would often lead to a swift apology, and perhaps a few quid of damages.

Bates’s case against me and The Independent was that he hadn’t “dismissed” football’s poor fans. Actually, he had. He had said: "Poverty among football fans is greatly exaggerated … "[poor fans are] such a minority that it's not worth taking into consideration."

I had written my report from that day’s hearing based on my shorthand notes. I was confident I had accurately reported what Bates had said.

My editor, Paul, asked if we could get a transcript of that day’s hearing to back up my story, and it cost about £200, but we got it. And it vindicated my report, and Carter Ruck backed off without a whimper.

My next big run-in with Ken was when he bought Leeds United in 2005. I went to his “unveiling” press conference and wrote: “As Ken Bates took his public bow as the new chairman and co-owner of Leeds United yesterday, he invoked Cilla Black’s famous catchphrase to tell the ailing club’s fans: ‘We’re gonna have a lorra lorra laughs.’ On the evidence of a combative, tetchy and thoroughly unenlightening press conference, his reign threatens to be about as amusing as a punch in the face.”

Later that day, I was walking around Elland Road, trying to gauge the opinions of Leeds fans about Bates taking over, when Ken, in his office, saw me through his window. First he invited me, in a loud voice, to “fuck the fuck off”, and then he sent a security guard to escort me off the premises.

Our next encounter was many years later, after I wrote a piece in the Mail on Sunday that made a glancing reference to the fact that Chelsea were in serious financial trouble at the point at which Bates decided to sell the club to Roman Abramovich in summer 2003.

It was about 8.30am on the Sunday morning that my story appeared that Bates called me on my mobile from his home in Monaco to scream at me that my story was libellous and untrue. I let him vent his spleen for a full minute or thereabouts, and then told him that if he had problem with my story, he should call Carter Ruck.

I can’t now recall the precise the details of that call, but I then started chatting to him about some football matter, swapping gossip about another Premier League football club owner. We were on the phone for more than half an hour. The call ended with Bates saying he wouldn’t take the matter further but I shouldn’t repeat that he’d been forced to sell. (Which he had).

And that was that. The last time I spoke to Bates was maybe eight or nine years ago. He left me a message saying a journalist had requested an interview and his wife, Suzannah, wanted to check this person was “legit” before hosting them for lunch.

The journalist was legit. Ken wasn’t always. But RIP a huge figure in English football.