Self-made saviour experienced in art of brewing up a storm

SOCCER: At 73 years of age, the former Chelsea chairman has taken on a project of massive proportions. What can Leeds fans expect?

It always seemed unlikely that Ken Bates - builders' merchant, cattle-trader and football chairman - would stay retired. In his 22 years at Chelsea he acquired a reputation as a restless, outspoken and ruthless character.

He left Stamford Bridge less than 12 months after Roman Abramovich took over the club and brought his oil billions to the club. But, as he disappeared into the Monte Carlo sunset with his £16,999,999 profit, the suspicion remained that he would soon come trotting back, wagging his finger and saying: "And another thing . . . "

Leeds fans will hope he can bring about the kind of change at Elland Road he achieved at Chelsea, which he bought for £1 and turned into the kind of international multi-media machine billionaire Russian oligarchs find irresistible.

When he arrived in 1982, Chelsea faced debts of £1.5million and a drop into the old Third Division.

Bates sold players, cut directors' perks and put the club back on the road to recovery. He fought off efforts to force Chelsea out of their Stamford Bridge ground and stood up to a hooligan problem. He has admitted he received hate mail from racist "fans" of the club for daring to sign black players.

Exuberant and arrogant by his own admission, Bates once said: "I put in 70 hours a week, and quite honestly, Chelsea could not pay me what I am worth."

It is the attitude of the self-made millionaire who worked his way to the top from humble beginnings in Ealing. Ready-mix concrete first made him a rich man, then he pursued varied business interests abroad, in the Caribbean, Australia and South Africa. On his return to Britain, he set up a 300-strong cattle herd at a Beaconsfield farm.

In 1985, he wanted to install electric fences to control crowd trouble at Stamford Bridge - reasoning that it worked to control his herd - but the Greater London Council quashed the idea.

He ran into more controversy in 1991 when it was alleged Chelsea made illegal payments to players, and the club were fined £105,000.

He resigned from the English Football League management committee 18 days later but the following year secured ownership of Stamford Bridge and set in motion the development of the ground as it is today.

Bates has also got into hot water politically - he hit out at the British government over their involvement in the rebuilding of Wembley Stadium.

The emergence of Chelsea as a force in the Premiership cannot be solely credited to Bates - the late businessman Matthew Harding also poured cash into the club and the pair never really saw eye to eye before Harding's death in a helicopter crash.

His critics will point to the fact that Chelsea were in dire straits when Abramovich arrived, apparently from the fairy godmother school of football ownership.

The Russian is believed to have shelled out £80 million just to settle the club's debts, built up by the development of Stamford Bridge into a hotel and leisure complex and relatively extravagant expenditure on players.

Bates, however, would retort that it was precisely because he had spent so much money on developing the Chelsea Village that Abramovich chose Chelsea over the likes of Arsenal or Tottenham.

Following Abramovich's takeover, Bates slipped further and further out of the picture as the cameras focused on the Russian billionaire beaming and clapping from the Stamford Bridge executive box.

The decision to bring in new chief executive Peter Kenyon marginalised Bates further, to the point that his infamous programme notes - a platform for his many rants about incompetent journalists, shoddy administration in the game and anyone or anything else that got on his nerves - were ditched as Kenyon looked to clean up the Chelsea product. Bates said he could "shove it".

And, on a day when Chelsea completed the signing of Arjen Robben and took their spending towards £140 million since Abramovich took control, he walked out.

He has walked back into the game, however, and West Yorkshire is unlikely to have seen anything like him.