Screen Break
Ken Bates, meat pies, and Channel M - the eyes and ears of Manchester
|
|
One is so used to seeing Ken Bates as he looks now - like Colonel Sanders from the fried chicken shops - that it comes as something of a shock when he crops up on screen as he was in the 1960s, with a mop of lustrous brown hair, no beard, and looking sharp in one of those overcoats that were standard issue for football club chairmen in those days.
Ken Bates, the early years, were featured in a programme called The History of Football in Manchester on Channel M, whose ownership, I believe I am obliged to mention, is not unconnected with the people who pick up the tab for these weekly outpourings. Not that this means I shall be uncritical of its output. But what can I say? It is all about my hometown, Manchester. What, in the modern parlance, is not to love?
The channel, available on Sky even to viewers outside Manchester, provides a unique view of the world, as seen from the bottom end of Market Street; and given that London already has a number of specialist television channels giving its point of view – BBC1, BBC2, and Channel Four, for instance – that is a welcome development. The worst I can say is that some of you may find Channel M’s programming a little Mancocentric, to coin a word. Also, some of the studio-based programmes look like they might benefit from the lavish budgets available to campus television; although I suppose when you have some of Britain’s top semi-humorous sports columns to bankroll, there cannot be much left over to spend on fripperies like lighting and make-up.
I was first drawn to Channel M by comedy character Frank Sidebottom, the idiot savant with a big papier mache head, who presents a regular show, and whose work I have admired since I heard him interview the well-nourished Liberal MP Cyril Smith after a couple of Liberal by-election victories. Frank’s opening question was: “How do you get on with those all-night sittings? Do you take sandwiches?”
From Sidebottom it is but a short hop to another vaguely preposterous figure still plying his trade on the outer fringes of his business. The History of Football in Manchester covered Ken Bates’s first foray into the sport, when he bought an ambitious Oldham Athletic, arriving as Chairman in December 1965, establishing his unique style: “In the following February, he decided he wanted to change the secretary of the club,” recalled former assistant secretary Bernard Halford, “He walked in on a match day morning at ten to nine in his long black coat with a big bunch of keys. He threw them across the office, and said, ‘There you are Bernard, it’s all yours now.’ It was the first I had heard about it.”
Former player and manager Jimmy Frizzell offered further insights into the Bates modus operandi: “He called me into his office and said, ‘you know that five-pound loyalty bonus I wouldn’t give you, well I think you’ve had an excellent season,’ and he handed me an envelope with 50 weeks at a fiver in it, cash. So I really liked him as a Chairman.
“He did many things people never gave him credit for, and I’m sure that’s the same thing where he is now,” a statement that may evince a wry smile from Leeds United fans, especially those who suggested they put up an electrified fence to keep Ken Bates out.
“He fell out with the Oldham public,” said Halford (Ken Bates? Surely not.) “He brought out a newspaper called the Boundary Bulletin, and then put sixpence on the admission price, and everybody coming into the ground was given one of the papers.” The game was finally up for Bates, said Frizzell, when he wrote an article in the Oldham Chronicle calling the fans “the lambs of Sheepfoot Lane.”
“They never forgave him for that,” said Frizzell, “That’s why he decided to get out, because he was never going to win any friends here again.”
Quite apart from the Bates episode, Oldham’s history was fascinating. Oldham journalist Tony Bugby charted the club’s early years, ruing the team’s failure by a single point to capture the league title in 1914-15: “The First World War came at a bad time for Oldham,” he said. Yes, not a great time for some of those more directly involved in the hostilities, either.
Maybe the fans at Oldham would not have taken against Bates quite so readily if his Boundary Bulletin had replaced the Chairman’s rants with features about the players’ favourite food, film, and so on. I know it is usually curry and Rocky, but it is always entertaining, as proven by the captions listing players’ preferences as they came out to bat in Saturday’s thrilling 20-20 cricket.
The Person I Would Most Like To Meet section offered some interesting contrasts, with one player choosing Nelson Mandela, and the next, David Jason. Kent’s Robert Key, who likes The Office and Chinese food, said he would most like to meet Frank Sinatra. Not until you are given out by the ultimate umpire, Robert.
Finally, I missed yesterday’s Community Shield, I am afraid, catching up on some Channel M news, which included a fascinating feature on the Lancashire Foot, a beef-filled delicacy from Rochdale which looks a little like a Cornish pasty, but with the pastry shaped like a shoe. If you can find me a channel providing more up-to-the-minute meat pie news than this, I am there.
