BACK in July, I found myself wondering if Ken Bates’ diary of the season which climaxed with his darling Blues clinching promotion at home to that nasty Leeds United really stacked up against one of the more influential works of his chosen genre.

The publishers (Chelsea Football Club) clearly thought so, for the 244-page paperback pictured to the right retailed at eight quid back in 1984. In today’s terms, that’s a few pieces of silver shy of a crisp twenty pound note.

I’ve acquired a cheap, forlornly under-thumbed second half copy of the out-of-print “Chelsea… My Year”, and to breathe new life into this dainty tome in its 25th anniversary year, I’m going to read it so you don’t have to.

So polish your bottle-bottom specs, have a case of Pouilly-Fumé brought up from the cellar and join us on Twitter over the coming days as we discover what was on the Chairman’s mind all those years ago.

Don’t tweet? Fear not, I’ll post the lot up here once this sorry escapade’s over.

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IN THE absence of flavour, last night’s pre-match pie offered me only this: when two worlds collide expect the unexpected. Deep within its crusts, a clash of its constituent ingredients had left vegetable the unlikely victor over animal. Who’s ever actually asked for a potato & meat pie, for goodness sake? Craft 0-1 Cash. Not so unexpected after all, then.

Up in the stands, two worlds collided for a young chap perched nearby, as he excitedly witnessed at first-hand the Premier League gods and godlets with whom he’s on first-name terms. But this wasn’t like in the adverts. He saw their faces contorted by the heat of Elland Road’s breath. He watched them toil and sweat; all-red strips glistening as if each were flayed of their skin down to blood and sinew, revealing themselves to be humiliatingly human.

Meanwhile, his Leeds United charges were enamelled in all-white, seemingly impervious to pain and fatigue. With senses flooded by a raucous, undulating sea of chest-beating fists, for one utopic hour he could believe that the sort of shellacking which has had our 3rd Division peers pleading for mercy might just do the same to Liverpool. Y’know, them off the telly.

But who would wish to chase boyhood dreams through the distortion of a lens? Far better to fail in the flesh than to prevail by proxy.

And so it went. Ably abetted by Crowe, Snodgrass set about making the right flank his own, and when he delivered for a combination of Michalik and/or Beckford and/or Becchio to net early on for Leeds, it seemed too good to be true. And it was, according to a linesman’s flag.

At the other end, Kisnorbo backed Michalik to defy himself and form a partnership of solid steel. This was no rearguard action however, and only occasionally did Howson and Doyle find no answer to Liverpool’s midfield searching, when Higgs had to repel Babel and Riera.

After the break, with Becchio a spearhead, Leeds continued to impress with the ball on the deck – though it was from a Higgs punt that Beckford began to get the better of his inner demons but not quite Cavalieri in the Liverpool goal.

Then the moment which meant the Scouse numbers wouldn’t spend their whole evening standing in gobsmacked awe: two priceless N’Gog touches and a goal. Craft 0-1 Cash. Not so unexpected after all, then. Yet oddly rather satisfying, just like that pie.

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THE BENCHMARK they surpassed recently may have belonged to Don Revie and those eleven names that still roll from fans’ tongues, but parallels between this season’s Leeds United are more readily made with that of 2007/08. Right now, Simon Grayson’s side is a more invincible mix of guile and determination than that of Dennis Wise – but without Dennis Wise, which is an obvious bonus.

Even at the time, the flyer that Wise (and Gus Poyet) got off to in 2007 – as Newcastle United (and Tottenham Hotspur) were soon to discover – seemed more to do with Elland Road’s intoxicating brand of hysteria than managerial nouse. It couldn’t last, and it didn’t.

To me, Dennis Wise’s face – bobbling around, a doodle on a deflating balloon full of farts – only seemed to fit because it’d be sure to smile as the club’s finances embarked on a Donald Crowhurst-esque meander on the high seas to the Caribbean and back.

Two years on, and Leeds United remains a murky mix of money and mediocrity. Yet, with even the embers of indignation at the perceived injustice long since forgotten, Simon Grayson still masters mesmerising form from his men.

Since Boxing Day last year, when he pitted that first line up against the club for whom he made his most appearances, Leeds United have been on the road to becoming the sort of title contenders Leicester City so obviously were that day.

It’s exciting, but it’s early. At Chelsea, around the time the words “Chelsea Village” became a byword for either genius or psychosis (delete as applicable), Ken Bates shifted from trusting older managers to taking short-lived punts on the promise of younger, more impressionable characters. Funnily enough, he maintained a direct line to all of his appointments via a chap by the name of Gwyn Williams.

In 19 years at Stamford Bridge, Bates averaged a managerial sacking roughly every two years. In attempting to reinstall Leeds United to the second division, where it was when he became chairman in 2005, that rate has doubled.

Both Kevin Blackwell and Dennis Wise floundered in their second year under Bates. Gary McAllister didn’t even get that far. In November last year, McAllister was just four games from three words which simply don’t belong in the same sentence: Shaun Harvey’s wrath.

There’s a memorable scene in David Mamet’s film Glengarry Glen Ross in which Alec Baldwin (bear with me here) plays a character who’s sent from head office to motivate a bunch of underlings. It’s not saying much, but that bollocking is the performance of Baldwin’s life, and what Shaun Harvey delivered was nothing like it – though in his mind I suspect he believes it was.

But mediocrity’s just what happens when you surround yourself with solicitors and arse-coverers like him. And long may Simon Grayson keep it at bay.

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WHILE following the story of Austria Salzburg these last four years, our pals at Fanclub Absolut have been an indispensable source of news and inspiration.

Formed in 1994, Absolut are amongst the oldest of twenty or so such groups which made up the 1,000 souls that walked out on their bastardised football club in 2005 to form the backbone of a new, real one.

Twice, they have generously accommodated our ill-advised attempts to survive a whole weekend in Salzburg on an authentic Austrian diet of beer, cabbage and extruded meat products.

They have introduced us to the club’s countless colourful characters as well as some quaint local customs, such as disgustedly throwing pints of red wine and coke into a bush because – unlike the mighty Stiegl – it’s “un-Austrian”.

So when they asked for assistance in designing a brand new banner a few weeks ago, it was the very least I could do. As if to prove there’s more than just Gill Sans in the type drawer (more on Eric Gill some other time – let’s save him for a rainy day), they now have a new logo as well.

I say “new”; if you don’t mention it to Arthur Guinness, neither will I. It received its first airing at top-of-the-table Austria Salzburg’s second five-goal haul of the season a fortnight ago against Hallwang, which just happened to precede another at Piesendorf last weekend. Now’s not really the time to bring up the 3rd round Landescup loss to St. Johann, so better luck in the league against FC Zell am See tomorrow, lads.

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