One of the main pillars of support for the Ken Bates regime at Leeds United comes in the well worn phrase: ‘At least he runs the club like a business.’

While most businessmen I come into contact with would probably think twice about libeling a rival in print, I’m willing for the purposes of this piece to put such issues down to the chairman’s somewhat irascible nature.

Instead, let’s look at how ticketing is run at the club on a practical level with a very recent case study.

This morning, a contact of mine who had vowed to not renew his membership this year had a change of heart.

His thinking was pretty simple and, I imagine was on these lines: ‘Why should I let my distaste of Ken Bates and his running of the club ruin my enjoyment of what, on the pitch at least, is turning into a special season.’

He called the Ticket Office for advice on how to renew.

The office voicemail was still spurting out – at 9p a minute ‘plus network charges’ – the Christmas opening hours this morning at 10am… more than 24 hours after it should have been business as usual.

My friend then emailed the ticket office asking for direction but got the usual ‘due to the number of emails we cannot respond individually’ response.

An hour later, he called again, finally got through and was directed to a page on the club website where he could purchase the membership online – which he did.

All’s well that ends well, right? Wrong!

Three hours later he received the following email reply from the ticket office:

‘Dear XXXX,

Thank you for your email.

Our phone lines are not on voicemail however we are busy so there could be a waiting time. You cannot purchase membership online, it has to be done either my downloading the online application form and posting it or faxing.

If you would like us to send you an application in the post please send your address details and we will do this for you.

Regards,

Leeds United Ticket Office’

Let’s excuse the spelling mistake – though we’d expect a professional business to read or spell check emails before sending and say the following:

The ticket office voicemail DEFINITELY had the Christmas message still playing this morning.

One member of the ticket office said verbally that membership can be purchased online, the email says it can’t.

The club already has my friend’s email address. It is on record on the database as the one where they send him all the other tickets he has bought over the years. The ticket office staff should know this as he quoted his ‘customer number’ in his email and on the telephone.

Other than that, a professional ticketing service – thanks Mr Bates for sorting it out for us.

* except when he doesn’t