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Everyone seems to be getting worked up over the ownership of Elland Road.

Once again there’s plenty of smoke but no fire.

Leeds United confirmed today that Elland Road is still owned by Teak Commercial Limited.

Ken Bates spoke to the YEP,

“The allegation that we’ve bought back the ground is absolute rubbish. The long and short of this is that we haven’t bought the ground back and we don’t own it. The ownership hasn’t changed at all.”

Elland Road and Thorp Arch were sold off by Gerald Krasner in 2004 to try and avoid administration, before Ken Bates took over. Doubtless Ken and the board of Leeds United 2007 Ltd would love to re-acquire the properties, and currently they have the have a right to do so, but the cost was recently quoted, by Bates himself, at £19,142,806. So the League One club must continue to pay £2m in rent annually.

Shaun Harvey, United’s chief executive, said,

“We do have an option to buy Elland Road and Thorp Arch back, but we have not as yet exercised that option. We still intend to do so at the earliest opportunity but the situation is as it was.”

The interest in the fate of Elland Road seems tied to the fact that the owners, Teak Commercial Limited are registered in the British Virgin islands and, therefore, the details of the owners of the company are confidential and protected by law - it is a criminal offence to reveal the shareholders of such a BVI company. Once you tell someone they can’t know something ,that’s all they seem interested in!

Take a look in shop window of Leeds estate agents’ Manning Stainton and you’ll see a piece of Leeds United history is up for sale. Don Revie’s house, which he had built and named “Offside” is up for sale for the first time in thirty years.

The sale is being handled by the agents’ Fine & Country division, of course, as the substantial brick-built detached house resides in one of North Leeds’ finest locations, Sandmoor Drive, Alwoodley.

It comes with a price tag to match - £850,000 - but still substantially less than the £5 million residence that former Leeds United manager David O’Leary had constructed during his time at Elland Road.

The great Don only lived there between 1973 and 1977 but it would be nice if it went to a, well-heeled, Leeds United fan

While in one part of Leeds a piece of Revie memorabilia is up for sale, in another part, a Revie memento of the great man has been stolen.

Elland Road’s West Stand reception suffered a break-in on Saturday evening and a 1950’s England shirt worn by the great Don Revie was stolen by bottom-feeding scum.

The stolen shirt was one that Revie wore whilst playing for England against the Irish in the 1954-55 season. The shirt is distinctive; today we would consider it looking more like a polo shirt; it is white with short sleeves, pointed collars and three buttons up to the neck. It has the obvious three-lions English FA crest on the left breast, underneath which the year of the match appears in red-thread embroidery.

The club is asking that anyone with information to contact Colin Lockwood on 0113 367 6129.

It is clear that Leeds Utd have messed up badly in the sale of tickets to those who queued at Elland Road overnight.

The club and police allowed the overnighters to be displaced by latecomers who pushed into the queue this morning. As usual, the police and club wrung their collective hands and did nothing constructive and allowed the genuine fans to lose out the selfish, “me-first” parasites who are such a prevalent party of the welfare society in the country. Understandably, there were ugly scenes when the “sold out ” signs went up.

It is incredible that the club were unable to fairly distribute the tickets in the 21st century. They could have spent £50 on cloakroom tickets and handed them out to the overnighters, thus preventing anyone buying a ticket the following day until all such tickets had been redeemed at the ticket office. What’s up? Too difficult to think of? Couldn’t find an employee willing to spend overnight with the REAL fans handing out the tickets?

While we support Ken Bates on this site wholeheartedly, we have to say that on this occasion he, or his staff, screwed up big time and it is not the sort of mistake that is quickly forgiven, especially by parents whose offspring lost out on a chance to see the Whites at Wembley. He owes those who lost out a public apology - over to you Ken…

As a sop the club have announced that the Conference and Exhibition Centre at Elland Road will be open to show the game live on big screens. Not much consolation for the genuine fan screwed by the behaviour of the shameless minority.