Baroness Thatcher.....

Gosh what a week it's been....Northern Rock and the Government stepping in to bale out a failing company.....with my money. The Liberal Democrat Conference. Held somewhere nice, I'm sure...and did they make some promises? And then someone probably said something they shouldn't have....

And who has the time to attend political conferences anyway?

More importantly Aldershot Town beat York City, the self proclaimed 'Arsenal of the Conference' 2v0 on Tuesday evening.

A competent performance against a well organised and determined team. Aldershot showing more composure in the second half with the introduction of Newman. And Elvins , just maybe, heading for cult status alongside the greats of Jack Howarth, Giorgio Mazzon and Darren Anderson.

But I guess the big news story of the week was, Jose Mourinho leaving Chelsea.

Now to be honest I don't have any time for Chelsea and I certainly never regarded Mourinho as 'the special one'. But the circumstances that led to his demise are fascinating....and they can be traced back to a day more than 23 years ago.

On December 17th 1984 John Cole , BBC, asked Margaret Thatcher.
'Does meeting Gorbachev , make you more optimistic or less regarding detente and world peace next year? Prime Minister'.

'I am cautiously optimistic. I like Mr. Gorbachev . We can do business together.'

The television interview with Thatcher was recorded just three months before Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union. An interview that was to be the start of a move by the West back to a new detente with the USSR under Gorbachev’s leadership. A leadership that ultimately coincided with the final erosion of Soviet power, prior to its eventual collapse in 1991.

But Margaret Thatcher did more than change the political landscape of Britain, she changed the landscape.

Tom Jones had a hit in 1965 with, Green Green Grass of Home. And this just a couple of years after he was the frontman for Tommy Scott and the Senators, a local beat group who performed regularly at the Pontypridd YMCA.

The Rhondda, Cynon and Taf Ely Valley's had been brown with industrial waste and surrounded by coal tips for well over one hundred years. And Tom Jones' birthplace no more than a few miles from Aberfan where, at 9.15am on 21 October 1966, 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a tip of coal waste slid onto the village.

Green Green Grass of Home. Not for the poor children of Aberfan.

The confrontational strikes carried out by the National Union of Mineworkers in 1984-85 were followed by the pit closure programme....the rest is of course history. And the landscape of south Wales is now green.

But back to the Soviet Union.....

Roman Abramovich was born on October 24th 1966. His early years no different to many Russians at the time. Born into a Jewish family, with his paternal grandparents exiled to Siberia. He grew up as an orphan, as his mother died when he was one year old and his father was killed in an accident on a construction site, when he was three years old.

A brief period in the Soviet Army coincided, in 1985, with Gorbachev implementing economic reforms that he hoped would improve living standards and worker productivity, as part of his perestroika programme.

By 1988 Gorbachev gave new freedoms to the people, including freedom of speech, under glasnost. This radical change, that struck at the heart and central control of the government, was the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

As for Roman, well he could smell the oil.

By the late 1980's he had set up a few small private businesses. And between 1992 and 1995 Abramovich founded five companies that specialised in the trading of oil and oil products.

And in 1995, just four years after the collapse of the Soviet Union Abramovich, together with Boris Berezovsky acquired the controlling interest in the oil company, Sibneft....now I'm not going to say any more, other than; it was a very good deal for young Roman.

Then in 2003 Abramovich took control of Chelsea, when Ken Bates sold up.

For a woman who despised football so much, Margaret Thatcher's influence over the game may extend as long as the half life of uranium 238.

Oh yes….Ken Bates now the Chairman of Leeds United. Another club purchased for a £1...well almost. Talk about looking after the pennies and….

Leeds not far from Farsley. Or should that be Farsley not far from Leeds.

I’m sure Farsley Celtic will be a hard working team on Saturday.....