It's the easiest thing to gloat at the demise of a team you have no love for, and I suspect there won't be too many tears shed outside Leeds at the disappearance of Ken Bates and Co into English football's third tier.

The Elland Road chairman's Blue-blooded background doesn't help, of course. The fact that he and those other right royal losers Dennis Wise and Gus Poyet all come from Chelsea stock won't adhere them to many. I've disliked Bates ever since his Stamford Bridge boardroom battles with the late Matthew Harding - and if Sir Alex Ferguson reckons Wise could start a fight in an empty room, then I'm relieved I've never had the pleasure of his company.

While Wise does have his supporters (presumably those with advanced self-defence qualifications), the surly Bates, who has been involved in more bickering over the years than almost anyone, has to go down as one of the least popular chairmen in the game.

One of his Leeds predecessors, Peter Ridsdale, isn't far behind in the unpopularity stakes - certainly in West Yorkshire, where he will forever be public enemy number one for his part in the Elland Road club's financial demise.

There is certainly no love lost between the two men, as was evidenced by Bates's behaviour when Ridsdale, now chairman of Cardiff City, was refused entry to the Leeds boardroom when his team played at Elland Road last autumn. Bates added insult to injury by blasting Ridsdale for having the audacity to stand up and applaud when Willo Flood scored the Bluebirds' late winner. What did he expect the poor guy to do - hunch up in his seat and start sobbing?

Fast forward six-and-a-half months, well beyond Cardiff completing the double over Bates's team - two results that, had they been reversed, would have seen Leeds celebrating a comfortable survival in the Championship. The scenario was this; with two games of the season left, Leeds were one point adrift of the safety zone, with Yorkshire rivals Hull City the team they had to catch if they are to stay up.

The fixture list throws up a bizarre situation, with Ridsdale's Cardiff, their play-off hopes ended by a dismal recent run, entertaining Hull at Ninian Park and Leeds facing mid-table Ipswich at Elland Road. Likely results, you'd think, Leeds to win and Hull perhaps to snatch a point. End product - Leeds out of the bottom three with everything to play for at Derby next week.

Now I'm not being wise after the event, but that was never going to happen. I'm a Cardiff fan and I was so convinced my heroes would lose that I arranged to put a rather large wager on a Hull victory. Now I'm not suggesting for one minute that the result was fixed, but I failed to see how the Bluebirds could possibly be motivated to dig Bates out of a hole.

Add to that Cardiff's recent form and the fact that several key players - including top scorer Michael Chopra - were missing, and I saw a Hull win as inevitable.

Leeds, of course, could have balanced the books by beating Ipswich, whose biggest asset was that as they had nothing to play for, they could express themselves without fear of failure.

We all know what happened on the day. But I wonder if Bates might be rueing that he wasn't just a little bit nicer to Ridsdale and his new charges on that fateful day back in September. Cardiff might just have been motivated to try a bit harder against the Tigers on Saturday.

Still, I'm happy - I've got winnings to collect!

Can Leeds bounce straight back next season? Let Sportingo have your views.