“PARK anywhere,” drawled the steward. “There’s plenty of room.” Being neither too up nor too down about things is the Yorkshire way but you wonder how much a football club and its public can take. “We’re shattered,” said Ray Fell, head of the Leeds United supporters association, regarding the 15-point deduction handed his team by the Football League. “Then again, at the moment, we’re shattered every day.”

Elland Road was poignant in its desertedness yesterday, unoccupied seats painting its tall stands sad blue, dry dust blowing across the wide, empty car park. Even the prospect of a demonstration against The Beard, Ken Bates, the chairman who has presided over this new nadir in the club’s history, failed to draw the numbers to Elland Road. Bates, an old hand at being public enemy, knew not to show at the stadium. He was at home in Monte Carlo. The demo never happened. The songs from those faithful who did gird themselves sufficiently to gather in the Don Revie Stand were, at the beginning, hymns of comfort: “Marching on Together” was repeated, so too “Super Leeds.”

But as the game wore on and fans became emboldened, amid the many quiet stretches of a suitably miserable friendly match, dissent broke out. At Bates, manager Dennis Wise, and Gus Poyet, his assistant, they sang “Get the Chelsea out of Leeds.” At just the chairman himself the chant was “Bates out.”

Bates is to appeal against the points deduction – and with the League’s other 71 clubs to vote on Leeds’ fate the prospects may not be good – yet even if the penalty is reduced it is unlikely to be to fewer than 10 points. Promotion back to the Championship appears impossible. Not impossible, is relegation from a division where 50 points is the testing benchmark for survival. Leeds United in League Two?

Even now, no one has really worked out Bates’s gameplan but it will not involve losing money. Locally, it is suggested that, with Leeds’ debts wiped out as a result of the controversial deal that took the club out of administration, and costs stripped back, The Beard can now look forward to a profit next year running into the millions. Any notions of selling up would have been dented by the League’s sanction, taken because of Leeds’ failure to agree a Company Voluntary Agreement with their 1300 or so creditors.

At least, having got their League share back, Leeds can access funds raised by selling David Healy and Robbie Blake and Wise predicted a “busy week.” He has seven days before the season starts to try and resign David Prutton and yesterday’s captain, Alan Thompson. He was bouyed by spirit shown here.

Jason Koumas, with a lovely left foot shot, put Wigan ahead but the impressive Jermaine Beckford levelled and Leeds went close to a second equaliser after Koumas, with a free kick, restored Wigan’s lead. “We need 105 points, now, to win the league and we’ve got to get on with it,” Wise said. “I feel for the fans but I also feel for Batesy, he’s stuck his neck on the line for this club.” A supporter told him “You’re not welcome here” and Wise stopped to confront him.

“Unfortunately you’ve got me,” Wise said.

Star man: Jason Koumas(Wigan)

Leeds:Loach, Gardner, Marques, Parker, Lewis, Douglas (Weston 76min), Prutton (Bayly 76min), Thompson (Howson 76min), Westlake (Carole 76min), Beckford, Kandol (Elliot 76min)

Wigan:Kirkland, Melchiot, Kilbane, Brown, Granquist, Bramble, Valencia, Landzaat, Heskey, Koumas, Agahowa

Scorers: Leeds:Beckford 54

Wigan:Koumas 44, 69