Be Careful What You Wish For (19 page)

After a run of four straight defeats, Trevor took control of his first game against Kevin Keegan’s Manchester City, one of the sides he himself had played for, the League’s stand-out team. He was given a rousing reception by the fans and we produced a very good performance, winning 2–1.

Our next game was Birmingham City away. Trevor was looking forward to returning to his old stomping ground and I wanted to win the game to give Bruce and Birmingham the finger.

Following my derisory comments about Birmingham, the West Midlands police asked if I required a police escort. Typically I just laughed it off and said no. When I arrived at Birmingham I began to rue that decision, given the abuse levelled at me in the car park outside the ground. I went into the stadium quickly, as I wanted to go into the dressing room and wish the players luck.

To get to the dressing room I had to walk through the stadium and down the concourse in front of the Birmingham supporters. On the way there were howls of abuse but fortunately it was half empty. But on the way back it was full, and upon seeing me they surged forward, trying to get at me. Stewards dived in from everywhere to stop the surging fans getting over the barriers. I smirked over at the Birmingham fans, who then covered me in spit and punches were swung over stewards narrowly missing me.

Undeterred I took my seat unfazed by all of this and for ninety minutes all I heard was, ‘Simon Jordan is a wanker, is a wanker.’
It
made me laugh and I have to admit it is quite surreal listening to 20,000 strangers singing abuse at you.

Typically, rather than uphold their chairman’s honour, the team put out a particularly inept performance and lost 1–0.

Despite my indifference to boardrooms, I went into Birmingham’s and was greeted by David Sullivan, who after some small talk announced quite loudly that he had a question he had been meaning to ask me. ‘Are you gay?’

Clearly Sullivan meant that as an insult. So I responded, ‘Why? Do you fancy a crack at me?’

I laughed it off but was seething inside.

Within six months they had called me a liar, disrupted my football club by trying to poach my manager for nothing, and now for their own amusement were making comments designed to insult me.

Despite a brilliant start after Trevor came in, the campaign became an anti-climax.

There were no real highs. After Bruce departed, we fell down the league from being top to mid-table obscurity by the end of the season. I supported Trevor by buying Kit Symons and Danny Granville. As the season really started to tail off – and despite grave reservations – I spent £2.25 million on Ade Akinbiyi from Leicester to try to reignite it, but it was in vain.

Initially I had flatly refused to sign Akinbiyi for weeks and when I say flatly I do mean flatly. But Trevor kept on and on and got what he wanted.

Despite his quirks, I genuinely wanted Trevor to succeed, but I had a nagging doubt that he was going to struggle. He was stubborn in everything he did and even when he was clearly wrong he would be bloody-minded about it.

Trevor laboured through the year and the fans became a little disillusioned with him. There were disagreements between Kember, Bullivant and Francis. Things were not harmonious.

As well as being disappointed personally by the manner in which the team was performing I was genuinely disappointed for the fans. I was desperate to give them a team they could be proud of. The team’s lacklustre performances were demoralising, especially when we played away, for people who had travelled the length and breadth of the country and spent fortunes supporting their team. I had earlier refunded fans in a particular match for an abhorrent display away to Barnsley, but clearly I couldn’t keep on doing that.

I remember one game against Reading in particular. The team’s performance had been abject and I stormed out of the ground in a fit of pique straight after the final whistle. For some reason I was driving myself that day, and as I hurtled out of the car park, I saw a Palace fan on crutches hobbling down the road. I had seen him at Selhurst Park as I often walked around the stadium before games, checking on the performances of my staff in different areas and speaking to the fans. He always sat in the section of the stadium reserved for disabled supporters.

I pulled over, buzzed the window down and asked the young man where he was going. He peered into the window of this shiny black Mercedes and was clearly gobsmacked to find that the enquiry came from his club’s chairman. After he recovered his senses, he told me that he was going to the train station to travel back to London.

‘Get in, let me give you a lift.’

I drove back to London, talking to this young man. His name was David Pinner, and he told me about how much he loved his football club and how he went to every game. He told me about
his
life and what he suffered from. The poignancy of this really hit me: here was a young man who struggled with serious afflictions, yet he got on with his life in such a positive way, and his football team meant so much to him. On the other hand, I had a group of young footballers who had everything, but who couldn’t be bothered to lift a leg. At that moment I was so angry at the players – how dare they not represent this young man properly!

We arrived at London, where he was going to get a train back to Croydon. I drove us to my London home, the Grosvenor House Hotel. I pulled up on the forecourt, hailed David a taxi and made sure this young man got a black cab home. I gave him the money for his fare, as I felt it was the least I could do. Then I made a mental note to ensure we gave young David a parking bay as he had told me with glee he was getting his first disabled car that week.

I also made a note to myself to remind me to tell Trevor and the players of my feelings about how they let people like David down.

In our last few games of the season we were poor and one player stood out in his poorness: Clinton Morrison didn’t lift a leg. My dear friends at Birmingham were suggesting again through the press that they would like to buy Morrison. I knew this was likely to be true as when at Palace Bruce had raved about the ‘Pest’, saying he thought he would be a £10 million player. I spoke with Karren Brady, suggesting I knew how much Bruce fancied the player and what he said his valuation was likely to be, but in the interests of keeping it real, I wanted £5 million for Morrison, subject to them being promoted. I was led to believe that would be acceptable. Of course, with all things Birmingham it turned out to be as clear as mud.

Morrison was of course aware of the interest and was being,
shall
we say, careful with himself, so much so that in one game Trevor substituted him at half-time. Trevor recounted the story to me after the game. Apparently he had exploded at Morrison, who stood up and physically confronted Francis and the manager backed down. At that moment Trevor had the eyes of the dressing room on him but he couldn’t deal with a little pest like Morrison. When Trevor told me this I was disappointed that he felt he could tell me this as if it merited some form of support from me, and I was gobsmacked that he had caused the confrontation and yet when it arrived had been unable to deal with it.

In hindsight, I believe that in a lot of the players’ eyes Trevor had probably lost the dressing room. One of the things you have to appreciate about players is that they are very crafty and work things out very quickly. They know when things are not right and they know how to exploit that.

To make matters even worse, while Palace’s season had faded, my dear friend Theo Paphitis’s Millwall were in the play-offs against Birmingham and Steve Bruce to add insult to injury. The first leg at St Andrews had finished 0–0, making Millwall firm favourites to secure a place in the play-off final.

I went along to the second game with Charles Koppel, the Wimbledon chairman, to support Theo. It was the only time that I ever hoped Millwall would win, as it was the lesser of two evils as far as I was concerned. Birmingham scored in the last minute to win the semi-final through Steve Vickers, a player I had signed with Bruce at Palace on loan.

Theo was crestfallen and the Millwall fans were raging. The scenes inside the ground were frightening, but they were nothing to the scenes outside.

Millwall fans went on the rampage, throwing petrol bombs and setting police horses on fire; it was absolute carnage.

We waited for a while before leaving, but once the Millwall fans spotted me they jumped on the bonnet of the car and tried to smash in the windows to get to me. Fortunately my driver John put his foot down regardless of whether any of them would get injured in the process.

It was 2002 and World Cup year and the Beckhams threw their infamous party.

As it turned out, my now girlfriend Sarah was best mates with Victoria Beckham, so we were cordially invited to this white tie and diamond affair, the biggest on the social calendar and one I most certainly didn’t want to go to.

I had no interest in David Beckham and the media obsession with him and his wife. As far as I was concerned, he was just a footballer. However, I had met his wife Victoria on a number of occasions and thought she was a very funny and pleasant girl. Sarah insisted we went to the party and eventually I agreed.

On the day of the event I was still pissing and moaning about going. The first person I bumped into was Chris Eubank, who I had no intention of talking to. Sarah went up to the house to see Victoria so I was milling around. We had to be driven from the meeting room to the marquee and I got to share a car with George Best and his young bride Alex, who I was to meet in two years’ time in very different circumstances.

To be fair it was a fabulous event and full of very interesting people. My mood lifted when I looked at the seating plan and discovered I was sitting with the actor Ray Winstone. To my disbelief I was also on the same table as Steve Bruce, but fortunately he didn’t show up.

I got on famously with Ray Winstone, who was a big West Ham fan. He was with his best mate Richard Maher, who had sold the
Beckhams
the house that became known as Beckingham Palace. Both Ray and Richard were to become very good friends.

All of the England team were obviously there as well as Sven-Göran Eriksson and Nancy Dell’Olio.

The whole afternoon was spent getting very drunk and in the evening the auction came round, which was conducted by Graham Norton. I looked through the auction list for something I might like and saw a one-hour golf lesson with Nick Faldo and decided on that for my brother, as he was mad keen on golf.

Lot after lot came up and Ray Winstone spent £7,000 on a massive bottle of champagne signed by the whole Manchester United team.

When the golf lesson eventually came up I told Sarah to bid for it. I was bidding against Jamie Oliver and the DJ Goldie and I had now decided come what may I was going to have it. Within five minutes the bidding was up to £20,000 and Ray told me to leave it while Victoria Beckham looked over at Sarah as if to say, ‘What are you doing?’

But I was going to have it, and eventually I did, with a winning bid of £37,500.

Well, it was for a good cause because the money raised went to a children’s charity.

The rest of the evening passed in a drunken blur. I do remember talking in great length to Sean Bean about his beloved Sheffield United, which he had just invested money into – of course, ‘invested’ is football parlance for giving away or losing, as I told him with great aplomb.

I also had a conversation with Dwight Yorke, who knew Sarah very well. He was one of the best men at her wedding to Bosnich. Why was it, I asked Yorke, that when there were so many extremely wealthy footballers in the room not one of them had put their hand
up
once for anything during the auction? Yorke blathered about not having as much money as chairmen. As I got to know Dwight over the years I came to realise that was his stock in trade: blathering.

Ironically, despite my paying an extortionate amount for this golf day, my brother never had it. When my secretary contacted Faldo’s secretary to arrange the lesson, he was extremely noncommittal on dates. Over a period of about nine months she tried to arrange this day until in the end my patience snapped.

I wrote Faldo a letter telling him that if he didn’t want to do something he shouldn’t commit to it. I also told him I had paid the money and it had gone to a good cause, but as far as I was concerned fuck his one-hour golf lesson. Mind you, given his rapidly declining form he probably needed it more himself.

He wrote me some flaky letter back but I leaked the story to the press, who did a number on Faldo. Quite right for someone who, to my mind, had acted in a mean-spirited way.

As my second eventful season drew to a close I found myself again in reflective mood; I was beginning to come to the conclusion that football was not what I thought it was.

When I had PPS it was all about challenges and achievements and doing it together. In football, the exact opposite applied. It was an environment based upon liberties, lies and disrespect.

The very people who should be supporting you would often be working against you. I wanted to build this football club to be a unit that was all for one and one for all.

What I learned was that it was indeed ‘all for one and then fuck all for me’, and the chairman’s role firstly was to put his hand in his pocket, then to be a shoulder to cry on when things were not going right. And when things were going well? Then a chairman was someone to be marginalised or even disrespected.

I appeared to spend most of my time in conflict with managers, other clubs, the authorities, players and agents. All of these factions seemed at one time or another to conspire to work against me.

But – and it was a big but – I had taken on a challenge. I was not one of these fair-weather owners. In the two years I had owned the club I had missed only one competitive match and in my entire tenure of nearly 500 competitive games I missed less than ten.

I took on every battle. I backed everybody and what I got in return was to be called Mr Chairman, not much of a trade-off really but that was football for you.