Full chat between Michael Plant of ManchesterWorld and David Bernstein.
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00:00 I'm joined today by David Bernstein, former chairman of Manchester City, and we are here
00:06 to talk about his new book, We Were Really There, The Rebirth of Manchester City, which
00:11 I've got beside me. I finished it last night. Fantastic read, David. I suppose my first
00:18 question for you really is, why have you decided to write the book now, and how did you find
00:23 the experience of writing the book?
00:25 I decided to write it now. I've been asked by quite a few people to write about this
00:31 period, and I did it now I think for a number of reasons. First of all, I think it's a great
00:38 story and I think it's a story worth telling, and I particularly wanted to tell it to the
00:44 younger City fans who probably only remember the days under the Abu Dhabi control of the
00:52 club, which of course has been fantastically successful. But the change that Manchester
00:59 City had to go through to get to where they've got to now, I believe really happened in the
01:05 period I was chair, it started in 1998, when the club at that stage was in a hell of a
01:10 mess, was sort of being left way behind by other clubs, including Manchester United,
01:17 and needed radical change. So the book is about a number of things. I think it's a really
01:21 great story within it. It's about seeing an organisation of that sort from the inside.
01:28 But it's also about change, and about how to change an underperforming institution.
01:33 I mean, City were always a great club, always had great support, but they've been allowed
01:39 to fall way behind. And it was a fascinating challenge to really try and do what needed
01:46 to be done, which laid the groundwork for, in the end, the Abu Dhabi takeover, and this
01:52 fantastic success that we now have.
01:56 And you mentioned that they are just the club that you came into, but describe a little
02:01 bit the circumstances and the situation that you find yourself coming into, because obviously
02:06 within a few months of you becoming chairman, the club were relegated to the third tier,
02:11 the lowest the club had ever been in their history.
02:13 Yeah, absolutely. Well, I was invited onto the board by Franny Lee just after he took
02:21 over the club and became chair. And I worked with him very, very closely for four or five
02:25 years. But unfortunately, things just didn't go very well. And I think Franny had a hell
02:30 of a job to do. And he probably focused on the football side, which itself was a major
02:37 challenge. But the problem was that the club was in a really bad state in all sorts of
02:43 ways. The stadium was becoming very outdated. It didn't have a proper training ground. It
02:50 was unbelievable for a top class sports institution. It didn't have a club store, or it did, but
02:56 it was tiny, about the size of somebody's dining room. Frankly, the management, I don't
03:04 mean the football management, but the general management of the club was below par and so
03:08 on. So it needed really an approach that left no stone unturned, that's the way I can put
03:18 it. We needed a radical approach. It needed things doing, which people were very nervous
03:24 to do, and had been nervous to do, and should have been done before, and done earlier. But
03:29 in a way, the extent to which the club had fallen, as you say, falling into the third
03:34 level of English football for the first time, provided an opportunity. So nervous and so
03:42 concerned that I was given a level of independence and authority, and I was able to get on with
03:48 the job, surrounded by, I have to say, a very, very good team of people that we brought in,
03:52 but get on with the job and do what needed to be done.
03:56 Do you think in an odd way, for yourself, it was almost a slight blessing in disguise
04:01 that the club dropped to the third tier, because as you say, it gave you the opportunity to
04:05 have a bit more of a hands-on approach?
04:07 Yes, I do. I do. I mean, it's a bit of a perverse thing to say, but yes, it provided, I think,
04:14 that opportunity. I think had we stayed in the second level of English football, I think
04:19 there would be more resistance. People would have been a little more complacent. You know,
04:23 vested interests, which always exist in everything, including football, would have maybe prevailed
04:28 more strongly. As it was, there was no opposition, because people could see we had to change
04:34 this club or it was going to really disappear from view.
04:40 And obviously, that first full season that you were in charge as chairman ends with the
04:45 very famous Paul Dickoff goal at Wembley. I mean, my first question is, how many times
04:50 have you been asked about that goal?
04:53 I think about it most days, and I've been asked about it a lot. I mean, without any
04:59 question, I believe that was the most important goal in the club's history. We know about
05:06 Aguero's wonderful goal and all sorts of fantastic things that have happened, but those goals
05:12 didn't really change the club's history. This one did. Had Dickoff not equalised, had
05:17 we not won that match, then I believe the new stadium deal possibly would not have happened.
05:24 And if that doesn't happen, then the Abu Dhabi people don't come in. They wouldn't
05:27 have come into a club still playing at Main Road, and things would have been totally different.
05:32 So, I think that was a watershed moment, that goal. It's an experience certainly I've
05:39 never forgotten. I will never forget it.
05:42 And you said in the book, I think you said a line, something along the lines of, you
05:46 don't know where the club would have gone if they wouldn't have won that game and
05:49 game promotion. But genuinely, where do you think the club would have been if you wouldn't
05:55 have game promotion that season?
05:57 Well, you can't put anything with certainty, but my guess is that certainly if the stadium...
06:04 You see, we needed to inspire confidence in the people we were dealing with, with the
06:10 City Council, with Sport England. And being football, we had to get some success on the
06:14 pitch. If that hadn't happened, I think we would have... I mean, it's still a great
06:21 club. It still had wonderful support and so on. But I think we would have languished and
06:25 been a club that may have got back to the Premier League at some stage. But I think
06:30 we would have been an up and down club, absolutely nowhere near the sort of levels that we've
06:36 reached.
06:39 And there is sometimes a joke in modern football about Manchester City and the Etihad and
06:46 not selling out seats, which isn't true because most games are sold out at the Etihad. But
06:53 when you reflect on the third tier and the fact that City obviously sold out so many
06:59 tickets and you sold so many season tickets in that period, does it sometimes make you
07:03 surprised with these jokes that City don't have a hardcore fan base? It seems a bit ludicrous
07:08 almost.
07:11 The fan support in that year, in the third level, was incredible. We had these big, big
07:18 crowds at Main Road. I think we were the largest away support for virtually every club that
07:27 we played at. I think maybe one of the ones that we weren't, but we took tremendous away
07:31 support with us. And I think what was wonderful was that the atmosphere with the fans, in
07:37 spite of where we were, was very positive. I think we worked really hard at developing
07:43 that relationship. It wasn't something we pretended to do or sort of played at. It was
07:48 absolutely front of mind that we had... I mean, it's in the book, of course, the story
07:53 of Leighton Gobbett, the crying fan who was broke down in tears when we lost to Stoke
08:00 City and got relegated. And I had his photo framed and put on the boardroom table at
08:06 Main Road and said to my board, "This boy is not going to be crying again. That's our
08:11 mission. He and all the other fans we have in the song, they're going to be proud of
08:16 our club." And we worked so hard with the fans and genuinely making them feel that this
08:23 was Manchester City football club, with the emphasis on the word club, with all the meanings
08:28 of what a genuine club is.
08:31 And in that, there was so many aspects that you had to change and some you've mentioned,
08:37 but there were so many in the book that you spoke about, the training ground, the stadium,
08:41 a club shop, a youth system. I mean, you spoke about getting the old boardroom back together.
08:47 There were so many tasks you had to do. I mean, did you approach it knowing that you
08:55 were going to have to take over so many aspects and so many jobs? And did it at any stage
08:59 almost become almost overwhelming how much there was to do?
09:03 No, not really. I mean, the day after we got relegated to the third level, I did a double
09:11 page spread in the Manchester Evening News for a programme for recovery. And we set out,
09:16 I don't know how many, sort of six, seven, eight key areas, some of which you just mentioned.
09:23 It was a programme that we had to get all these things done and done really well to
09:28 get ourselves back. And fans said to me constantly, "That was fabulous you did that. It gave us a bit
09:32 of hope at the worst moment in the club's history." And I think it was that sort of, again,
09:37 that positive-ness, that communication. We were very open and communicating. We didn't hide away.
09:44 We weren't sort of scared of any of the fans or anything. We were open. We invited them in.
09:49 We invited the media in. We felt we just needed to embrace people. So no, I never felt overwhelmed
09:57 by it. I managed to get together a really good team of people. I mean, the two key people were
10:02 Alistair McIntosh and Chris Bird. And they were both absolutely really fabulous young people,
10:10 really committed, worked really, really hard. And we did what we did, including the new stadium deal
10:14 with a tidy team. We had very few people. Looking back, I'm not quite sure how we did it, but we
10:19 did do it. And in fact, maybe having a few people was a blessing because it made things simpler.
10:26 We didn't overcomplicate things. We really focused on what we had to do and we went for it.
10:31 And talk to me then about the new stadium, because obviously it played such a significant role
10:39 in the development of the club. But as you've mentioned,
10:42 the Abu Dhabi investment probably wouldn't have been forthcoming if it wasn't for the new stadium.
10:48 Yeah, well, we were sort of fortunate and we took advantage of the fortune, I think. The
10:54 Commonwealth Games was fixed to be in Manchester. The City Council, Sport England, had the choice of
11:02 putting up a temporary stadium, which would not be very exciting, and possibly taking it down after
11:08 the games had finished, or building a proper long-term stadium. But that needed someone to
11:17 occupy it. And frankly, there was nobody else. There won't be league clubs or whatever that
11:23 just didn't command the attendances for a stadium like that. So we were the only realistic tenant.
11:27 So we played a pretty good hand. We had a weak hand in one way, but a strong hand in another.
11:33 And we from the beginning said, look, yes, we're happy to do this. Clearly we are. But A, it can't
11:38 cost us very much. B, it's got to be a blue stadium. It's got to be something our fans
11:42 recognise as a proper home for City. C, it cannot have an athletics track afterwards. The track has
11:52 to go. We don't want the sort of thing like you have with the Olympic Stadium, where there was a
11:57 track, which makes English football, I think, ruins the atmosphere and so on. And finally,
12:05 we have a stadium at Main Road that could hold 34,000, 36,000. We would only pay a rental
12:12 on the attendance above that number. So if we attracted attendance of 48,000, we'd pay on the
12:20 extra 12, but not all the people. We could have got to Main Road in any case. I mean, it really
12:26 was, if I say so myself, the football stadium deal of all time, I think. - And when you go now to
12:35 the Etihad campus, not even the stadium, but the training ground and the facilities all around
12:39 there, and you see kind of how lavish and how impressive it all is, can you believe it's the
12:46 same football club that you were chairman of just over 20 years ago? - Yeah, well, it's the same
12:52 name and the same colours, but in many ways, it's not the same football club. Of course, it's
12:57 developed. I mean, we took it to a certain stage and we did that new stadium deal. We moved to a
13:05 much, much better training ground, but not like the one they have now. But we took it a certain
13:12 way, but laid the foundations for this. But as you say, what's happened now with City is
13:17 potentially, I think if they have a winning season this season, they could be described probably as
13:26 the best English club of all time. If they win the Premier League or the Champions League, the top
13:31 division four times in a row, that's never happened before. And if they win the Champions
13:35 League twice in a row, which has never happened before by an English club, I think that really
13:40 puts them at the top of the pile. And that's, of course, quite incredible. And although when I was
13:44 at City, I used to say, with Man United way ahead of us in a different galaxy, my ambition would be
13:52 that Manchester becomes the Milan of English football with two great sides. I must say,
13:57 I never really thought we would leave Man United trailing as we have done. So there you are.
14:05 And I mean, a lot happened after you left the club to turn City into the force they are today.
14:13 But how much of a sense of pride do you have that you perhaps maybe helped provide the foundation
14:21 for the club to build on afterwards and for the Abu Dhabi regime to come in and create what they've
14:26 done, certainly in a football sense? Well, this in a way is the reason for writing the book.
14:31 It's a book about change, but it's also, I'd like people, and City fans in particular,
14:36 to recognise that this is when the groundwork was done for this. And I have enormous pride in it.
14:44 I mean, I had pride at the time because whatever happened, we'd taken the club on incredibly. We
14:49 got it back to the Premier League and it was beginning to be quite a force again. But of
14:53 course, given what's now happened, I can't quite believe it. But it's going to be a tremendous
15:00 pride to see City play this week and not just beat Copenhagen, who after all are champions of
15:06 their own country, but absolutely annihilate them. They hardly ever lose possession of the ball and
15:12 play the sort of football they're playing. It really is quite something to see. So yes,
15:16 of course I have great pride. And there are City fans out there,
15:20 certainly of a certain generation, who actually probably look back more fondly on your period and
15:27 your time at the club than even maybe now, and than they do with Guardiola. And hindsight's
15:33 always wonderful. I'm always back with rose-tinted spectacles. But it was a period when you were
15:39 chairman, and even before that, when you were on the board, that it was up and down and there
15:42 were highs and lows. And even in your time as chairman, there were three promotions,
15:46 but there was also two relegations. So how do you look back at a period that,
15:51 although it had many highs, it also had its many lows as well?
15:56 It did, indeed. Well, in my time as chairman, we got three promotions and one relegation.
16:00 But I think you're absolutely right. I think fans of that time look back,
16:06 not just with those tinted glasses. I think the reason probably is that they were closer to the,
16:13 probably closer to the club then. You could get your arms around the club. You could understand
16:19 it. You could understand the numbers. ÂŁ100,000 or half a million pounds was a lot of money.
16:26 Then, you know, and people could perhaps understand that. Now, the figures we talk about now,
16:30 and the international nature of the thing, I mean, it's glorious to see. And of course,
16:34 the quality is fantastic. But that sort of intimacy may be missing.
16:40 So I think I was dead fortunate, really, to get involved with the club at that time,
16:46 when I could sort of feel that link with its past. You know, you're going back to the
16:52 Lee Bell & Somerville days of the late 60s, early 70s. You could feel the linkage as though those
16:57 people were around. You know, finally, they had taken over the club. Colin Bell, I brought back
17:01 into the club. Mike Somerville's been there all the time. And other players like Tony Brook and
17:07 so on, they were all sort of around. And you had that linkage with a different era. I think that's
17:13 gone to some extent now. I mean, this is a fantastic world, but it's a new world, and it's
17:18 very different. So if you ask me, could I have done, sort of, coped with a club as it is now,
17:26 compared to how it was when I took over, I'm not sure I could. I think my skill set was probably
17:33 much better attuned to doing the job we had to do then. Do you think that that's something that
17:39 City should maybe try and look at a little bit more now, is to try and, to a certain extent,
17:44 connect the club back with the people of Manchester? Because it comes across in your book
17:48 that there was a real sense, there was a real pride that this was a real Mancunian club then,
17:52 that a little bit of that maybe, despite all the success, has been lost a little bit in the last
17:57 10 years or so? Well, it's a very difficult question. I mean, by the very nature of the
18:05 scale of the club and so on, it probably has to some extent. But I think the owners have tried.
18:11 Yeah, I think they've worked hard. I mean, there's no question that the work in the local community
18:16 and the boost to East Manchester from all this has been very considerable. So I wouldn't in any way
18:22 criticise the ownership. I think, you know, if there is a little bit of detachment and,
18:27 you know, people complain sometimes the atmosphere of the new stadium isn't quite what it was,
18:32 that possibly applies to a lot of the new stadium. You know, the old stadiums, you know,
18:38 Highbury and I used to go to White Hart Lane quite a bit. I used to love the old White Hart Lane,
18:42 you know, a bit old-fashioned, a bit forward, but the atmosphere was intense. I think the big new
18:49 stadiums, bigger bowls and so on, don't quite produce the same atmosphere. And maybe also
18:55 the audiences have changed a bit. You know, the games have become a little bit more, if you like,
18:58 middle class, you know, it's extremely expensive at the top level and so on. So, you know,
19:05 the world is changing and football is changing as well.
19:08 I suppose it's just become such a more globalised game, hasn't it, as well? They're trying to
19:14 attract audiences. They're not just trying to attract audiences in Manchester anymore,
19:17 it's, you know, it's become a worldwide thing. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You're developing
19:21 in the Far East, developing in the Middle East, developing in America and so on. You're absolutely
19:26 right. I mean, the money coming in from the international broadcasting rights to the Premier
19:31 League is huge. And of course, we don't know where football's going, you know, in a sense. We had
19:38 this breakaway, attempted a breakaway league and so on. Whether that will come again, you know,
19:44 who knows? I'm very pleased it didn't succeed. It was received very badly by fans and quite rightly
19:51 so. But, you know, who knows what's around the corner? And you, when we spoke about this being
20:00 a football club of the people of Manchester, was it ever, you know, obviously you're not from the
20:05 city of Manchester. You were born in St Helens and spent a bit of time there growing up. But
20:10 was there ever any, not issues, I suppose, as such, but did it ever pose any problems, the fact
20:15 that you lived in London, that you had a southern accent and weren't necessarily from Manchester,
20:23 if that makes sense? Absolutely not. I've got to say that the, you're absolutely right,
20:29 I mean, you're absolutely right. I've got a sort of southern accent and I live down here and so on.
20:35 But I think with the city fans, I think they recognised from the beginning that I'd been a
20:39 fan all my life. I was a genuine fan. This wasn't put on. This wasn't one of these politicians who
20:45 pretend they support a club that they don't. So I was blue through and through. I knew the history
20:50 of the club back to front. I could quote the 1956 cup winning team, which I remember so well,
20:58 and so on. So I had a wonderful, I mean, one exhaustive example of that, it's not in the book
21:06 actually, is when we had the last match, the season after we'd been in Gillingham, so the
21:14 season we got promoted back to the Premier League, the last match was a Blackburn,
21:18 last game of the season, we actually won 4-1. And the morning of the match, I came out of the
21:25 Midland Hotel where I was staying, and there were a lot of city fans milling around outside,
21:29 they saw me. And a group came over to me, and one of the fans said to me, the chairman, he said,
21:34 "Mr Chairman, very respectfully, Mr Chairman," he said, "Whatever happens today, don't worry
21:41 about the result of this match, because you brought self-respect back to our club."
21:45 Now I'd never forgotten that, I was so touched by that. And that was a sort of relationship
21:52 that developed, I never had an insult, I never had a problem, I never had one fan
21:57 be abusive to me, it was really fantastic. So that was worth a lot, I think of all the
22:05 sort of aspects of this, the relationship with the fans, and that positiveness and so on,
22:11 was probably the one that lives with me the most. - And one thing that does come across from the
22:17 book is that being a football chairman is dealing with a lot of different people in a lot of
22:23 different capacities, and not always straightforward relationships, even people that you got on well
22:29 with. Sometimes just the nature of being a football chairman means that there are clashes and
22:36 falling out at times, but what was it like, I'm thinking of for instance, you mentioned that
22:41 Francis Lee wasn't always the easiest person to deal with, that in the end your relationship
22:46 with Joe Royal, you don't speak anymore, and then there was obviously Kevin Keegan's quite
22:51 kind of outspoken manners in regard to transfers, I mean what was that aspect of being a football
22:56 chairman like? - Yeah, it's a very good question. I think probably the best example of the
23:04 difficulties of that was Joe Royal, because I'd worked with Joe for two or three years really,
23:11 really well, we got on well, we spoke every day, I liked his style, his sense of humour,
23:18 it was a lifetime highlight for me, working at the club, doing what we were doing, working with
23:26 a manager who you could talk to, get on with, and we were being successful, of course, which helps
23:30 a lot, but in the end, as normally happens in football, things in the end didn't work out,
23:40 Joe had to leave the club and it didn't finish well, I was incredibly sad, the relationship
23:48 like that sort of fragmented, and there was no going back, so it's really hard when you're working
23:56 with people so intently and so intimately, with such passion, we all know the passions in football,
24:04 you're in front of your fans 50 times a year, and every single one of those occasions is a
24:10 passionate one, with such intense feelings, and then suddenly something happens and you have to
24:16 part company, and that's really hard, and I found it particularly hard with Joe, who I liked very
24:23 much and got on with well, and he did a great job for the club over those first couple of years.
24:31 One of the things you talk about in the book as well is the famous tackle from Roy Keane on
24:37 Alf Ingerhalland, you're quite critical of Roy Keane in that, and I think you describe it as a
24:44 premeditated assault, I mean, when you look back at it now, what are your thoughts, and do you think
24:51 that, I mean, do you think that Roy Keane still got a very big platform, do you think it's spoken
24:55 about enough just how calculated and kind of almost precious that challenge was? Well, I've
25:03 gathered from the book, I'm not Roy Keane's biggest fan because of that, and I won't watch
25:08 him when he's on the media, I either turn off or send the soda, I just can't watch him, and yes,
25:15 and it was, I mean, football's a physical game, things happen, but this was particularly, and
25:21 then he admitted it, it wasn't like he kept it a secret, it was, people knew it was going to happen,
25:26 it was premeditated, he stood over Alf Ingerhalland and said that, "If you will,
25:31 you know, you got what you deserve," sort of thing, and boasted about it afterwards,
25:37 and in fact, I think he got, yes, he did, he got fined heavily by the FA later on, I think in part
25:44 because of the way he dealt with it in his own book, I think, when he described quite gleefully
25:50 what he'd done, so, yes, I've got very little time for him, I think to finish, or effectively finish
25:57 a non-professional's career in that way, in that cold-blooded way, is not acceptable.
26:02 Yes, it was obviously a very famous moment, and I was, I don't know, trough it, a couple of times.
26:09 I mean, there'd been plenty of other, in football, plenty of other sort of, you know, nasty incidents
26:13 and vicious fouls and so on, but I can't remember one where the person who did it
26:17 was so open and boastful about it. - Yeah, no, it was obviously a very
26:23 kind of high-profile moment. - It was, indeed.
26:26 - Yeah, and then I wanted to just talk a little bit about your exit from the club, and I mean,
26:31 you say in the book that there were a number of kind of factors and reasons behind it, but
26:35 how big was the signing of Robbie Fowler in your exit?
26:41 - It was a big moment. I mean, Kevin Keegan wanted big Robbie Fowler in. He was prepared
26:49 to pay virtually anything to get him in. The initial deal that he wanted to do would have
26:55 cost the club ÂŁ13 million, which at that time was just a huge amount of money for, in fact,
27:03 it wasn't possible at that level. You know, I'd got part of the whole thing, Robbie Fowler's
27:12 medical records, and they showed that he had got issues and that the advice I had was that
27:19 if you're going to bring him in, you should only bring him in on a pay-for-play basis,
27:24 because he may not be able to play very much. That was my stance, but Kevin wasn't at all
27:30 happy. He got some of the other directors and show was on side with him. So from having
27:36 a really unified group of people, and we were absolutely together with great discipline
27:41 and whatever, suddenly the thing began to fragment. It got into the media, you know,
27:46 Bernstein under pressure and all this sort of stuff, Keegan not happy, who's running
27:51 the club, and this one, and that had been the complete opposite of where we had been
27:55 for the previous four or five years. And then one or two other things happened as well,
28:01 which had nothing to do with the founder thing as well, it was round about the same time,
28:07 to do with reorganising the management of the club, because I felt we'd got to a certain
28:11 stage, we now needed to make one or two changes to move it on a bit, which also caused some
28:16 consternation, and a situation which I valued so much and which I'm very proud of started
28:24 to fragment. And I wasn't prepared to work under those circumstances. I felt it was going
28:29 to end badly. And if it was going to end badly, I was better off to get out of my own volition
28:34 in my own time, and not find I was going down a road which I was really unhappy with. So
28:40 I did that, I was very sad at the time, I always wish we had continued for a few more
28:48 years. Because the consequence of all this was the club did overspend, it did get back
28:54 into trouble. It did do some things it shouldn't have done. And as a result, the club got forced
29:01 into a quick sale to, not to the Abu Dhabi people, but to taxi to Shinowatra, who was,
29:07 in my view, not a proper person to be owning a football club. And Shinowatra in the end,
29:13 he sold the club on to Abu Dhabi at a profit. So who were the losers? The losers were the
29:20 original shareholders, which were mainly the fans. We had 2000 fans who were shareholders,
29:25 who sold the club, their shares in the club at an undervalue, you know, to the benefit of
29:32 Shinowatra. So I think had this not happened with Fowler and the other stuff, and had I stayed on,
29:38 I hope we would have in the end delivered the club to the Abu Dhabi or somebody like it.
29:43 But it would have been a transaction done for the benefit of the shareholders as a whole, and not
29:50 for Shinowatra, who might be, in my view, should never have been the owner of the club.
29:56 I don't think there's many Manchester City fans that would disagree with that
30:02 sentiment. But how difficult was it then to come to that decision to leave in 2003?
30:08 Well, it's strange, strange in a way. I mean, in one way, it was incredibly difficult,
30:13 because I've done a lot of stuff in my career, and lots of organisations and so on, but nothing
30:19 matched really the enjoyment and excitement and whatever, being chairman of Manchester City.
30:25 It was a dream. But at the same time, I was acutely aware that this dream could turn into
30:33 a bit of a nightmare very quickly. And I didn't want that to happen. In a way, I love the club
30:39 too much to want to be involved in a situation I didn't really believe in. I don't want to be
30:46 high-handed, but if I couldn't do it in what I thought was the right way, then I didn't want to
30:50 do it at all. So in a way, it was quite an easy decision, although emotionally, it was clearly
30:57 difficult. I mean, you say do things in the right way. Do you mean merely in terms of finances?
31:02 Because I mean, you reference Leeds and Nerida Clan a lot in the book. Was that a big factor in
31:07 it? Oh, yeah, the finances were absolutely a big factor, a very big factor. I mean, if we had
31:11 limitless money, well, it'd be a different kettle of fish. But we did. We'd done everything we'd
31:16 done on a very tight budget. We had to be creative. We had to do creative deals. When we brought
31:23 Nitas Anelka into the club, which I was very pleased to do, that I did regard as a really
31:29 good move, in the end, we only managed to do it because the selling club agreed to be paid over
31:38 seven years. It was quite great because I recognized that they were interested in a headline
31:46 number but weren't concerned too much about the cash flow. We were desperately concerned about the
31:51 cash flow. So by doing it over seven years, we brought in a world-class player we couldn't
31:56 afford. So, you know, ducking and diving and trying to use the resources we had responsibly
32:02 was vital. And that's why the issues with Kevin, particularly with Fowler, I found so difficult.
32:09 And I'm conscious of time. I don't want to keep you too much longer. But can I ask just about
32:15 Kevin Keegan and what, I mean, you do speak, you know, very highly of him in the book, but you
32:20 also mentioned the fact that he was at times quite outspoken in kind of criticism of finance and
32:27 stuff. So what was he like to deal with? Well, look, when you brought Kevin in, you knew you
32:34 were taking a sort of tiger by the tail. You know, you knew his reputation, you knew he was
32:38 volatile, you knew he wanted what he wanted and wasn't really a man you could reason with very
32:44 easily. And so it proved to be, you know, like you pay your money, it takes your choice. And
32:50 that was the case. And I think temperamentally, Kevin and I were not very well suited,
32:57 really. I wanted to do, to continue to do things in an organised way that protected the club.
33:05 I was desperate for success. Of course I was, but I wanted to do it in a way that could be justified
33:10 and to get the club, I didn't want to gamble the club's future again, having done so much work to
33:15 do what we did. Kevin, once used the expression to me, he said, Chairman, he said, the trouble with
33:20 you is, I like to go through the front door, but you like to go through the back door. By which he
33:27 meant, don't muck around with all this negotiating, put a check on the table, get the deal done.
33:33 You know, that was his, that was his approach. Good luck to him, that's the way he worked,
33:37 but I don't work like that. I can't work like that. And the sort of tensions between us sort
33:42 of did grow. And in the end, I suppose you've got to say that my fellow directors, John Ward and
33:51 David Makin sort of sided with Kevin in the end, although I think they regretted it later on.
33:56 I'm sure it was a, you know, a difficult decision, as you say, but yeah, I'm sure you just look back
34:03 so much pride in your time at Manchester City. And then just to ask about today,
34:08 what's your relationship like with the club now? Because do you attend many matches?
34:12 I don't. I think what happened because of the Shino-Matsu thing, I got very distant from the
34:18 club. I'm completely distant from it. When the Abu Dhabi Pitcher Cup, I did have a relationship
34:24 with them and we spoke, but I've never really, what I would call re-established close relationships.
34:30 So I don't go up there very often. I do see the club when they're down in London. And I,
34:34 of course, watch the modern television a great deal. I follow them with real passion, but
34:40 my relationship with the club is not as close as I would perhaps like it to be.
34:45 Would you like to kind of, I was going to say man to most fences,
34:50 it's probably not the right phrase, but to try and re-establish a bit of a
34:54 closer relationship if possible? If they wanted that, yes.
34:59 That's interesting. And then just on this Manchester City team now, I mean, how much do
35:05 you enjoy watching this just incredible Pep Guardiola side and how proud were you with
35:10 the achievements of last season and the treble?
35:11 Yeah, it was just beyond incredible, both the achievement and the way it was done.
35:19 The quality of the play, it was just extraordinary. I mean, I never thought I'd see a side that was
35:27 reminded me of Barcelona at their best. But this, I mean, Barcelona were a supreme side,
35:33 I thought. But this side, I think, is very much of a similar quality. I'd love to see
35:39 that Barcelona side play this side and see what would happen because for obvious reasons,
35:44 I suppose there's only one Lionel Messi in the world, but some of our players are very close
35:51 to that. I mean, obviously, De Bruyne is a magnificent player. I think, by the way,
35:57 Phil Foden is outstanding. I've thought it for a long while and if he's not played
36:03 Radley Friedland, I'd be very disappointed. I think he's a real quality player. So, yeah,
36:09 it's just wonderful to watch.
36:10 It feels like Phil Foden now, for a long time, has kind of been in that almost understudy
36:16 role behind some of the big names, but it almost feels now like he is stepping up and
36:20 he is becoming one of the go-to guys almost to win games at times.
36:26 Absolutely. You can see he's playing at the same level as those great players with Haaland
36:32 and Haaland and De Bruyne and so on. He's got that ability to think and to understand
36:36 that level of football. No, he's a quality act. He really is. I always thought probably
36:44 that if you asked me historically who's the greatest player I saw for City, it would be
36:48 Colin Bell. I thought he was a wonderful player. But some of these players now, De Bruyne and
36:55 Foden and so on, would certainly rival Colin. But of course, the thing is, Dan, they're
37:01 all playing in a great team with a great squad. There's not just two or three or four of them,
37:04 there's about 15 or 20 of them. The depth of the squad as well is just amazing.
37:13 And having known Alfie Inge Haaland, and I suspect you probably during your time as chairman
37:18 came into contact with his little nipper who was running around at the time,
37:22 could you have maybe believed that he would go on to become the player he's become now?
37:27 I believed it. I was trying to sign him and he was able to.
37:31 Got him in the academy?
37:32 No, no, no. That would have been a good move. Of course I did. Of course I did. No. No.
37:39 And just on Erling Haaland, what an incredible player he has become. What an incredible asset.
37:46 I think that if he continues at this rate, he's probably going to go down as the most successful
37:50 striker that I've ever played. Certainly in the Premier League, but perhaps in English football.
37:54 I think you're right. His score is great, his physicality, his quality,
38:00 the way he can knock off and physically push aside powerful opponents and so on is
38:07 quite amazing. But again, he benefits enormously by being surrounded by such quality.
38:12 The ability for De Bruyne particularly, with his ability to see a game, read a game,
38:20 and the quality of passing is just magnificent. But no, it's been an amazing journey. I'm very
38:30 privileged to have been there at the beginning of it, and I believe it did begin in the period
38:35 this book covers. I hope it's a story that the City fans in particular, but maybe football fans
38:41 more widely, will appreciate. Told from the inside, but I've tried to keep it on a
38:49 dignified and proper level. I'm not taking any cheap potshots at anybody. That's not what I want
38:55 to do. Well, I think you certainly achieved that. And genuinely, the book is a fantastic read,
39:01 and I'm sure you're very proud of it. I've read it over the last couple of days and thoroughly
39:04 enjoyed reading through it. So yeah. Just the one last question from me, I just wanted to ask you
39:10 about something you actually mentioned at the very start of the book, is just about football
39:13 governance at the moment. And look, we could do another half an hour interview on that.
39:19 We could indeed.
39:19 So I don't want to take things too long. But what's your thoughts on just generally at the
39:23 moment, football governance? And you mentioned that something you're very pleased to see was
39:27 the government white paper brought in recently.
39:31 Well, yeah, I've been very involved in this. It's mentioned in the book that I put together a
39:38 pretty distinguished group of people about three or four years ago, including Gary Neville,
39:43 Norm Irving King, the ex-governor of the Bank of England, Helen Grant, ex-sports minister,
39:48 both conservatives and Labour, cross-party, non-political. Andy Burnham is part of the group.
39:56 And we did it because I and we were very concerned about the effects of the power of the Premier
40:03 League and the imbalance that was giving rise to in football and the stresses on the rest of the
40:09 game. The Premier League itself is a wonderful organisation, incredibly successful. But because
40:17 of a lot of reasons, including the way the money is distributed through the rest of the game,
40:22 the effects of relegation out of the Premier League and a whole load of reasons, things are
40:28 not working out very well for the rest of football. And you're seeing huge stresses and clubs being
40:33 subsidised by owners doing all sorts of things to try and either get back to the Premier League
40:39 or survive. It's not a healthy situation. And we felt there's a wide range of reform necessary
40:48 and that it would never happen without the involvement of an outside party, i.e. the
40:56 independent regulator that we're proposing. And that's in part because the Football Association,
41:01 which is meant to be the governing body, well it is a governing body, but it's meant to be a
41:06 balance for the Premier League, just isn't effective enough. It hasn't changed, it hasn't
41:10 reformed, it hasn't updated and it's out-muscled by the Premier League. And hence football's had
41:19 many, many opportunities to make these changes and reforms, but it hasn't done it sufficiently.
41:27 So we came up with this, it was a manifesto we produced for change, that was sort of incorporated
41:33 in Tracy Crouch's Founded Review and that's now going to be incorporated in an Act and a Bill,
41:38 which is meant to come out by now. I'm looking at the middle of February, it should come out
41:44 at the end of January, but we're promised it will come out very soon. And this will recommend an
41:49 independent regulator for English football, although whether the powers of that regulator
41:55 will be as they should be, I'm not sure, we'll see when it comes out.
41:57 We could spend half an hour talking about this, it's an absolutely fascinating subject and I
42:04 think all football fans, no matter what level of pyramid you support, there's certainly interest
42:09 in that. But listen David, I won't take up any more of your time, I really appreciate it and
42:13 you've been so generous with your time and thank you very much. But just once again to say,
42:17 we were really there at the rebirth of Manchester City from David Bernstein.
42:20 Certainly a must read for Manchester City fans, but for fans of other clubs. But David,
42:24 thank you very much for your time today. Thank you very much, enjoyed it, thank you.