UK Edition
Former Man Utd chairman Martin Edwards: 'I don't kid myself that I was popular at Old Trafford'
Martin Edwards, the former Manchester United chairman, held a party at Old Trafford last week to mark the launch of his new book. Former United players Denis Law, Paddy Crerand and Alex Stepney were in attendance but there were none from the golden, Premier League-dominating era over which he presided.
Nor had a single member of the club’s current administration made it. And Sir Alex Ferguson was notable by his absence. It was almost as if, never mind the architect of the new stadium, Edwards was the forgotten man of Old Trafford, the embarrassing relative kept in the attic, what with that business when he got a police caution in 2004 for that misunderstanding when he was caught peering under the cubicle doors in the ladies’ lavatory at Mottram Hall hotel.
Which is a little odd, given that for a club who have long valued cash, he was the place’s champion money-maker. During his time in charge, annual profits grew from £210,000 in 1980 to £39,345,000 in 2003, while United’s value increased 400-fold from £2 million to £800 million.
Edwards himself, always dignified, always polite, always willing to swap a United stat or two, recognises how he is perceived. He bursts out laughing when confronted with the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that it might be time for a statue to be erected in his honour.
“I’m not expecting that, don’t worry,” he says. “I don’t kid myself I was popular. There were a number of reasons for that. There was the feeling I only got the job because my father was the chairman, and I can’t argue with that. But the main reason was everybody thought I was a seller and only in it for personal gain. That really wasn’t the case. In my time, all the approaches to buy were made to me. I never said to anyone: I want to sell United. I suppose ultimately people thought United’s success was in spite of me, not because of me.”
In an attempt to rebalance that perception that he was the Ringo Starr of football, the man enormously enriched by dint of simply being in the right place at the right time, he has written an account of his stewardship of United called Red Glory. There is a lot in there, about how he organised the rebuilding of the stadium, about his careful approach to wages, about his part in the formation of the Premier League. And about his occasionally frosty relationship with Ferguson, including the time in 1998 he wrote a letter to the manager suggesting he had taken his eye off the ball.
Ferguson, it comes as no surprise to discover, did not take it well.
Plus he writes about the attempted takeovers. Robert Maxwell, Michael Knighton, Rupert Murdoch: it was quite a rogue’s gallery of suitors he entertained. The one that most angered the United support was Murdoch, whose attempt to buy the club was thwarted by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in 1999. But, 18 years on, Edwards stands by his decision to recommend the takeover.
“I felt I had to do my best for the company,” he says of the bid. “In the end it came to nothing. Though I still got the blame. What you’ve now got to say is eventually United did get taken over. Would we have been better off under Sky or the Glazers? Who knows. That’s a judgment call. But I don’t believe it would have been the end of the world if Sky had taken us over.”
Edwards stood down from his responsibilities four years after the Sky deal collapsed, content he had done his job when United matched the achievement of his father’s time by winning the European Cup. After finally getting his pay day and banking something north of £100 million when the Glazers took over in 2008, these days he is Club President, a wholly honorary title, his huge experience left untapped. Not that he regrets no longer being involved.
“I have great difficulty with some aspects of the game now,” he says. “A £5 billion television contract and all the money does really is go in one door and out the other. It wouldn’t have done football any harm if, once they signed that deal, the Premier League had frozen ticket prices across the board for three years. I felt there was a golden opportunity there. Instead, it’s all gone on transfers and to agents.”
Though he admits, watching from his reserved seat in the directors’ box, that he often wonders what he might have done had he still been in charge.
Not least when it came to appointing a successor to Ferguson in 2013, something that had concerned him for years, anxious as he was not to repeat the botched succession to Matt Busby that plagued his father. “I’d probably have gone for [Pep] Guardiola,” he says. “But hindsight is easy. It would be easy for me to sit here and say I’d never have appointed [David] Moyes. Actually, I thought he was a reasonable bet. Though [Louis] Van Gaal, personally, I wouldn’t have gone for him. As a supporter, I didn’t enjoy his time.” And it is as a United supporter that Edwards now defines himself.
“When I was chairman the result was so important. I was always on edge. After matches I’d go home with a terrible headache. The financial consequences of winning and losing were so huge. Now I’m just a fan I can relax. And the truth is I have no more say in things than any other fan.
“People are always asking me who are we going to sign, or you must know who the next manager is going to be. I haven’t got a clue.”
Judging by his smile, that is not something that worries him.
‘Red Glory: Manchester United And Me’ by Martin Edwards is published by O’Mara Books