Be Careful What You Wish For (32 page)

And let us not forget Lord Triesman, who talked a great game and in talking opened his mouth in the most unfortunate way and was forced to resign over his allegations that certain countries were trying to bribe referees, which no doubt helped enormously in collecting votes for our bid to secure the 2018 World Cup.

In my columns I exposed the nonsense of people who made anonymous decisions in quango committees, as well as the blazer and tie brigade who latched onto FA councillorships as a means to keeping their free England tickets and travel. I named and shamed them, much to their dismay and horror.

I enjoyed writing the columns and I most certainly liked wielding the pen. I worked with great guys at the
Observer
who researched and qualified some of my more outrageous allegations. I had no idea at the time that these articles were to be so popular; people stopped me in the street and raved about them.

Ian Wooldridge, the revered and much missed sports writer, dedicated a column to suggesting I should be brought in to run the FA! I am sure that went down like a lead enema in Soho Square. He also went on to to say he was going to potentially nominate
me
as sports writer of the year. I knew the articles must have been OK as even Iain Dowie begrudgingly admitted they were good!

What these columns also did was to demonstrate something to certain parts of the football world: that I was a man of substance and understood the game. This in some way transported me from a perceived rebellious innovator and troublemaker to someone with valid and forward-thinking views who was not frightened to air them for the advancement of our national game.

Of course, writing without care of consequence and showing situations and people for what they were would inevitably land me in trouble. This came with my fourth article entitled ‘Call Time on Blatter’s Village Idiots’.

The article was about refereeing standards. Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, refused to bring in technology, and like all good writers I used an example: the refereeing performance of the official of the recent Palace v Reading game. The FA charged me with ‘improper conduct’, making me sound like some kind of pervert. So not only did I lose my star player in the Reading game, the FA was now charging me for having an opinion about it. Talk about double whammy, although the thought of being charged was about as troublesome to me as a cloud on a sunny day.

I was summoned to Soho Square, but as I had written about my impending FA disciplinary hearing and its location in my
Observer
columns, they changed the venue to a secret location for a ‘transparent’ hearing. It was not secret for long, as I immediately informed Sky Sports news.

Apparently, when you are charged by the FA they ask for your total net football wage in order to establish how much they should fine you. I advised the panel of the £32 million I had invested in the last five years, which worked out at minus £127,000 a week, and told them that I was more than happy to receive a rebate.

The hearing was a farce. They had only two options, both with serious consequences for them: do not discipline me and perhaps set a precedent; do and open a can of worms with me and be unable to control what I may or may not say and do. They decided on a halfway house solution: a fine of £10,000 suspended for twelve months, dependent on me not saying anything derogatory. With this they sent me on my way suitably admonished!

The gag lasted all of three minutes as I walked out and did a live piece to Sky on the hearing’s doorstep, declaring it a kangaroo court comprised of ill-informed, self-important buffoons who had no idea of what was right and proper and that any fine would be paid in one-pound coins delivered in a wheelbarrow to Soho Square. No fine followed!

On top of that I wrote in my next column all about the hearing, under the title of ‘So who is Barry Bright?’, the chairman (or, in my mind, chairbuffoon) of that hearing. I described the whole event in detail and yet they still refused to implement the fine. I continued to bait them in my next six articles. The fine stayed, but they never enforced it, despite me ignoring every aspect of the gagging order.

On the field the season started as a disappointment and peaked and troughed much like my relationship with the manager. Halfway through we were seventh in the league, some twenty-seven points off top and eighteen points off second, so automatic promotion was out of the question. Our best-case scenario was the play-offs. We were where we were, so we had to make the best of it, and make sure we made the play-offs in the highest possible position.

The season was full of anomalies. We would thrash a respectable Coventry side 4–1 away and the very next game lose 1–0 to our arch-rivals, bottom-of-the-league Brighton, in front of a disbelieving
and
packed home crowd, then in the following game beat the mighty Liverpool again in the League Cup 2–1. The only consistency we had was inconsistency.

Throughout the season the uneasy truce with Iain Dowie was always at the fore. He was back to his belligerent argumentative best, always looking to be contrary and clever wherever he could and, disappointingly, Bob had got a little caught up in the world of football to the detriment of the commercial side of the business.

Dominic was running the club day to day and I wanted him to exert control over the commercial activities and I would liaise with the football management. Perversely, this involved more contact for Dominic with the football side. Certain commercial activities included the football operation which led to Dominic having to tolerate nonsense from Bob and Iain about budgetary controls.

Budgets were agreed for all aspects of the club, from medical supplies to travel and accommodation. The football operation budget was drawn up by Bob and Iain and approved by me, and then systematically ignored by them, which caused conflict with Dominic as he sought to ensure they controlled their agreed costs.

By the end of March, after beating Watford for the second time in the season, with five games to go we were fifth, and pretty much secure in the play-offs. My expectations were we would push on to get as high up that mini play-off league as possible. But what we did was to win only one of our last five games of the season, producing arguably our worst run of the campaign, taking five points out of the last five games and finishing sixth.

In between the rigours of the campaign Geoff Thomas, the former Palace captain, who had fought so bravely back from the ravages of leukaemia, had a testimonial game. It was to be a re-enactment of the 1990 Cup Final between Palace and Manchester
United
, a game that arguably kept Alex Ferguson in the Manchester United job as they narrowly beat Palace to give Ferguson his first trophy after nearly four years in charge.

Somehow or another I got roped into playing. As with all football chairmen it was presumed I knew nothing about football and most certainly couldn’t play! So in front of 15,000 fans I came on as a substitute and I will leave it to the local press to describe my performance.

‘Well, he’s certainly got bottle, hasn’t he? Playing alongside the Palace 1990 FA Cup Final heroes is one thing but doing it in white boots sporting highlighted blond hair was potentially a recipe for public humiliation. But to be fair to the Palace chairman he pulled it off just because he turned out to be quite good.’

As I watched the last five League games I witnessed a team coasting into the end-of-season play-offs. In our last game of the League campaign we lost 1–0 away to Sheffield United with a particularly tepid display and I took this opportunity to remark to Bob Dowie that I had grave concerns.

The fact we drew Watford in the play-offs seemed to instil even more complacency as it was universally greeted by players and management as a great draw, one we would walk through, given we had beaten them twice already during the season.

I did not share this view. I struggled to see how a team that laboured through their last five games in poor form was going to get itself up a level. I felt Watford, having finished third and been beaten twice by us, had probably learnt more from those losses than we had from the wins. Again I voiced that to Iain and Bob, who took exception to my sentiments of concern and caution.

As the play-offs approached my pals at Birmingham City in the
Premier
League were embroiled in a relegation battle that they were ultimately to lose. At the time their co-owner David Gold announced in an interview: ‘If there was a God then no way would Crystal Palace get promoted and Birmingham get relegated.’

Now I thought at the time that was particularly uncalled for and it really hurt my feelings! It had slipped my mind that I had written a big article recently in the
Observer
about owners of clubs, mentioning Birmingham and David Gold specifically, which had clearly provoked his untimely outburst. I had said that if I had to read another article about an East End boy made good I would impale myself on one of the dildos he sold.

The play-offs were greeted with their usual media frenzy and the first leg was at home. Strangely given the magnitude of the game and the fact it was a virtual London derby it was not a complete sell-out. Only 22,000 fans turned up. Perhaps they knew something.

After an even and uninspiring first half we fell apart in the second and were 2–0 down after sixty-five minutes. My worst fears had been confirmed and when Watford scored their third goal in the eighty-fifth minute, I looked across the directors’ box to where Bob Dowie sat and said: ‘I told you so.’

I had sensed what was going to happen. I hoped my gut feeling would be wrong, but I was proved to be right in the worst possible way. We now faced the never-achieved task of overturning a first leg loss in the second game and winning by four clear goals.

After the manner of the defeat morale in and around the club was very low and despite the feelings I had voiced prior and during the game I still felt it was important to maintain a positive outlook.

If they could score three then so could we. I knew this was a bloody long shot but a leader has to lead even in the face of adversity. Iain was still bullish despite the heavy defeat but as football
clubs
are like sieves with information it emanated quickly that certain players had completely given up the ghost.

It was a non-event of a game. It is difficult to put into words how one feels watching an opportunity slip away like that. Can you imagine going on
Deal Or No Deal
and you have two boxes left. One has £50 million and the other has 50p. And one of the conditions is that someone else chooses the box – and they pick the 50p. That is what it is like losing in the play-offs. You could of course lose in the play-off final, which would be pretty bad, but losing in the manner we did was far worse for me. Some teams go out all guns blazing, whereas we just failed to turn up.

The game ended in a 0–0 draw and we never even looked like scoring. The only example of any passion was when a brawl broke out on the touchline because Aidy Boothroyd, the Watford manager at the time, refused to return the ball after it went out of play. I thought at the time, ‘Typical. We can manage to be brave off the pitch but not on it.’

To add insult to injury the FA saw fit to fine us for it.

I congratulated the Watford board and left, not really wanting to be around the place whilst they were rejoicing at our expense. Unfortunately for me I got stuck in the damn Watford car park, as we were unable to get out, and was subjected to twenty minutes of joyous home fans giving me barrel loads of abuse. I have to say it takes remarkable restraint not to get an Uzi out when you are gutted and celebrating fans are taking the piss out of you. There is no such thing as football fans showing humility in winning, they just stick it to you.

And that was that. The lights went down for another season, a year almost to the day of relegation from the Premier League at the hands of Charlton. Another juddering disappointment, a year wasted, an opportunity spurned and we were looking forward to
another
twelve months trawling round the second tier of English football.

I can bear most things but I hate waste and this was a wasted opportunity.

I never spoke to Iain before the game or straight afterwards, but that was how he appeared to want it. He was a law unto himself and as long as he was successful I tolerated it. He never wanted comradeship, he didn’t have an ‘all for one and one for all’ mentality. He wanted to do things in a certain way.

Dowie could manage down but had no ability to manage up and that was to prove his undoing, and, I have since heard, was his undoing with future employers.

After a couple of days I returned to Spain and, seeing as my manager had made no effort to contact me, called Dowie on the way to the airport and left a voicemail message.

It could be concluded from the events I have described that I would be in an unhappy mood, but once I have adjusted to something and then accepted it, which on the whole I do pretty quickly, I become philosophical about things and this was how I approached the phone call with Dowie.

Of course I was disappointed but to some extent it was over. Like any normal employer I wanted to know what had gone wrong and why. That proved to be fatal – how dare I ask such invasive questions!

The conversation that was to have far-reaching consequences for us both started at about 8 p.m. as I sat in my garden in Spain. After a brief exchange I had the audacity to ask him why he hadn’t called me after the game. That was the high point in the conversation.

Very quickly the conversation turned into a pissing competition, which I allowed myself to be dragged into. Dowie seemed intent
on
baiting me and achieved his aim. After listening to him tell me he didn’t want to discuss our failure in the play-offs as it was over, he promptly moved on to tell me that if I had supported him in the Premier League we would have stayed up and how I had created pressure and unrealistic expectations on the team at the beginning of the season.

I have to admit that for about three minutes I thoroughly lost my temper. Clearly I am no shrinking violet and I let him have full-on my feelings about what he had just said and the way he had acted.