DAVID BERNSTEIN - Part 1

King Of The Kippax Interview from 2023

INTRODUCTION

Ex City Chairman David Bernstein recently celebrated his 80th birthday, and the Ed was invited to say a few words by video to add congratulations, which was appreciated. Additionally, David suggested he would like to do an interview/Q & A for the fanzine.

SOME BACKGROUND

David was born in St Helens but left at the age of 3 to move down south, becoming a City supporter in 1954, aged 10, as the club were close to St Helens and in the North West, plus they reached the cup finals in 1955 and 1956, with City becoming the biggest sporting part of his life.

He was the only City supporter in his class at school in Finchley but didn’t see many games unless City were playing in London, or the Midlands when he grew older.

He went to games when the great side of the 60’s was building up, including watching them at Leyton Orient, plus one of Colin Bell’s first games, and the 1969 semi-final and final, watching them more and more over the years.

David was most noted for being in business with French Connection, but was a practising accountant until 1988, with expertise mainly in financial dealings with recovery situations.

He was introduced to Francis Lee at the time of the takeover, in Feb 1994. Franny then asked him to become a director, and he joined at the end of the year. He became involved very quickly, working very closely with Franny, and he helped raise £10m in the 2nd year, then brought in John Wardle and David Makin, Francis was under tremendous pressure and so David became Chairman, after City’s relegation in 1998, a once in a lifetime opportunity, despite the club being virtually bankrupt.

After Franny was forced out, he remained as chairman, in post for the League 1 days and the yo-yo seasons that followed. He got the club back on track, both on the field and financially, off it. His resignation in 2003, shortly before the move to the Etihad, came as a shock to fans but he got involved with Wembley Stadium and then as FA chairman, stepping down when he turned 70. He was, of course, FA chairman when we won the FA Cup in 2011. 

Here’s the first part of the interview, conducted by the Editor and Colin Savage, covering the period of his chairmanship, his resignation, Thaksin Shinawatra’s ownership and Sheikh Mansour’s takeover.

THE INTERVIEW

We’ll kick off with a nice easy one to start. Did you play football at any level in your youth?

I played football for my high school first team but probably more of a second team player. My better sports were cricket and tennis.

Let's move on to City. How did you become involved because I think I heard a story that you approached Peter Swales initially? But then obviously you got involved with Franny. So, what was the story behind your involvement with City?

Well, a bit of the Swales thing is true, but it's a bit incidental. I was very frustrated about City’s progress in the early 80s. And I wrote to Peter Swales asking if I could meet him, which I did very briefly at Highbury when City were playing Arsenal. And we had a sort of a shortish conversation about it. He wasn’t very interested, and nothing came of it. I thought it was a lost opportunity. But there you go.

Not sure Peter Swales would have liked anyone who knew what they were doing interfering.

(Laughs) No comment. And then I was Joint-Chief Executive of the Pentland group, that's the group that owned and controlled Reebok shoes, Speedo swimwear and so on. I was chasing somebody for a personal guarantee, and he lived in the north, and he knew a lot of people.

I got quite friendly with him despite the business issues. And one day he said to me that he knew Mike Summerbee and Mike knew Francis Lee. He knew I was a City fan and asked if I would I like to meet Francis? I said of course I would, so we met at a hotel, and he discussed his plans. And I said, well, it sounds great, but it sounds to me that you're going to be short of finance, if you if you do what you're going to do. And he listened very politely, and then he went ahead and didn’t take much notice of what I'd said.

But he soon found out that I was correct. And after a few months, he came back and we corresponded and stayed friendly, and he asked if I'd be interested in joining the board, which, of course, I was very excited about joining my own club’s Board, who can say no to that? And I came on the board in 1994.

So that would have been just about the time of Franny’s takeover then?

Yes, just a little bit afterwards.

Obviously, things went downhill a little bit from 1994. We'll talk a little bit about that in a minute. But was there anything we could have done differently in those four or five years?

Oh yes, there's a lot we could have done differently. And the stuff that we did do later, after 1998. I think there wasn't enough attention paid to the basic structure. I think there were too many things left as they were.

And frankly, as I learned over my four years on the board before I became chair, the club was really living in the 1920’s or 1940’s. It was living in the past. The stadium was what I loved, I loved Maine Road, but the stadium was run down, we didn't have a proper training ground and we didn't have a store. If you compared this with our neighbours, at Old Trafford, we were lightyears behind where they were in virtually every respect. And, frankly, a lot of the senior staff were not that strong. So, there's a lot of changes that could’ve been made.

And then of course, all the football issues, where the club did go from bad to worse. And we had one year where we had, I think, five managers in one year. The famous revolving door. In short, I think there's a great deal that could have been done and, you know, most of it wasn't done. And I felt it was a lost opportunity.

One thing’s always intrigued me. I always give Franny a bit of a pass really, because my thought has always been that Swales left him too difficult a job. The question is, was getting City's finances back on track, always going to be an impossible job for Franny when he took over? Had Swales done too much damage by that time?

I don't know that it was an impossible job. But I think what we did in 1998 could’ve been done earlier. But things needed dealing with in an orderly fashion. And I think one of the main things you need to do with any organisation, which is a difficulty, is to create a proper level of credibility and belief in the organisation. And unfortunately, I think over the four years of Franny’s chairmanship we just didn't do that.

You know, the club just got this nickname, ‘Cups for Cockups’ it was, and Maine Road became the Theatre of Comedy, and all those things, which none of us liked. But I don't think enough attention was paid to doing the things that needed to be done to establish the club's credibility, which then enables you to raise finance and get people to have the confidence to put something into the club. I mean, history will show that we did not achieve that during that four-year period. I'm not saying for one minute that it was easy.

One of the things I heard was that Franny thought he could come in, turn things round, float the club on the stock exchange and walk away with a few quid having done the job. Was that the plan?

I wouldn't say that. No, to make a few quid or walk away, that's not a fair way of looking at it. You know, I think he wanted what we all wanted. And I've got to make it clear. I worked very closely with Franny for four years, we spoke most days, got on very well. And I was very sad. Very sad indeed. Things were not working out. And you know, we got relegated to Division One and by the time we got to 1998 we were on the verge of being relegated again. And that was a reality. But, you know, I certainly don't think Fanny was in in any way planning to make a quick buck and get out.

When you were chairman, you made a great effort to get the supporters on board, you were visible, which was good. You visited supporters’ clubs. I think you said once, when asked about Manchester football, you said you hoped Manchester would become like Milan with two great clubs. Do you think that that ambition has been achieved?

That was my ambition. And I really had thought maybe we could do that. Of course, it's been exceeded. I was pretty ambitious, but I never thought we would leave united trailing behind us as we have done. I mean, nobody could have seen that in that period. And it's quite extraordinary that we’re now probably the wealthiest and the best and most successful club in Europe. I mean that, to be honest, was beyond my expectations. But then I didn't have the crystal ball to see the Abu Dhabi billions being brought into the club.

Just to go back to those days. It's a question that City fans often ask, what would have happened if Paul Dickov hadn't scored the equaliser and we'd lost the Gillingham game in 1999?

Well, that's a very good question. And of course, I can't tell you for sure. But put it this way. I've always said, and I still believe, that was the most important match in our club's history. I mean, I know about winning the Premier League for the first time and they've won the Champions League. They were wonderful achievements, but had we not beaten Gillingham and stayed in that division for another year there was a fair chance, not a guarantee, but a fair chance, that the new stadium deal would not have happened.

And if that hadn't happened, then the rest of this wouldn't have happened in my view and who knows where the club would have got to.  It could have been that we’d have stayed down in the lower divisions for a long while, as Leeds have done, Maybe come up and gone down again, we could have been a big club who somehow have struggled, you know, year after year after year. It's certainly something I believe. If we'd not beaten Gillingham, I don't believe we'd be in the position we're in now.

The new stadium has dealt with all the surrounding area that could be redeveloped. It's probable that Abu Dhabi wouldn't have come in and taken over without that.

Absolutely, absolutely. I'm sure when Abu Dhabi assessed the situation they saw a great club with a great history, wonderful, wonderful support base and so on. But they saw a new stadium as well. And I think it must have been that package. I wasn't around then so I don't know. But it must have been that package, including the stadium, that attracted them, and as you say, without the Gillingham win there's no sun, but I think it's likely that we would not have inspired the confidence that was needed for people with money to support us the way they did.

I’ll tell you a story about that. My neighbour was a well-known architect, and he specialised in sports stadiums. He was actually a Liverpool season ticket holder. And before the takeover, he'd built the stadium for Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi team, Al Jazira. We went in for a drink one Christmas Day, it must have been 2008. And he was telling me that soon after the takeover he was approached to build a new stadium. The Etihad was only five years old at the time, but he was told it wasn't up to Abu Dhabi’s standard!

Well, the stadium cost about £150m, if I remember correctly, and we only had to pay about £12m of that. That's it, that was a deal that we did get, and it cost the club very little, of course. Had we had we had billions of pounds to spare. I'm sure we could put more in to make it even better, but in the circumstances, if you remember, we had little or no funds at that stage and you have to really be clever, fast on our feet, very strong in how we dealt with transfers and players and so on. We got that deal done, which was the envy of football. I mean, people in Manchester used to say to me how did you get that done and you know, with a bit of jealousy I think, It was a great deal on the stadium after all. I know it's been improved since and it's a wonderful stadium now.

So, who do you credit that to then David, the deal for the new stadium? Was that down to Howard Bernstein and others in the council?

I think there's a number of people. From the club's point of view, it was down (without undue modesty) to myself leading it, and I got great support from Alistair Mackintosh and Chris Bird, on my board. We all worked very, very closely together. And yes, certainly with a lot of help from the city council and Howard Bernstein and from Sport England, and advisors and so on.

It was a complicated deal. We did all this with a handful of people. We didn’t have a big staff unlike now. Most of this was done by me, and Alistair did a great deal on the stadium, a lot of work. He was very, very good. It was very complicated, but we said from the beginning, this must be a football stadium, not an athletic stadium. It must be fit for our supporters. It's got to be a blue stadium and other no other fancy whatever's. it's got to be a genuine home for the club and that's what we got.

And it was a crafty way of building the stadium, building it for the Commonwealth Games.

Very clever.

And having the track above the bottom tier. So, I think statements like ‘typical City’. and stuff like that. should have been going out the window by then, with the deal that was done. But that mantra stayed with us for a bit longer, actually. But I think we're ‘typical City’ now in a different way. You know, we can win games in the last minute, can't we?

Yes.

Having gone back down, we then ended up going straight back up to the premiership in a couple of seasons. And then we're relegated again, the yo-yo years. You sacked Joe Royle, and Joe went through a court case over the sacking. Have you seen or spoken to him since?

Unfortunately, as often happens in football when these things come to an end, relationships often don't survive. And now I'm very sorry, I was very close to Joe, I liked Joe very much, we worked and spoke daily while he was our manager. And I think the time I had with him those first couple of years, were the best years I've had in sport. There's nothing that compared with that. It was really fun, fabulous, winning those back-to-back promotions.

But after he left? No, I think the court case, certainly aggravated things. And the relationship between Joe and the club, myself and others. wasn't very good. So no, I haven't spoken to him since he left, I'm sorry to say.

We spoke about this when we met all those years ago, so I know the story, along with the one behind Chris Bird’s resignation. but in 2003, you resigned or were pushed. Do you want to talk about the story behind that?

I prided myself that while I was troubled for the first, probably four years, we had an incredibly tight, integrated, and loyal relationship between the directors. And the club was run in a way that I was very proud of, you know, there was no funny business. There were no leaks, we had good discipline. People worked very hard. They were committed to the club; they took very little money out of the club.

Our relationship, as I said, with the fans I think was excellent. And I had some wonderful comments from fans about what we were doing and how we were doing, I was very proud, and at one board meeting had recorded in the minutes that we were doing things in a great way.  I really hoped we could continue this way, although I wondered, because these things didn't tend always to last.

And for various reasons, a number of pressures arose, and differences started to surface. And that togetherness, and that discipline, began to break down. And there were rumours, which you would’ve seen at the time in the local paper and the national papers, about various things. There's one major issue, which is public knowledge about the salary of Robbie Fowler, which was a deal that that the manager and my colleagues unfortunately wanted to do, I thought it made no sense whatsoever. And by the way, I was proved to be completely correct. And that certainly didn't help.

And then I wanted to restructure, as we were gradually developing and getting more successful. I wanted to restructure the positions among our executive team and there were some disagreements about that. Then the unity that we had started breaking down and I felt that I just loved the club too much to do the job the wrong way. I hated leaving because I’d enjoyed it. Apart from my family, I probably enjoyed it more than anything I've ever done. I loved it. I thought we were doing really well but I wasn't prepared to do it the wrong way. And therefore, I stepped down.

You just missed the move to the City of Manchester Stadium (as it was then). That must have been quite disappointing.

Very disappointing. I really, really, feel very, very sad indeed to have been integrally involved in all this for so many years and put so much effort in, and not to be there when it happened. But there you go; you can't time everything in life, but I really miss not being part of that.

So, let's move forward a few years now. In June 2007, the club was sold to the former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Were you comfortable with that deal?

As a former chairman, I know lots of people weren't. No, I was very uncomfortable. And I made that quite public. And in fact, I did make a very, I suppose the word is half hearted, attempt to do something about it. And I was I was negotiating with Sky about buying their stake.

Yes, we'd spoken about that. (Colin and a couple of others met with David around Autumn 2006 and looked at buying Sky’s 10% shareholding. This very nearly came off, but the club then announced they were in (seemingly non-existent) takeover talks, so the deal had to go on ice, with Shinawatra eventually taking over).

Yes, that was a blocking stake in a way. But I decided at the end that it wasn't worth it, wasn’t worth the candle, and that the fans would not like it. They would probably have seen that as being a sort of a disgruntled ex-chairman and all that sort of stuff.

And I didn't want to get it. I didn't want to have that. I believe that I've got the prospectus that was issued at the time by Shinawatra. And frankly, if you look at it and see what happened, compared to what was promised to happen, there's a very, very different story.

So, the answer to your question is that I was very unhappy. But you know, you never know in life. I think the expression is the law of unintended consequences. And that's what we have here, because who knew out of that would come this, this deal with Abu Dhabi?

If it's any consolation, I (DW) didn't sell my shares.

Nor did I.

Fanzine editor and a chairman, ex-Chairman, agreeing with each other again. But it did mean that I had a lot of arguments with city fans.

By the way, I should say one thing, because we think of ourselves with all that’s happened as being winners, which in most ways we have, but there were losers. And the losers, were you and me and the other thousands of City’s shareholders who sold their stake. Somebody else made a lot of money out of what should have gone to the fans, particularly to the fans. I think that was quite scandalous.

As it turns out, I didn't have many shares. It didn't really affect me very much. But I know Steve Parish, who writes in the fanzine, lost a lot of money on that. But it did mean that when Abu Dhabi came in, they only had one person to deal with. Much simpler deal for them.

Absolutely.

We (CS and DB) had that lunch in Covent Garden, and we talked through getting the shares. But knowing what I know now, I'm glad we didn't because it really would have been horrible. In many ways things turned out for the best.

In the end, the club was still very much the same. We had the stadium; we had all those things. We were still Manchester City with the same support base. Had the fans had shares at that stage, they would I'm sure be happy [to have sold to ADUG]. And I would have been very happy to have sold to Abu Dhabi at a much higher price. And instead of Shinawatra making a good turn on this, which he did, the fans could have gotten a proper return on that stake.

I remember at the time, John Wardle and David Makin had put quite a lot of money into the club, I think about £22m. They assigned their loans to Shinawatra at a discount. But I think he took the full amount when Abu Dhabi came in. And it would have been about a year later, we couldn't pay the second instalment on all the transfers that had been done for Sven Goran Eriksson, and we were talking about City potentially going into administration at that time.

Going back to our meeting, I have to tell you the story now. We had that lunch, and I was working and living in Northampton at the time, and went back there, very pleased with the day. And I got a phone call from Peter Spencer at the Manchester Evening News. How the hell did he know what was happening?

He said, “Oh, I know you met with David Bernstein”. Because I realised afterwards, you must have told him and that taught me a very valuable lessons in dealing with the media, which I was able to put to good use in the in the subsequent years. I'd like to think anyway, that it kick-started the process of getting some investment into the club, which Alastair Mackintosh was always talking about, though nothing much ever seemed to come about. And I like to think that the process that we started after that lunch did give Alistair the impetus to start seriously finding someone because I think it was probably panic stations, knowing that we were waiting in the wings.

You can't rewrite history, can you. But I believe that had we stayed together as a board when I was there, and continued to do what we were doing the way we were doing it, we would have not had some of the many crises we had afterwards. Over the next few years, we would have built on the foundations we'd laid and if the time had come that we needed to sell the club, to Abu Dhabi or someone else with that sort of quality, we would have been in a much stronger position to have done it. And everybody, the fans in particular, would have come out of it a bit more strongly. That's what I was planning.

When we moved to the stadium, looking at the cashflow statement we were spending more cash than we were earning, which is why John Wardle and David Makin had to put in their loans, of course, Would it have been different had you been chairman, in terms of managing the finances better? I mean, Alistair was an accountant. I'm quite surprised.

Alistair was very, very good. Is very good. I mean, he’s held down a big job at Fulham the last 15 years or so. But put it this way, I think if I'd been there, I think John and David's interests would have been better served by my looking after their funding for them. It's what would have been happening until then [the ADUG takeover].

So that was the year under Shinawatra. And then of course, the Abu Dhabi takeover came. Were you a bit cynical at the time, or did you feel it was a long-term investment?

I was very pleased that Shinawatra was out of the way. A lot of that was very good news. And no, I obviously could see that the club was taken over by people with huge financial resources. And I thought they would probably make a good long-term owner, which certainly proved to be so, No, I don't have any particular qualms.

In Part 2, we talk about Financial Fair Play, his period at the FA, the media, his views on football governance and his role in the new Wembley Stadium (aka Etihad South).