UK Edition
Karren Brady, David Sullivan and David Gold facing hot reception as Birmingham travel to West Ham
There is a passage towards the start of Brady Plays the Blues – Baroness Karren Brady’s account of her chaotic first seasons at Birmingham City – in which she recalls a fact-finding mission to St Andrew’s on which she was sent by David Sullivan, her then boss at Sport Newspapers, in the spring of 1993.
Sullivan was contemplating the acquisition of a football club and wanted to know whether Birmingham might be suitable.
“I was shown to the boardroom, which had obviously been very fashionable in about 1967,” Brady says of her meeting with Birmingham’s then chairman Jack Wiseman. “There was a carpet which could only have been designed by a blind alcoholic on acid.”
Brady, who was 23 at the time, goes on to describe how neither Wiseman nor anyone at the club had the foggiest what was going on. No one could tell her how much the club shop brought in, the revenues from ticket sales. Nothing. The chief scout doubled as the catering manager. “I rushed back to London to tell David to buy Birmingham,” she writes.
You do not have to be a genius to see the interesting sub-plot in this afternoon’s early kick-off between West Ham and Birmingham in the FA Cup third round. Both sets of fans are, of course, intimately acquainted with West Ham’s vice-chairman, Brady, and with West Ham co-owners and chairmen Sullivan and David Gold.
The only question is what reception the trio will be afforded. And that goes for both the home and away support.
It is fair to say Sullivan, Gold and Brady divide opinion. For the 16 years they were at Birmingham, there was barely a dull moment. From Brady hauling manager Barry Fry dripping from the shower to read him the riot act in the corridor, to salacious stories in the press regarding her relationship with striker Paul Peschisolido (they married in 1995 and remain so), to the moment they sold the club to Hong Kong businessman Carson Yeung, it was drama and controversy all the way.
Things have been scarcely less eventful at West Ham, what with the deeply unpopular move from the Boleyn Ground to the Olympic Stadium leading to ugly protests last season. When the FA Cup draw was made last month, both sets of supporters were quick to chime in. “Love how this will turn into a complete love in!” wrote one West Ham fan on Twitter. “Both our clubs hate Gold, Sullivan and Brady. Magical.”
With 5,000 Birmingham fans trooping to east London, it has the potential to be tasty. There is a history of bad blood anyway. Gold was memorably banned from attending a Carling Cup semi-final at St Andrew’s in 2011 after saying he wanted “revenge” for what he saw as Birmingham’s decision to renege on a deal to keep him as chairman.
Cliff Horrocks, chairman of the Blues Trust supporters’ group, acknowledges that much has changed since 1993. Not least Brady herself. The front cover of Brady Plays the Blues features her in a football kit and not much else. A far cry from the power suits she wears today.
“It was a different time, she was young and inexperienced,” Horrocks says. “And, actually, she did a lot of good work in that area, fighting for gender equality.”
But he reckons the feeling among Birmingham fans towards their former owners is still “split about 50-50” between those who remember them with gratitude and those who “hold a grudge”.
Garry Monk, the manager, has got the team playing well again – with Birmingham unbeaten in five and two places outside the play-off spots in the Championship. But the club, Horrocks says, are still feeling the after-effects of Yeung’s conviction for money laundering, with a possible points deduction looming if they are found to have breached the EFL's financial fair play rules over recent transfers. The club is currently under a transfer embargo, with a hearing scheduled for next month.
“Yes, they saved the club,” Horrocks says of the Sullivan-Gold-Brady years. “But the overwhelming feeling was that they just took the highest bid they could get rather than the best bid. It felt [when they left] as if they didn’t give a s--- about the club.
“I think there’ll be some chanting, yes. Maybe from both sets of supporters.”
Fry takes a different view. Now Peterborough’s director of football, he will not be at Saturday's game as he is in Middlesbrough for his team’s FA Cup clash. But he thinks history should be kind to the trio, saying Birmingham fans, in particular, should be grateful.
“I thought my luck was in there,” he jokes of the shower incident. “But no, I had great times at Birmingham, even though I was sacked in the end.
“I think Brady, Sullivan and Gold did an amazing job; saving the club from financial ruin, redeveloping the stadium, making them profitable, getting them to the Premier League...
“And they have done amazing things at West Ham, too. Not many owners would have taken on £100 million of debt. It was very brave.
"Will there be trouble [on Saturday]? I think there are always a few idiots. But deep in their hearts, they must respect what they achieved for the club. They weren't to know [about Yeung]. The fans shouldn't blame them for that."