Martin Edwards - Red Glory: Manchester United and Me

First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

Michael OMara Books Limited

9 Lion Yard

Tremadoc Road

London SW4 7NQ

Copyright Martin Edwards and Robert Sellers 2017

All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78243-812-0 in hardback print format

ISBN: 978-1-78243-813-7 in trade paperback format

ISBN: 978-1-78243-811-3 in ebook format

Cover design by Envy Design Ltd

www.mombooks.com

To my dad Louis, who led the way and made it all possible for me.

CONTENTS

Foreword by Peter Schmeichel

Introduction

1: CHAMPAGNE LOUIS

2: MATT AND LOUIS

3: ON THE BOARD

4: TOMMY DOC

5: SHARE DEALINGS

6: TAKING OVER AT THE TOP

7: BIG RON

8: MY FIRST TROPHY

9: FROM MAXWELL TO HEYSEL

10: THE TEN-POINT PLAN

11: GOODBYE RON, HELLO FERGIE

12: FIGHTING ON ALL FRONTS

13: SELLING UNITED

14: SEEDS OF SUCCESS

15: FLOATING UNITED

16: OLD TRAFFORD GETS A FACELIFT

17: THE PREMIERSHIP ARRIVES

18: CANTONA

19: BRAND UNITED

20: VICTORIOUS UNITED

21: KUNG-FU ERIC

22: YOU CANT WIN ANYTHING WITH KIDS

23: THE LEGENDS THAT ARE AND MIGHT HAVE BEEN

24: A WARNING TO ALEX

25: MURDOCH AND UNITED

26: THE YEAR OF THE TREBLE

27: HANDING OVER POWER

28: SAYING GOODBYE

Afterword: My All-Time Greatest United Team

Appendix 1: Manchester United League Positions 19802003

Appendix 2: Profit and Turnover at Manchester United 19802003

Appendix 3: Major Honours at Manchester United 19802003

Picture Credits

List of Illustrations

FOREWORD

by Peter Schmeichel

I moved back to Denmark many years ago, but whenever I am back in Alderley Edge in Cheshire, I go to a place called The Bubbleroom for breakfast and a read-through of the days papers. I prefer to sit by myself and ooze in the village that I used to live in when I played for Manchester United from my usual armchair by the window.

At these random visits to The Bubbleroom, I see Martin Edwards going into a coffee shop across the street at approximately the same time in the day, every time I am there, without fail.

He goes in for a coffee and he sits with the same group of people every time. On nice days, when the sun is up, they sit outside and I can see them from where I am sat. They talk about football I dont need to listen in to know that and more often than not, I know their talk is about Manchester United.

It is a very passionate conversation: I can see it in their body language, so I can also see how important the club is to them.

For Martin Edwards, Manchester United has always been the most important thing in his life.

When I was seven years old, I dreamt of playing for Manchester United. To this day I still dont have any idea of how or why that dream came to me I didnt live in England, never mind Manchester. Football matches shown on television in Denmark were few and far between not weeks but months went by without one being shown live, and it was like winning the National Lottery if the Red Devils were on. And my parents were busy, hard-working people with four kids, and therefore had very little time for football.

But even so, there I was, in the suburbs of Copenhagen dreaming, night after night, of being at Wembley Stadium, winning the FA Cup Final and being the hero for Manchester United.

My dream came true thanks to the chairman, Martin Edwards, and Sir Alex Ferguson.

I would never have set foot inside Old Trafford, and had the career I had, without the chairman.

Football is a rough, tough and at times dishonest business, where money is the law and language. Pride and honesty is a rarity these days. But when it comes to Martin, I think of those two words: pride and honesty.

I dont think he was ever a poker player; when dealing with him that never occurred to me. He would speak his mind, but also the truth.

Negotiating team bonuses, he would never lie to save the club money; he would lay it out there from the clubs perspective, and you would never go away feeling played or cheated on. Disappointed, yes, but never let down.

Our negotiations for bonuses for the Champions League in the 199899 season serves as a good example of Martins straightforward approach to running the club. That year we had to qualify in order to reach the group phase of the Champions League but, because we did this successfully, we ended up with a bonus much larger that the bonus we got for winning the final! For the club, getting into the group stage would turn over more money than actually playing in the final would, and the chairman thought it was only fair that the players got their share of that, too.

Sat there in his office at Old Trafford, overlooking the pitch, Martin would have a notepad and a big calculator on the table, and where others would use their pokerface and twist the truth, some even lie to you, he would listen to what you had to say, treat you with respect, and tap on the calculator to come up with a number that was fair, if that was what you were there for.

If he or the club had made a clear mistake, he would play fair and honour it, even if it wasnt what he had agreed to in the first place.

Pride, honesty and, more than anything, integrity.

Back in 1991, Manchester United wanted me as their new goalkeeper. They had asked me to come over to Manchester and I arrived at Old Trafford full of hope, wanting my agent to go straight to work on the contract, get it agreed and signed, but the chairman had other ideas.

Martin took me to the museum; he wanted to make absolutely sure that I knew the basics of the clubs history and the key figures in it Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, George Best, and his favourite, Duncan Edwards.

He gave me a lesson in the Manchester United way, making sure that I knew that signing for the club was not only about football, it was about much more than that. United was a way people lived their lives, he told me, and being a player carried an enormous responsibility to all of these people.

Looking at me, as he toured me around the museum, he weighed me up, he assessed me, he judged me and was making a decision on my suitability as a future Manchester United player. He didnt take the decision to sign new players players that would ultimately determine the future success of United lightly. He always weighed up what was best for his beloved club.

I liked him! Instantly. He was my kind of person; the passion he held for the club was shared by me.

Martin never disappointed me. Many have disliked him, even hated him, over the years. Theyve looked at him and seen a fat cat just there to make money out of the club.

But I saw him behind the scenes, knew him and spoke to him on a regular basis. I saw his passion for Manchester United first-hand, and I understood the direction he knew he needed to steer the club in order to be competitive as English football eventually made the changes it so badly needed and moved into a new era.