KOA special: David Sheepshanks on his new book, Town memories and England

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0:57Hello, everyone. Stuart Watson here from the Kings of Anglia podcast produced by the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star. And I'm delighted to bring you a special guest today. Those watching on video will see David Sheepshanks, former Ipswich Town Chairman, is with me. David, we're here to talk about your book, which I have here, which I've been delighted to read, Man on a Mission. You've just been telling me about the process of writing that before we hit record. But before we start talking about that, how are you, sir? Are you keeping well? Because you had some shock news earlier this year, didn't you?

1:31I did. No, thank you, Stuart. And it's lovely to see you. Thank you for inviting me. And hello to all your viewers and listeners. I've been through a rough time, really. Unbelievably, from no signs, if I say no signs, I did have some blood. but from nowhere I've had bowel cancer and I think people know now because I went to public because I was so shocked and my own mistake was that they send you when you get to a certain age they send you these NHS test kits for you to test if you've got any blood in your poo and I hadn't done I thought I had piles and so for a couple of months I delayed testing and then I did test and sure enough there was blood and then you go we've got a brilliant center in Ipswich and also in Colchester an endoscopy unit so I went there for my colonoscopy and when I got there I've had one before and it was all benign but this time they said it's very sorry David you've got well Mr.

2:41Sheepshanks you've got a you've got you've got a nasty here because you line down you can see it on the screen and anyway cut a long story short it was and then I went to London because I have got health insurance and went to the Royal Marsden to you know specialist who could take it out and he said before I do I'm going to send you to another specialist in the Cromwell hospital who specializes in a sort of smaller operation which is essentially taking it out up your bum and which is much more easy and when I got there he looked at it and he said oh my goodness I wish you to come here a couple of months ago because I could have done it like that but now it's gone too far and it's grown into the wall of your of your colon and it's going to have to be a you know proper proper removal and that was it and i ended up having a you know i wouldn't scare anybody a very big operation and i was in hospital two weeks and and so on and so on and so forth so the reason i went public is it's just you know i'm the mad one i normally am very careful about all those sort of things but i had just delayed it and if i hadn't delayed it it would have been easy peasy and so my message to everybody is as we get older there's no rhyme no reason as to why you or i or anybody hopefully not you get these things but it happens and you only have to look in the papers every day that different statistics one in two of us is going to have cancer one day and it's best if you can avoid it or if you can catch it early and i am one of the lucky ones because i've had an amazing a surgeon and wonderful care and i'm actually one of the lucky guys as well because i'm on chemotherapy now and many people there's a terrible stigma attached to chemotherapy and you know absolutely it causes side effects for many people but for some it doesn't and i'm so far touch wood one of the lucky ones and um and uh yeah so anyway there we are i'm on the mend And I'm easing my way back into my working life and certainly into my football life and on a high after last night.

5:06And, you know, what a fantastic match that was. It really was. Yeah. We'll come back to that because you've had your part to play in England and St George's Park, which we'll come on to. but um you've just talked about that easing yourself back into work your book is called and i'll show it again man on a mission i think you're a self-confessed workaholic david i think it takes a lot to keep you away from uh from from doing the things that you love um talk to me about the thought behind the name of the book and the process of writing it well actually um it was a you know very good friend, a friend of yours and a friend of mine.

5:51Neil Prentice helped me with the name because I was really wrestling and I had Warren Page, who's a local photographer, came over and did the photograph for the front cover. Let's give him a plug. And he did a lot of work for you guys over the years when I was in post at Portman Road. And Neil Prentice we worked with a lot as well. And, of course, he's done these brilliant books on George and Johnny Walk. and I was agonising over what the title was and Neil, I must give him credit, he came up with it but the thing that really captured me or grabbed me was the agony and the ecstasy of a life in football because I have, believe it or not, been in football for nearly 40 years and I started in 87, so next year it'll be 40 years and I was a fan for many years before that so it's been longer really but actually involved in the game that long and um and uh yeah so that's where the title came from must credit where it's due um but it was a long process i had kept various people have said over the years david when are you going to write a book when you're going to write a book and you know i said really you know really people can be interested and they said yeah yeah you've got to write a book whatever it is and this was sort of in the teens I suppose and then just before Covid I finally decided I'd sit down and write it and over my years in all the jobs I've had I've kept notebooks and just sort of A4 notebooks where I've scribbled what's happened in meetings and that time not a diary as such but notes and so I had this kind of compendium of information but trying to go through it and put a red pen or a red circle around what was interesting and scratch out everything else that was boring um was a nightmare and i think that's what took so long because i can remember lots about the games and you know i was also indebted i must just say to sean sorter known otherwise known as the uh stat man and you know he went through it and checked that i got all my figures right because you can't rely on wikipedia as you as you well know i mean i'm sure you're a stat man as well but uh but um anyway so he's been through that but um anyway bit by bit i worked through these notebooks and we finally got there and i thought i was going to self-publish and sent it to a literary agent who a friend of mine had recommended and with with managing my expectations saying you know people are really more interested in in players and and managers for books david you know they're not really interested in chairman and i said yeah yeah i get all that anyway out of the blue pitch who were a specialist sports book publisher who you know i think you've worked with um but i didn't know that at the time they rang me up and said david we love this book and we're going to publish it anyway here it is fantastic and uh the first part of the book i guess is your kind of origin story or your rise to becoming Ipswich Town chairman, which may not be a tale that is familiar to all Ipswich Town fans.

9:06I mean, you're a Suffolk boy, aren't you, from farming stock. And you were a fan, first and foremost, the 60s era, wasn't it, when you first fell in love with Ipswich Town? Exactly. And my first game was 1966,

9:25when Bill McGarry had just become the manager and Billy Baxter and Ray Crawford were still playing for us. And my favourite player was Danny Hegan and Frank Brogan, who was a penalty taker, and, you know, all those amazing... Dear Mick McNeil, who died not long ago, a special man. Remember all these players so well. And I always make the point, you know, I went along relatively late, you'd have to say, I was 13 years old. And taken by three people who worked on my father's farm who were mad Ipswich fans. But anyway, thank God they took me because it only I was, you know, remember when I was chairman, I always made this point everywhere that it only takes one game.

10:11It's only one game to go and feel the magic of the being part of a crowd and seeing these players and the theater of it. and the smell and the noise and everything. It's just wonderful. It's the Bobby Robson quote, isn't it? What is football anyway? And he talks about walking up the steps. I put that in the book, actually. You're totally right. He's one of my heroes. Anyway, Bill McGarry was the manager for two or three years and then he got promoted and then he made this, with due respect, asinine remark that he'd taken Ipswich as far as he could take them and he went off to he got seduced and went to wolves and bobby robson came to itch and and you know people did the first two or three years for bobby robson it was really hard and he had all those fisticuffs with tommy carroll and billy baxter and he had to really earn his you know spurs and but the board thank goodness stayed with him and then in 1973 i think I'm right we won the Texaco Cup doesn't exist anymore and it from there on it rolled on and we were in Europe nine years out of the next ten and and and many of your older viewers and supporters will remember all this and it's quite well covered in the book because they will have favorite players like me of that era so I tried not to regurgitate it too much because it's all been written about before but there are my memories of that phenomenal team led by mcmills and and um you know paul mariner and george burley and um you know eventually terry butch i mean i can't name them all i can name them all but not not take it up the time and so i've covered that but i've also covered a bit of my background and how i got into it because you know people will know i came i'm very lucky i came from i guess quite a privileged background and my father was a farmer, but he was a workaholic.

12:13And I learned to be a workaholic really from him because he had the most phenomenal work ethic and that's where mine has rubbed off from. And so although he was privileged in a way, he came from the army, left the army when his father died and he came down here and inherited a small farm, which he then borrowed lots of money from the bank to build and made it, you know, a life's work. But I wanted people to know what I went through. You know, I went through a lot of things, privilege in some ways, but I am a Suffolk man, you just said at the beginning. I'm also an Ipswich man. I'm an Ipswich town fan through and through.

12:59You know, I bleed blue and white and have done ever since that day in 1966, really. Obviously, it takes a few weeks to get into you. And I used to go on my motorbike to Portman Road with friends. And then I used to go on the bus and stand in the North Stand when in those days the North Stand was only half Ipswich fans and the other half was away. So they all screamed obscenities at each other and rude chants, probably not as rude as they are now. but i mean i can even remember people be shocked i remember one game where the visiting fans had sharpened pennies old pennies that they hurled across at us as i mean you know that was the kind of stuff that happened in those days and um but i'm you know i'm steeped in it i just love this club and and um you'll probably know in the story that um apparently i said i can't witness it but apparently it's true that i'd said to these lovely men who took me to the games in those early days who sits over there pointing at the director's box and they said oh that's the directors that's the cobbles and that's where they sit i'd apparently said i'm gonna sit there one day anyway whatever and um and i did i suppose 20 years later um you know it was an extraordinary time uh after all that success seeing the johann kreuss and gunter netzes and panenka's and um michelle patini's and all these phenomenal you know we were spoiled when we saw world-class players coming out of Portman Road every year and playing, you know, against our boys and usually us giving them a hiding because we never, we never lost and still to this day, we haven't ever lost a home game in Europe at Portman Road.

15:03It's remarkable, isn't it? When you think what that would translate to in kind of modern football terms, in terms of qualifying for champions league year in year out and the world stars yeah and i'm very proud that in you know my day and george burley's day we kept that record alive and um in the early 2000s but um yeah so um the one thing i was going to tell you quickly there's a funny story so how i became a director is quite interesting because the last player that during the early 80s when bobby robson left in 82 to Bobby Ferguson took over excellent coach and really good man and um you know had a had a was given a hard a tough hand to play because basically they were selling his best players every year and so Mick Mills is one of the earlier ones to leave to Southampton I think then Paul Mariner went 84 or something like that to Arsenal um you know and they went in dribs and George and Eric Gates went to Sunderland.

16:07You know, anyway, the final player, we got relegated in 86. And I was, you know, an avid fan. I was a season ticket holder by then, went to every game. And I couldn't stand the lack of information from the club. And there was no, I mean, there were very good people there already, like Mel Henderson and so on was the PRO of the club. but the sort of messages that were coming out of the club were dribs and drabs and nobody had any hope and so seeing all your favorite players sold and yeah we bought good players the Ian Atkins and Romeo Zondervans and these kind of guys but they weren't our world beaters that we'd had before and so in 1986 famously Terry Butcher um kicked I say allegedly I think he did he's never denied to kick the dressing room door down at west ham when we lost and we to a very unfair referee decision and actually we were relegated the week after at sheffield wednesday i think but um and i i wrote to the chair to patrick cobble and said you know i'm a young man i'm passionate about this club i'm doing reasonably well in business got a bit of a business break whatever it is and i would love to help if i ever could needless to say no reply and about six months later in around christmas i got this invitation to come to lunch in the boardroom and didn't say anything about what it was about just as a guest and i was told there wouldn't be any visiting directors there because they sometimes invited them but they didn't always so i went and i was i had a wonderful lunch just with the other directors who i didn't know any of them and um anyway two hours later i went out into director's box to watch the game in an alcoholic haze and i realized afterwards as i'd rationalized it when i eventually got asked to join the board um that my interview consisted of how much did i love the club and they were they were passionate you know they might have appeared um you know laissez faire but not a bit of it they were passionate all of them about the club how much did i know and love the club um how many silly funny stories could i tell did i have a good sense of humor and how well could i hold my booze and i said and then 10 days later he rang up and said would you like to come and have a coffee and i came out of coffee he said you're the unanimous you don't know we were interviewing you you're the unanimous choice of the directors to join the board.

18:49Would you consider it? I said, consider it. I'd leap at it. And then he had these immortal words. He said, well, very good of you to take it on. And again, I didn't know what that meant at the time, because of course, any of your listeners, fans would have leapt at it as well. But what it meant really, I think, was he knew, and I I think he knew that he might be interviewing a future chairman of the club one day, although I served nine years nearly apprenticeship as a director, learning all the rope, doesn't happen these days, learning all the ropes of the club. And, you know, going on supporters, coaches, and I became very much an interface between the supporters and the board.

19:40and I mean it was just it was a it was a very special time and I think what I now realize was that once this club gets you or football gets you actually even wider the football league the FA and all that I mean your life will never be the same again and mine what mine wasn't and hasn't and I'm and I'm thrilled for the most part and I say the agony and the ecstasy because there have been some agonies but you know i'm privileged i'm so fortunate and so lucky and it all starts with being taken on by the best club in the world the club the club that we all love how old were you been david then when you became a director in the late 80s in your sort of 30s yeah 34 so you know a young man who you know you've been in the seafood industry haven't you at that stage i had my own company my own company which traded in prawns and we imported prawns from mark suspenses and b jam and all sorts of people and packed prawns we had a factory at martlesham and um and we were you know it was it was a sort of yeah it was it was it was going really well and i was a young director of radio orwell as it was called in those days which is now heart or whatever it is but it was then became sgr and um you know i was very much involved in in the community at a young age and um in a business way as well and anyway there we are as a young man here i am sitting as a lot older man now but um and i kind of think back to that sort of your early stages by that you become chairman by sort of the mid 90s so you you've kind of straddled eras in football really you've just touched upon it you've you've come in sort of you know there's there's lots said and written about the cobalt and you know the famous quote of the the only crisis at ipswich town is when the white white wine runs out and you just in the boardroom yeah um and your interview process there and then sort of early 90s dawn of the premier league era and the whole financial landscape sort of changes and the professionalism of the game sort of explodes really how how much of a steep learning curve were those kind of early days as a chairman massive and um because um i mean i think in terms of indoctrination into the club as i said i had that nine years nearly between 80 86 87 when i started the beginning of that year all the way up to 1995 when i became chairman summer 95 and i had really been steeped in it i mean we were in We were in the championship.

22:25It wasn't called that then, but in those days, we'd just been relegated. And John Duncan became our manager. I had the first year with Bobby Ferguson and then John Duncan. Went to Russia and Ukraine with John to sign Sergei Beltácsia, which was an extraordinary story. And there's some very good stories, anecdotes about that in the book. because that was literally going behind the Iron Curtain in those days. And John had the courage to sign Sergei and then didn't follow through and play him in his best position because I think he got cold feet. But Sergei was one of, if not one of, or if not the best, they called them libero, sweepers, very common on the continent, less so in England in English football and we were much more big you know six foot plus um center halves you could head the ball and all that whereas these guys were much more cultured players there's a guy called Gianni I think he was called Rivera is it Riva or Rivera I might be modeling them up we played for Italy and so and Sergei and they were the two best and Sergei was the sweeper not just for Dynamo Kiev, but also the USSR.

23:48And he spoke two words. His only two words of English were no problem. No problem. But he came and still is to this day a very, very, very great friend. But moving on, and then anyway, all the way through, lots of experiences. John Lyle came as manager. we got promoted to be founding members of the Premier League you know I was obviously very much a member of the board active member of the board then but John Kerr was the chairman Patrick Cobbold stood down John Lyle did an amazing job got us promoted on next to nothing because you know until now we'll talk about it in a minute but until now this club has never had any money and it's been at different times our downfall.

24:41But John Lyle managed to get us promoted. So in 92, we were founding members of the Premier League. Then we struggled. I won't get into all that. There's quite a story about that in the book, about what happened. And then it got worse. And then there were sort of demonstrations against the board and the club, ironically led by a nephew of Patrick Cobbold. Ivan and it was all very unpleasant really anyway there was a big AGM or EGM and where they tried to topple the board in spring summer early summer 95 and anyway the board carried the day easily by 90 80 % 89 % sorry and it saves a non-event in the end over i think john was who very sadly we lost his family is still very big in suffolk um people and wonderful family but john had a really tough time during that period and and he he much to everybody's surprise just came to the board one day and said i think i'm going to stand i've done my four years somebody else's turn and um and i thought john carriage would be the chairman and he was chairman of feissons and brilliant man and uh no john courage said no no david you we i'm going to recommend you are and so the board put me forward and backed me and you know well you know everyone said who's he and um how much money has he got as well i haven't got the money but i've got i'm steeped in ipswich and i've got a lot of energy and a bit of a brain and I will throw myself into everything that we need to do.

26:30And the biggest thing you're right, you're alluding to, is professionalising the club. Because in 1995, the game was changing rapidly. We'd been in the Premier League three years. We were relegated, famously. Man United beat us 9-0. That was awful. I sat through that. I always tell everybody I was there when we beat Man United 6-0 at Portman Road in 1980. and um so there was a hell of a lot to do to professionalize the club and i came up with my five-year plan um which i say was mine it was mine in the sense that i sort of led on it but plans never work unless you engage everybody in it and so i sat around a table with george burley and dale roberts and brian clude paul goddard all those wonderful guys and we talked about how we could get the club back to the premier league anyway there's a nice story in the book and um they all looked at me like i was mad but when i said well could we do it in five years some heads went up i said well good so what would we need to do because i had got the sort of plan in the basics and they said oh we'd have to invest in youth and we'd have to it's always been the Yipzit Shan way, we'd all reinvest in the community.

27:47We've got to get, you know, young children, young people wearing blue and white again instead of every other colour. We've got to make Portman Road a place that people want to come again rather than, you know, say, what are you wasting your time for on a Saturday afternoon? And all those, you know, we had to make it more commercial. The commercial side with lovely people, brilliant people like Mike Noy and Richard Powell and so on who were doing a great job. But we needed more commercial muscle and nows to really flex our assets. And so we did. And we came up with a plan. Everybody bought into it.

28:31And then Muggins here, I made myself accountable. And I do believe in this. I said, well, I will make myself accountable. We will be promoted within five years. And then you know what happened. Every year, well, first year, we missed the playoffs, seventh place in the last day, and when Millwall came and defended, we were 11 men behind the ball. And then the next few years, we missed it every year, and people said, oh, David, you know, at the end of each year, we have a different circumstance, and we lost to Sheffield, Bolton, whatever, Charlton. And it was the same clubs, and I've never liked any of those clubs since.

29:11no no i mean i'm joking really but and um and people would put a microphone under my mouth and say probably young you steward i don't know but saying you know well mr sheepshanks you've lost um we've lost again in the playoffs let's level with the fans we know there's no money you're going to have to sell your best players aren't you and you might as well level with the fans now that you know they shouldn't be able to expect another playoff campaign next season and I would have to say you can't even have a flicker of doubt. I'd say, well, look, I'm hurting as much as you. We're all hurting. This is not the night to talk about this other than I am going to say we will come again.

29:53And how will you do that? Well, you don't believe me. We may well have to sell a best player or two best players, but we can be smart and clever in the market and we can go and find new players and we can recreate a team. and george burley is an amazing uh judge of a player he had a great great eye for picking the right people and um and we will come again and we did that every year and then as you know year five nirvana heaven wow we'll come on to that shortly but i mean you've talked about the five-year plan looking back through your career and there's some synergy actually when we get on to england and St George's Park you love to put a time frame on on things David and like you say hold yourself to account and be really positive with with your outlook um do you are you a big believer in that in putting sort of a time frame and really setting out a vision of what needs to be achieved and when by I am and I think I say in the book and there's quite a few sort of business tips I think in the book um but actually in the beginning when I was writing I was going to put more of those in that I didn't in the end because I'm now going to write a second book which has got more of the sort of business leadership type tips and I've already started that now but there are quite a few in the book anyway and the number one sort of mantra of mine is begin with the end in mind and I've learned this through various people who've mentored me a brilliant man called Frank Dick who I call the godfather of British coaching.

31:29He's still going strong. I got him involved in 1995 and he came down and helped me and he helped us a lot with the academy in particular. But I think begin with the end in mind. If you don't know where you're going, how are you going to get there? It's kind of, you know, many people find it very difficult because it is difficult saying, but once you, it's like Thomas Tuchel. when I first started working with him, you know, only a year and a half ago. And I retired from that role. I chaired the England sort of sub board until April last year. And so my first two meetings were Thomas, my last two meetings were Thomas's first two meetings.

32:13And I remember saying to Thomas, the first thing, you know, Thomas, it's your first meeting. I want to give you the floor to just say a few words about your approach and what you hope to achieve here. And this has been in the press now, so I'm not giving away anything. But he said then, he said, thank you very much, David. I see my role as very simple. I'm here to put a second star on the shirt. And it's so precise, isn't it? And concise. Everybody can get it. It conjures up a picture in your mind of that extra star on the badge. And I look at the England badge now and it's got one star. Ipswich has got three.

33:03But, you know, we've got one star and we want two stars. But that's what I mean. Are you clear about what you're trying to achieve? And I'm sure when Thomas shared that with his players and his coaches and his staff, you know, they all got it immediately. because it's one thing to say, yes, well, I want to win the World Cup. And, you know, people say, well, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn. Everybody said that. But you've got to say something that captures the imagination. And I think that's what I've learned in business and in leadership. You know, people say our people are our best assets. I would actually say our best people are our best assets because you've got to get the right bums on the right seats.

33:46and forgive me it sounds harsh but the wrong ones off it you build a business with the right people around you who you know you can hang your hat on who you know share your vision and share your passion and that they then want to take ownership of because bosses old-fashioned bosses used to you know do the and he was brilliant don't get me wrong but you know the Alex Ferguson hairdryer moment of screaming and shouting and remonstrating and telling people what to do. The modern day, none of us respond very well to that, because it goes in one ear and out the other. And the best way is to get all of us taking pride in what we're doing, being house proud in the widest possible sense, loving the club, loving the organization, getting to know and like our peers and doing it together that's how you create a movement i mean if you like a cult which is the original word of culture and um so i'm i'm very sorry i'm straying into my work that i do these days which is working with leaders and and um you know building on building on culture and and and teaching teaching helping i don't teach because i i've learned the best way to learn these days is to ask people questions so if i if i tell you you know stuart i think you should do this you may or you may not but if i say stuart what do you think would be the best way forward here i'm now thinking i'm now asking you to think it through and then there are lots of ways to follow up that question you will have a much much better takeaway because it'll now be your idea and not mine.

35:33You see, anyway, so I probably... No, it's fascinating, David. And you talk about, I often ask managers, football managers, they're the one that has to put on this consistently positive outlook and have utter conviction in the vision. And you say to them privately, who's the one that lifts you? Who's the one in those moments of doubt? And there was a lot of perseverance. And I'm sure, I don't know if you felt there were moments of doubt when you kept falling short and during that period, you know, is there somebody that has to kind of lift you up during during those periods and make you keep buying into the vision unquestionably and as time has gone on i mean the constant is my wife mona and my children sophie and tom who are my family and you know we lean on i'm sure you you know i lean on my family and and they have been you know pivotal my next younger brother rick who i'm very close to who has Stokes sauces and must give Rick a plug for Stokes and he and I used to be in business together I mean before I got heavily involved in football he worked with me at Suffolk Foods where we did mayonnaise and yeah I mean so my family number one I mean my number two actually ways in self resilience and I'm sure you've had other people tell you this and those they are Through fitness, I used to find even in the really bad days, in those days I could go running.

37:00I don't run anymore. Then cycling. Nowadays I swim every day. It's been my thing for years and years and years. But keeping fit, that does somehow help when you're under the cosh. And then I always advocate a coach. So 30 years ago I began to work with Frank Dick. and although he's not been uh i mean he's somebody i've seen and talked to you know a few times a year um he nevertheless is a really wise man and so i've had a coach and so i always advocate you don't have me as a coach but i advocate all business leaders really to find somebody who they can who can be a confidant but more than that somebody who can um they can share their concerns with who can ask them questions you don't want you don't you don't want consultants who tell you what to do you want a coach or a mentor but a coach who will who will be there for you and ask you you know and think well hang on a minute david you're feeling really down but might there be another way of looking at this or what do you think your options are or that kind of you see you know what I mean, that kind of stuff, and you start to work your way through it.

38:17And I cannot recommend it more highly. I mean, I've worked for the last 10 years with an organization called Vistage, where they have people like me who assemble a group of 15, 20 people who sit around a table together, none of them competitors, who are all leaders in different fields, but they suddenly find that they actually have all the same experiences and challenges. And they get great comfort from hearing, you know, that you or I or somebody else has had the same problem that they've had and hearing how they would deal with this and what have you. And we have experts and what have you. So I recommend that.

38:59But it doesn't, it can be any, I'd say to every business leader, who is your coach? And find somebody who works for you. Yeah. And that perseverance, that conviction, riding out that playoff heartache year after year, all comes together and coincides with two glorious years. Promotion at Wembley. If you could pick any way to go up, it's via Wembley. It is. Although, thank God we didn't have to do it this year. Yes, indeed. And then, obviously, the season that followed as well, fifth place in the Premier League, qualifying for europe undoubtedly the peak of your your uh your time as chairman those two years how do you reflect on them now how vivid are the memories oh um well as much as anything is 25 years on but i i i mean parts of them are to this day you know i can hear i think i started very early in the book i can i only saw it later because of course i was there but um terry baxter did the local commentary but but um but uh uh peter drury who still works for itv he did a famous commentary and and you know the words were you know naylor rusa and then you know premiership and you know the hairs on the back of my neck sort of still stand to this very day and um when martin sort of hit that ball as the way he did and um yeah i mean that was that was the most it was the most extraordinary outflowing of relief delight um you know and it was just marvelous and it's the only day in my life i mean that i've been high as a kite without ever having one drop of alcohol or anything it was just sheer adrenaline all day not even to appreciate jim magilton and marcus stewart singing in the after party as they did and um but it was it was amazing and i got um soaked but not as badly as the referee did the referee was a very wonderful referee called terry heilbron from county durham and he was his last competitive match he'd been given it as an honour to do the championship playoff final and um and he was dressed up in his suit to go up to the main wembley suite after the game and jim magilton picked him up and threw him in the players bath and he came out soaked and so on but he took it in great good cheer and um yeah and the following year i mean again testament to george burley that's him dale roberts no longer with us all the coaches and george got a number of coaches involved actually um john gorman and various others came in to help i mean what an achievement in the premier league to finish fifth and um i we could have been third on the last day i think it was between leeds liverpool and us and they both won and we drew i think with derby if i remember rightly and um so we were fifth and if we'd have been third we'd have been in the champions league anyway we weren't but it and what an amazing success so you know george especially and all the players there was a lesson there by the way because we hardly changed the players so all those we i mean we probably with great respect to the teams of two years ago and today we probably had a better more um established team that won at wembley you think of the mowbrays the mcgriels the venuses the you know i can go through them all but the you know johnson's just um marcus stewart nailer Scully Matt Holland Richard Wright I mean they were really a really very strong side and established side and we were there were a lot of men in that in that setup and so I think we went up into the Premier League with a better team than we did two years ago and I'm sure we're all hoping to see some signings any day but you know than we currently have.

43:32I mean, there was a very good nucleus, don't get me wrong. But it was an established team. And really, the only player that George added was Herman O 'Ridersen. And then halfway through the season, Alan Armstrong. What was your hope and your belief? Martin Russo, a permanent sign. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Going into that season, David, in your mind, what were you hoping for? What was the aim? You couldn't have foreseen what had come. Would you have taken just surviving? Absolutely. In the board, we finished 17th. We didn't want a budget to be relegated, but we wanted, because that can be self-fulfilling.

44:15But you obviously have a budget based on staying up and the budget's based on going down and all that kind of contingency planning. But as the season went on i mean we were going up and up and up and up and a lot of one nil wins actually a lot of close wins but nevertheless it was it was wins and and it was just extraordinary so then george has made manager of the year they're all sorts of different you know um um commendations to many of us and it was it was extraordinary and i went on holiday and to australia and um and i got a message from um my uh pa at the time alicia saying david you can't get back here quick enough because there are a lot of people walking around here with their heads in the clouds and um And I think it was, you know, we'd achieved a lot.

45:15I mean, we were in Europe. And that was the much harder summer, was having been fifth in the Premier League, then trying to plan how to consolidate. And in a situation where Richard Wright, well, his agent, was really pushing him to go to Arsenal. And you can't stand in the way of players. They earn much, much more money. It's a career progression, all those kind of things. same thing happens today Liam De Laat going to Chelsea Mari Hutchinson going to Forest or whatever it is it's very difficult to stand in their way if they want to go but I do think it was really tough for us losing our goalkeeper and then we were trying to buy a goalkeeper at the last minute and it was George chose Matteo Serrini and on good advice from toward grip who was Svenjaer and Eriksson's number two and you know the Vanity George thing and whatever we began to bring in players who were culturally not the club and despite trying this is a challenge now it's a challenge for the club today but they'll be that much more sophisticated and better at it I'm absolutely certain but it is difficult when you come from one level to another level of how you recruit i touched on it earlier on about you know right bums on right seats how do you recruit the right people yes you want the right players and we all talk about players of the right physicality and strength and premier league you know of the modern premier league today we need all that but you also need the right people yeah can i give you some he hasn't said thomas tuchel is under the cost for not taking certain players to america and i wouldn't want to cast any aspersions on any of those individuals but i am absolutely he's not said this but i i will i will take a very educated guess that he's chosen his squad on the people who fit best in you know in a squad that need to stay together for six weeks and interact best and so forth.

47:34And, well, I think we, you know, some of those players who got left behind, very hard on them. People like Harry Maguire, wonderful players and, you know, done great things for England. So I'm not commenting, but he chose the ones that he thought the right chemistry was there. And I think that is a very big part of assembling the right squad. I'll throw some quick fire ones at you David if I can just from your understand. No you're fine. Best signing or your favourite signing of your tenure as chairman? I know there's so many to pick from but if I had to put you on the spot who would it be? Well I'll be a cheat and I have to say Matt Holland.

48:14Matt Holland, yeah he's a good friend and a very good man and I'm you know huge a huge admirer of his but it was that was a that was a sort of um that was a statement signing at that point when we had no money and fans will remember of that vintage that they were you know they were really pressing us to sign kevin phillips and um and i got castigated that we didn't because then he came back and scored against us every bloody time for sunderland or whatever but but we couldn't afford to sign both we chose matt holland and matt holland was the one that um i mean marcus stewart because at the time that was another statement signing a few years later and you know got us promoted and it was very smart george got a whisper that um you know that he he was available and i got a whisper that the board was huddersfield they were vying with us for playoffs um was a you know that they needed the money anyway so he was a massive signing wonderful guy probably the most surprising signing but an equally important signing and i could go on i won't go on with the long list is david david johnson came from bury who was had been at man united and george got you know managed to get the inside track from alex ferguson that this was a player who could really step up and if you remember how many goals he got for us when he came so there's three anyway yeah i thought it'd be difficult to pin you down to one what about hardest conversation that you had to have along the way it might be the you know player that you you had to let go that really hurt you or you know you had to let some managers go that would have been very difficult ones what unquestionably George yeah and I've written about it it's really really tough because you know we we we work really well together and I'm a huge admirer of his to this very day and was that day but it just it it ran out it burnt out and I won't go into the whole thing he went on and had a successful career at a number of other clubs and he's back and living in Ipswich and he and I are you know good friends he's just been through the cancer journey that i'm going through now and it's been very good to me and you know i support we support each other i mean he said unquestionably that was the hardest and um but sometimes you have to and i had told him george at the very beginning it's in the book um i will support you you know to the absolute hilt until the day i can't and um and what i mean by that is I'm not going to waver and I mean I didn't and many people thought you know that the board would be intolerant because I didn't do it all alone I faced up for the whole board you know all the directors I didn't own this club on my own I was the front of the club and the leader day to day but I did it as a book as a as a responsible member of a board and we made board collective decisions and um yeah so we didn't wobble and we had some tough times in those as you referred to the playoff you know we stayed with george there were timed a couple of the seasons we were near the bottom of the table in november and people were wondering whether we were going to but you know we stuck firmly behind george and he behind me and we learned we were both learning on the job i suppose you could say and we learned a lot together and i feel very privileged to work with him it was also terribly hard i'm very i mean people might be surprised remain friends of people you break up with joe royal became a great friend and what a man he's he's he that was that's the story in the book you have to buy the book to read it it's all in there yeah what about the one that got away every every manager every chairman looks back on a player that you maybe got close to signing or thought you had a sniff of signing you've name checked a few i think in the book is that is there one in particular that you you still think about from time to time if if you'd have just got that one over the line well no funnily i mean i've just mentioned him i think kevin phillips would have been because he came to the club and he wanted to sign and it was just our lack of resources just meant that we couldn't do it um and i really i think he was one i can't even remember if i put it in the book but it comes to mind now you ask me that question um there was a southampton a moroccan southampton player called hashan cashlul who was a fantastic player and we were going to sign him and he wanted to come but then his agent found him an even better deal i think was it wolves or where did he go somewhere like that anyway and um and we didn't get him and that was a real disappointment but then there's a more amusing story i suppose the one who got away is um ian crook and who was from that lot up the road and he was out of contract and he was a very experienced playmaker, sort of like Jim Magilton, although all players are slightly different, but he had that phenomenal vision and ability to pass the ball.

53:50And he was out of contract and we signed him and he came down and we did the photograph on the pitch with him in blue and white and we were so pleased we'd got him, but we had to put the contract in the draw because he was going on holiday to Greece and he wouldn't be able to contract to the end of June. So this was in early June. In the middle of that time, we then put the contract in June, the photographs, the press photographs ready for 1st of July when we announce it all. In the middle of that time, a week later, Mike Walker, who was a Norwich man, I think left Everton and was rehired by Norwich.

54:29And he came back and he said, where's Crookie or where's Ian Crook? and they said, oh, well, I think he's gone. He signed the contract with Ipswich. He said, well, I think we've got to try and change it or whatever he said. And because it was still before the 30th of June, he got a hold of Ian Crook, persuaded him to change his mind and we had to tear up the contract and he stayed Norwich. And that was, we were furious. I mean, I made big complaints to the Football League. I was on the board. I think I was still chairman of the Football League then. and um anyway they got a slap on the wrist and um we had to sort of lump it so that was that was that was an amusing well it wasn't amusing but it's amusing now yeah in hindsight yeah um yeah what i mean we talked those incredible couple of years david and you do talk about this in the book as well that that you know it obviously ends in the perfect storm of a few years later you've touched upon, you know, maybe overreaching some of the players that were signed and it eventually leads in administration.

55:33What do you put, I mean, there's various factors. It's all, people often talk about it as being the perfect storm, but in hindsight, what do you think the biggest one was? Was it the ITV digital collapse? Do you think that the main factor? Well, no, that was just a, that was a major factor, but it wasn't the cause. The cause was the the advent of the 31st august transfer deadline so until that season to that summer 2002