‘I sold houses & cars to keep Posh afloat. What happened at Bury is disgraceful’
BARRY FRY is banging his fist on his office table in anger. Pure frustration.
It’s 10.45pm on Wednesday. There’s me, him and the cleaners left at Peterborough United.
And the man who has spent 60 years in and around the professional game is annoyed.
Upset at the growing band of football club owners who are, not to put to fine a point on it, “taking the p***” – both out of him and the game he loves.
The list of outrages perpetrated by those who own our nation’s Football League clubs gets bigger.
What has taken place at Bury, Blackpool, Bolton and Coventry, he believes, could be just the tip of the iceberg.
So when you hear what he has done to keep Posh afloat, you can understand the depth of his feelings.
He said: “I’ve seen lots of ups and downs at Peterborough. I’ve managed for 10 years, been director of football for 15 – been manager, chairman and owner all at the same time. I know what an owner’s responsibility is.
“I’ve got to be honest, being the owner of a f o otbal l club is frightening. It is the most stressful job of ’em all. It nearly killed me.
“I hadn’t got a pot to p*** in when I bought it. Neither did the club. They owed money left, right and centre – but I couldn’t put it into administration. I didn’t want to be known as the man who was in charge when Peterborough United went out of business.
“I couldn’t stand by and watch that. Creditors had families to feed. I didn’t want them getting 10 pence in the pound.
“So, I sold my property in Portugal for £160,000, took out a second mortgage out on my house for £300,000.
“My testimonial money, which Sir Alex Ferguson helped raise by bringing Manchester United here, that went. As did my pension.
“It’s the worst thing I ever did. I put my family at risk. I remember walking around my kitchen with a cup of tea at 4am, wondering how I was going to do it.
“In the end, I pulled something out. But some of the strokes... I’d sell anything. I sold cars, sold houses...
“Our wage bill was £150,000 per month. In the end, I took my mother-in-law’s deeds to Barclays Bank so they would give me an overdraft.
“I then got in with Big Ron and we got this ‘ Big Ron Manager’ series up and running. I got loads of stick for that – but I received £150,000 for it.
“And that was so important because that programme was seen by the current owner who lived in Spain and he bought the club from me.
“The day he did it was like a double-decker bus and Boeing 747 were lifted off my shoulders.
“My wife, who has been with me for 41 years, said she loved me so much that she would live down the river in a tent – she doesn’t know how close she came...”
And so, what does he think of Steve Dale ( left), who took Bury to the wall, Ken Anderson at Bolton, who took them to the brink, the Oyston family at Blackpool, Coventry City’s faceless owners?
He said: “It breaks my heart to see what happened to Bury. And he couldn’t give a f***.
“It’s disgraceful people like that are involved in football.”
So what should Rick Parry, the in-coming chairman of the Football League, turn his attention to?
He said: “Bury have gone and, like a pack of cards, another 12 of us could drop out.
“So we have to have stronger fit-and-proper-persons tests.
“The community rely on football clubs. Look, I was in non-league half my life.
“The people who work there give their time and effort for the community. They are my unsung heroes because they do it for the love of the game.
“They are being betrayed – they really are.
“And the Football League needs to sort it out – or more will follow Bury – you mark my words.”