Simon Greenberg
Sports journalist whose national scoops exposed corruption at the heart of football
ONE OF the leading sports journalists and communications directors of his generation, Simon Greenberg, who has died at the age of 52 after a short illness, was noted for his story-getting powers. They brought down a football manager, Arsenal’s George Graham, while his wise counsel helped another, the mercurial Jose Mourinho, during his first stint as Chelsea boss.
It was while working at the Mail on Sunday newspaper in the mid-1990s that Greenberg revealed Gunners’ boss Graham had received illicit payments from a Norwegian football agent. As a result, the word “bung” became one of the nation’s unofficial words of the year in 1995.
A decade later he would work in tandem with Mourinho as Chelsea’s communications director, as the Blues won back-to-back league titles under the stewardship of the mischievous Portuguese. Mourinho described Greenberg as his “shadow” — the Special One’s trusted man. Greenberg did, however, fail to convince him of the merits of cricket.
A lifelong Tottenham Hotspur fan, Simon Marc Greenberg was the son of Judy and Benson Greenberg, who raised him and his brother Daniel in Hampstead Garden Suburb. While never overtly religious, Greenberg was deeply proud of his Jewish roots and prone to pepper light conversation with Yiddish —“schluff” (a nap) being a particular favourite.
Every Friday at the start of his life, Judy would wheel the infant Simon in his pram to buy challahs at Grodzinski’s bakery. Judy recalls that her boy would sit up in his pram and smile so angelically at the women in the shop they would give him a biscuit to munch on. That infectious smile would stand him in good stead throughout his personal and professional life over the next half century.
Greenberg attended the Kerem nursery before joining Brooklands primary school, where he and I met and became best friends.
It was during Sunday Hebrew classes at his local synagogue that Greenberg began to display the tenacity which would characterise his later career. On being told in class that the planet was only 6,000 years old, he argued scientists had proof that dinosaurs existed 200 million years ago. Greenberg was sent to speak to the rabbi. When the conversation progressed to Darwin, his parents were summoned. When they tried to insist that he return to classes the following week, an incandescent Simon bunked off and went to the local park with his brother instead.
After primary school, Greenberg attended Christ’s College, a state school in Finchley, where he made firm friends with the likes of Gavin Yamey, Tim Malnick, Tony Baer, John Arvanitus and Mike Leigh, and excelled at tennis and football. He played representative basketball for Barnet. He accompanied his father to Spurs matches from the age of four, and at 11 he forced his parents to buy the International Herald Tribune every Monday so he could get the most up to date sporting results from America.
Academically bright, Greenberg applied to study modern history at Oxford. He duly sat an exam, on the subject , What is An Oligarchy? Despite not being completely sure of his ground, the ever-confident Greenberg believed he’d crushed it. At the interview stage he found himself in a room with three professors, one of whom was Professor Norman Stone, who looked down at his notes and asked the 18-year-old to explain his essay answer. When Greenberg regurgitated his argument, Stone walked out of the room, leaving the other two professors to complete the interview. Friends would later agree the anecdote encapsulated Greenberg’s capacity to laugh at himself. It was an enduring quality that made him a popular, loveable man.
Undeterred by his Oxford experience, Greenberg won a place to study history at Exeter University, where he played for the football team. After graduating, he continued to play football with North-West Neasden — his father Benson serving as chairman of the club between 1993 and 1995. With the (self-confessedly) slow but skilful Greenberg in the engine room of midfield, the team won the double twice.
After graduating from Exeter with a 2:1, he secured a place on the City, University of London’s prestigious postgraduate journalism course. From there, he landed his first reporting job on the Hornsey Journal.
Greenberg went on to break stories for the Mail on Sunday, The London Evening Standard and (less happily) the News of the World. He was renowned for developing the careers of others, while unearthing some of the best tales in sport. Greenberg was named twice as Sports Reporter of the year.
However, as he would readily concede to friends, Greenberg’s greatest achievement was raising a family with his wife Fran Jefferson. Their shared love of music saw a magical relationship bloom and grow at the Glastonbury Festival. They married in 2013 and she remained by his side throughout. Theirs was a special bond that even the normally tough Greenberg would admit was something for which he lived.
Largely confined to his family home in his final weeks, a virtual Who’s Who of the sporting and media world came by to visit Greenberg —testament to the generosity he had shown so many in his career and personal life.
He managed one final visit to Spurs. In June of this year the club’s chairman Daniel Levy hosted a private dinner for him, his brother and a few close friends overlooking the pitch at the magnificent Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The lifelong fan was taken to the bosom of his boyhood love. He is survived by Fran, their son Sam, daughters Sukie and Coco from Fran’s previous marriage, his parents and his brother Daniel.
Simon Greenberg: born July 26, 1969. Died August 30, 2021