It was only when they cuffed him that I knew our soccer Svengali had been picking off ‘special ones’
‘HEART ATTACK’ MOMENT THE FBI SWOOPED ON ‘MESMERISING’ COACH IN USA
ONE morning in 1994, Bob Bowers, chairman and founder of a youth football team on tour in Florida, answered a knock on the door at his Jacksonville hotel room. Still in his dressing gown, he was confronted by FBI officers. Shortly afterwards, he saw Barry Bennell, the charismatic coach of Stone Dominoes FC, dressed in a paper forensic suit and being led away by the ‘Feds’ in handcuffs, .
‘He did the con job of all con jobs. He mesmerised people in terms of his football skills, reflects Mr Bowers.
‘It was like watching a circus master at work. But we were all looking at the football. We weren’t conscious of the darker secret.’
He believes the abuse which occurred at his club need never have happened if he had been warned by the larger clubs – namely Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra, where Bennell had previously worked – about the air of suspicion surrounding him and his conduct with prepubescent boys.
In fairness to all those adults who encountered Bennell in those days, he put on a convincing act, as retired businessman Mr Bowers, now 67, recalls.
When the respected football coach with a proven knack of spotting gifted players for big clubs offered his services to the fast-growing youth team in Staffordshire in 1992, it had seemed a golden opportunity.
Officials and parents alike were impressed with his emphasis on bringing out the youngsters’ skills, rather than relying merely on physical strength, and the Stone Dominoes, named after a local church, St Domino’s, began to enjoy success.
As the UK police investigation into Bennell proceeded, Bowers discovered that the coach’s modus operandi was to pick off his ‘special one’ – and then offer the promise of special training.
‘The one thing that struck you about him as a coach, he was absolutely excellent at demonstrating football skills,’ said Mr Bowers. ‘He almost mesmerised people with his abilities. He coached in the modern way at the time, teaching players skills rather than brutal physicality. We thought we had one of the best coaches around.
‘This was a time before child protection issues came to the forefront, before CRB checks and the like, before police checking. We were dealing with normal families who wouldn’t have recognised a paedophile if he had come up and bit them, because these people are utterly devious.
‘This guy turned up with a young family. He portrayed himself as a normal married man with two young children. I knew all these players on his CV and many, many more. He married Andy Woodward’s sister. The level of his cunning is amazing.
‘It is only hindsight telling me this, otherwise we would not have engaged him. I think he lay in wait for us – he almost ambushed us. We were in a tournament in Ayr in Scotland and he was there.
‘I went with a team of 14 to 15-year-old boys. It was only after the whole event that it was
‘He did the con job of all con jobs’
explained to me by the FBI that these paedophiles are only interested in boys aged between nine and 13.
‘At the time I had a business to run and a football club that had grown out of hand. He said, “Would you like me to help you out?”
‘I am a football addict and I had sort of heard of him. Then we saw his work and it was like watching a circus ringmaster. We have a married man with young children, who is known to have developed a long list of very accomplished players at Crewe and Manchester City.’
While it is easy to be wise in hindsight, alarm bells might also have rung with the Dominoes the previous year on a trip to Jacksonville. Brenda Dawson, a local American ‘soccer mom’ playing host to Bennell and a 12-year-old player, told Channel 4’s Dispatches in 1996: ‘Barry was insisting he [the boy] stay in his guest room. I kept insisting the boy go to the other bedroom [her son’s] but it never happened.’ She raised her concerns with the club and asked for them to investigate.
A club spokesman told Dispatches they had told Bennell it was inappropriate for him to share his room with anyone other than an adult. ‘We were unaware of Bennell’s true character and suspicions carried by others who had worked with him,’ they said.
Mr Bowers told The Mail on Sunday he did not remember Mrs Dawson’s concerns being raised. Tragically, the following year – 1994 – it was the same boy, then 13, who was raped by Bennell. But the boy would finally blow the whistle on his crimes, leading to Bennell’s arrest and imprisonment for sex crimes and assault.
The boy told his parents when he got home from the 1994 Jacksonville trip, by which time Bennell was back in the US with an older team, this time sharing his room with Bob Bowers himself. ‘He said to me, “OK, I am going down to reception. There is an issue I need to deal with”,’ said Mr Bowers.
‘I was in the room having a shower after coaching. There was a knock on the door and I answered the door in my bathrobe – it was the FBI. We went down to reception and I walked into this room full of police officers with weaponry that put the fear of God into me. And there he was in a white [forensic] suit and handcuffs, just sitting there. ‘He had gone to reception to try to keep it away from me. The only issue I was interested in was what was best for the children. That was my over-riding principle. ‘When I walked into that room and saw Bennell in the white suit surrounded by armed FBI, it was the nearest I have ever come to a heart attack in my life. ‘Bennell must have sold these poor boys the dream, and their parents, telling them “You are special.” ‘I looked at him and said, with some expletives, “What’s going on? Why are you in handcuffs?” ‘The FBI said, “He’s not going to say anything. He has pleaded the Fifth Amendment.” ‘My immediate reaction was that was all I needed to know. If you were innocent, you would defend your honour from the rooftops. ‘I haven’t seen him since to this day.’
‘If innocent, you would defend your honour’