AFTER HELLISH RIDE, AT LAST I’M IN HEAVEN!
Barry Fry’s thrilled his beloved Posh are finally back in the Championship
Having hurtled through the thrills and spills of 25 years at Peterborough United, Barry Fry is reclining in his garden, cigar clenched between teeth, thumbs raised and screaming ‘Come on the Posh’ at the camera.
His conversation, peppered with expletives and fits of laughter, has bounded from financial chaos and the brink of despair, through dozens of deals to the delight of another promotion, the sweetest yet.
‘i’m just a silly football nut,’ he grins. ‘all my mates are retired, with their feet up. But i couldn’t imagine that. i get up at eight o’clock, go to work, banter with the lads, i love it. i never want to pack it in.’
not when Peterborough are stepping up, back in the Championship, flush with Canadian investors lured in by owner Darragh Macanthony, an upgraded academy and ambitious plans for a new £83million stadium.
‘it feels different this time,’ says Fry, 76. ‘We deserve to be there. We don’t feel we’ll be also-rans. We want to be the next Brentford or Barnsley. We’re in the Championship where we belong and i’m so pleased because i could never have taken the club this far.
‘i’ve been to hell and back a hundred times in 25 years. That’s a long time in a place where they hate you. i should’ve walked out after five minutes but now i feel like i’m in heaven and this makes up for all the heartache.’
it has been a turbulent relationship. Fry arrived at London Road as part-owner and manager in 1996, tempted by the promise of total control of the football side of the club.
‘i was saying we’d score 100 goals and get promoted,’ he grimaces. ‘i got us relegated in my first year. nightmare. Everyone in Peterborough thought i owned the club when i didn’t.’
Fry, it became clear, had no ownership rights and was unlikely to see again the money he poured in from his pay-off at Birmingham City. ‘The club was in bigger s*** than i thought,’ as he puts it, reeling off a list of problems that include employees stealing from the club. ‘it was a hellish ride for 10 years, i was manager for nine... 480-odd games. not very successfully but i kept the club going one way or another.’
Fry did become the club’s owner, taking over to avoid administration by selling a property in Portugal, remortgaging his home in Bedford, drawing his pension and securing an overdraft against his mother-in-law’s house.
‘at one point, i was the owner, chairman and manager,’ he says. ‘all i ever wanted to be was a silly manager but i had to find £150,000 every month to pay the wages. i’d be up until five trying to work out where it was coming from.’
Fry begged, borrowed and struck deals, such as the time he bought Leon McKenzie from Crystal Palace for £25,000, paid in 25 instalments of £1,000 a month and sold him to norwich three years later for £750,000 plus bonuses.
after sacking himself, there came Big Ron Manager, the fly-on-the-wall Sky documentary starring Ron atkinson as trouble-shooter brought in to advise rookie Posh boss Steve Bleasdale, who was worn down by it all and walked out an hour before a game against Macclesfield.
‘if i’d known he was going to do that i’d have asked Sky for more money. The players didn’t like him anyway,’ quips Fry but this was his nadir. ‘i was out of money, out of assets and out of ideas. it was driving me to an early grave.
‘i’ve got to thank Darragh Macanthony for saving my life and my club... he was a godsend. Without him, Peterborough would have gone and i’d be six feet under.
‘i must have seen 19 others about buying it and all they had was a cup of tea to put into the club. He was the one. He wanted to take the club forward. His football knowledge was amazing.’
Macanthony bought the club and made Fry his director of football, backing his eye for talent with some of the fortune he had made in real estate. They have developed into one of football’s odd couples, working together for 15 years, with Darren Ferguson as manager for more than nine, across three different spells.
‘We’ve got a great system,’ says Fry. ‘Darren has been brilliant for us. Four promotions, three into the Championship, and a win in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy at Wembley. He develops the players we get.
‘Darragh is the best scout in the world. He knows all the stats. i just want to see players in the flesh. Someone told me Fulham have eight analysts. Eight!
‘i was a manager for 32 years and most of that time i never had an assistant. now, the management team is about 15 and we haven’t got a bench big enough. The game has changed and i’ve got to change with it or i’m out, so i’ve adapted and i still love it.’
Fry rattles through his top discoveries: a blur of names and numbers but the Dwight gayle transfer is a classic featuring his old mate John Still, who was then manager of Dagenham and Redbridge. ‘John bought him and Dagenham couldn’t afford his wages so loaned him straight out.
‘We signed him on a four-year contract and agreed to pay Dagenham £400,000 at £10,000 a month for 40 months but, within seven months, we’d sold him to Crystal Palace for £6m. Dagenham got all their money and a sell-on percentage, more than a million, so they were delighted.
‘We only had him for seven months but, when he went, it enabled us to sign Britt assombalonga, who i’d seen playing for Wealdstone on loan from Watford. We got £8m for Britt and that’s what we do all the time.’
More recently, ivan Toney was bought from newcastle for £300,000 and sold for £10m to Brentford where his goals fired them into the Premier League.
They replaced Toney by signing Jonson Clarke-Harris, who scored 31 goals on the way to promotion.
Two Clarke-Harris goals, including a 96th-minute penalty, clinched promotion in May as the Posh came back from three down to draw against Lincoln.
‘never a penalty in a million years,’ admits Fry. ‘i daren’t watch. all the emotion. We score the penalty, we’re in the Championship again and i think i’ve died and gone to heaven.’