The Independent on Sunday
25th October 1998
Andy Walsh apologised for being late. He had, he explained, been
delayed by a chance meeting with a supporter of BSkyB's proposed
takeover of Manchester United. Sir Bobby Charlton, one-time director
of creative on-field operations at Old Trafford and now plain
director, just happened to be walking out of the car park at Kendall's
department store off Deansgate at the same time as the chairman of the
Independent Manchester United Supporters' Association.
"I gave him a copy of our campaign bulletin," Walsh said,
"and told him that supporters were concerned about the bid. He
said that fans weren't concerned and that there was nothing we could
do to prevent the deal - that we weren't going to stop it the way we
were going about it."
The way Walsh and his fellow campaigners have been going about
their quest to stop BSkyB falling in on their beloved Manchester
United has put the phenomenon of the football fans' protest into a
whole new ball game.
Last Monday their cause was debated in the House of Lords, when Alf
Morris, Lord Morris of Manchester, urged the Government to refer the
�623m takeover bid to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. On
Thursday it was the subject of an early-day motion in the House of
Commons, with 46 MPs imploring the Secretary of State for Trade and
Industry, Peter Mandelson, to make the referral. And on Tuesday the
protesters themselves will descend on Parliament, to lobby for more
support in advance of Mr Mandelson's decision, due on 2 November after
he receives a report from the Office of Fair Trading.
"Football fans have been to Parliament before to talk to
MPs," Walsh said, "but there's been nothing done on this
scale, with such a huge campaign outside Parliament. We could quite
easily have just tried to organise a few demonstrations and left it at
that but we decided it was necessary for us to be a little bit better
organised than just having a rant at the ground."
The campaign to stop the Murdoch empire enveloping Old Trafford is
certainly better organised than that. It is run jointly by the
Independent Manchester United Supporters' Association and by
Shareholders United Against Murdoch, a group formed in the immediate
aftermath of the takeover announcement seven weeks ago. They have a
city centre office in Manchester, courtesy of the architects Sagar-Stevenson.
They have computers, printers, copiers and telephones either donated
or supplied at cost price by businessmen who, like Dominic Sagar and
Neil Stevenson, happen to be passionate United supporters. They have
the services of one of the biggest commercial law firms in the country
(whose identity cannot be disclosed under the terms of the pro bono
scheme which provides free advice for what are deemed to be worthy
causes). They even have a web-site, which can be found at [email protected].
Public protest has clearly come a long way in Manchester in the 179
years since the Peterloo Massacre. But, as Walsh underlined on
Thursday morning in the campaign office, less than half a mile from
the scene of Peterloo: "We're fighting a multi-million pound
organisation. We needed to get heavyweight support on our side, from
the world of politics as well as business and from the local
community.
"We had just �400 when we booked the meeting to launch the
campaign at the Bridgewater Hall. Roger Taylor came forward and paid
the �6,000 cost of hiring the hall and gave us �4,000 on top. We've
had other donations but the money has been drained now. We need more.
Just to mail-shot the shareholders cost �9,000 - �7,500 in postage
alone. It took 60 of us two nights working until 2am, folding letters,
stuffing envelopes and putting labels on them. It was an incredible
task.
"BSkyB and Manchester United had five or six months to plan
for this bid. We had a matter of days and, when you step back and look
at it, I think what we've done in the last few weeks is nothing short
of breathtaking really - when you think of the people we've spoken to
and the effect we've had.
"Our first target was to stall the decision by the Office of
Fair Trading and we got a delay of three weeks. Our second target has
been to get the OFT to refer the bid to the Monopolies and Mergers
Commission and in excess of 35 submissions have been made to them,
which I understand is an unprecedented number. They've come not just
from supporters' groups but from bodies like the FA, the PFA and other
broadcasters. We've worked very hard to make sure that happened.
"We believe now that there's compelling evidence for the Trade
and Industry Secretary to refer this to the MMC. His links with
Murdoch have been publicised quite widely but we're not concerned
about that. We're concerned with the future of our club. We've
hopefully demonstrated to people how passionately we believe in the
future of football as a whole that it's necessary for Manchester
United to remain as an independent football club."
Walsh, a former officer on the executive committee of the Banking
and Finance Union, feels so passionately he has taken unpaid leave of
absence from his job with a computing software house to fight against
the vision of Manchester United as not so much a football club as
"a futuristic business of the 21st century", to quote Mark
Booth, BSkyB's American managing director.
Playing Red Devils' advocate, it seemed only politic to point out
that some supporters could only dream of nightmare scenarios such as
that which confronted Walsh and his fellow campaigners on Thursday: of
their club, 6-2 winners in the Champions' League the previous night,
being taken over for �623m. True Blues in Manchester, for instance,
were greeted by the headline "Royle's Gloom" in the Evening
News, and news of an injury "crisis" in the wake of a 2-1
defeat at that renowned spot on the European football map known as
Sincil Bank. And followers of Carlisle United are facing the prospect
of their club achieving the chairman's declared ambition of getting
into the top division in six years - into the top division of the
non-league pyramid that is.
"Michael Knighton, in fact, has shown himself to be a
visionary in terms of what is possible for Manchester United,
"Walsh said of the one-time Old Trafford ball-juggler. "The
problem with the current board of directors is that they've shown a
distinct lack of vision. United have got the money at the moment to do
everything BSkyB could do for them. The difference would be that we
would retain the money as a football club. If we get swallowed up by
BSkyB we will be a subsidiary of BSkyB and a much smaller subsidiary
of News Corporation. They will use the profits generated by United to
prop up other parts of their business empire.
"It would not be �623m coming into Manchester United. It
would be going out of Manchester United and, more worryingly, out of
the game. It would be going to shareholders, to City institutions, to
Martin Edwards. It would not be invested in the club. I think that
more thinking members of other football clubs do see the dangers that
could befall the game if BSkyB take over Manchester United and other
broadcasters come in to do the same at other clubs. This vertical
integration between sport and broadcast organisations is very
worrying."
Peter Mandelson, apparently, does not share such concern. He might,
though, consider the fears of the football follower who, in the wake
of Andy Cole's transfer to Manchester United, warned of the dangers of
"the people's game being driven too much by money". They
were the words of Tony Blair, friend of football and friend of Rupert
Murdoch.
