When I was 11 and listening to 2 Tone records in my bedroom in 1979, a brilliant band called The Specials had a profound influence on me.
In 2003 I had built and sold a business for almost £100 million, bought my boyhood football club that was about to win promotion to the Premier League and felt I could do anything. I acted on this instinctive desire and passion to transform The Specials.
It was there that I first met one of my heroes, their lead singer Terry Hall, through a complicated network of contacts that included Alan McGee, head of Creation Records and discoverer of Oasis.
Terry was a modest character but very witty with a biting sense of humour and we got on well.
After a period of three years of tireless pursuit, we managed to get the band back together. Their first ‘gig’ was at my 40th birthday in 2007, after which they went on a major tour and gained national recognition.
Winning the cups is not enough, despite Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag’s boasting about their FA Cup and Carabao Cup successes in recent years
Ten Hag’s team suffered a painful defeat against their great rivals Liverpool on Sunday afternoon
Manchester United are like the Ferrari of football compared to their local rivals Man City
Why am I reflecting on this in a sports column? Because a shared love of football was part of my bond with Terry and part of cementing a vision. Terry was a fervent Manchester United fan and when they played Millwall in the 2004 FA Cup final, I invited him to come along and we jumped in a helicopter and went to the Millennium Stadium.
Terry came from Coventry but was far from a plastic Red. He was a season ticket holder at Old Trafford and his devotion to the club was almost religious.
He sadly passed away in 2022, but thanks to Terry and millions of others like him, there is still that endless fascination with Manchester United.
When things go badly, like Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Liverpool, I often find myself gripped by it, whether it’s on TalkSport or on these pages, even when I actually want to talk about something else!
Terry’s loyalty to the club in these dark times would have been unquestioned. Remember he grew up in the 70s when United had many fallow years which in fact lasted until 1992. He was a fan, period.
It was remarkably well-timed under Sir Alex Ferguson that a club that had been asleep for decades woke up just as the Premier League was getting underway.
It was a marriage made in heaven: launching the Premier League with a budding presenter with guts and ambition, and Manchester United as the club with the most flair.
Rupert Murdoch had bet everything on football being of great value to Sky. Then the Man United effect came along and, voila, the Premier League was born.
While Manchester United’s success has declined since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, Manchester City are building on this legacy and the next generation of fans are evolving towards them
To this day, Manchester United remain an invaluable club within the Premier League.
They have the effect of gold dust. Graeme Souness calls them FC Hollywood. The club that emerged from unions has become the club with all those bubbles.
It’s something the Premier League doesn’t want to lose. They like to see their big brands do well, but United can’t be complacent either, because the league is now an international product and package that is the sum of all its parts, and no longer solely dependent on Old Trafford.
We have seen Manchester City grow into a powerful force for a number of reasons. The reason for this is the sheer ambition of a nation state that sees football as a global path, and that has changed the landscape to some extent.
Man City are now so good and successful that they are building a legacy and the next generation of Premier League fans are developing into them, a new digital footprint across the world.
Man United were built to be at the top of English football in this era but fell short
Sir Jim Ratcliffe made the decision to retain Ten Hag as United manager after their FA Cup win
Erik ten Hag still has a lot to do to prove he is the answer to take United back to the top
I still believe that Manchester United are partly Ferrari, with Manchester City being partly Red Bull. But as generations evolve and time passes, I don’t think the Premier League will diminish greatly if a single club is no longer the focal point.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe made the decision to keep Erik ten Hag. If you listen to the Dutchman, he will tell you that they are the second most successful team in English football in the last two years, having won the League Cup and the FA Cup.
But the League Cup involvement is now held together by gaffer tape, as most of the big clubs don’t bother with it. Even the FA Cup has been so belittled by the Premier League and poor marketing from the FA that it is a second-class citizen.
The only way to bounce is when you hit rock bottom. Have United achieved it? Their real value is where they finish in the Premier League. Manchester United are built in this era to be at the top of English football. Eighth is a long way off and I don’t think Ten Hag is the answer.
Yet we keep talking about Manchester United. Sometimes more people talk about a Manchester United defeat than a Man City victory. That may irritate me, but my dear, capricious, brilliant friend Terry would have an ironic smile about it.
Chelsea missed a trick from Toney
It is remarkable that Ivan Toney leaves for Saudi Arabia at the age of 28 and is known as a top striker. It seems that no one wanted to buy him in the Premier League.
Have clubs like Chelsea who need a goalscorer missed an opportunity? My gut feeling says yes, but my nose tells me they might not have, even if Brentford’s asking price had dropped to £40m.
Chelsea clearly didn’t want to upend their model and start paying new players upwards of £150,000 a week, so you couldn’t bring in an older player and give him a quarter of a million, which is what Toney wanted and got in his lucrative offer from Al-Ahli.
A club like Chelsea could have opted for Ivan Toney, who instead left for Saudi Arabia
It was the same situation the club had with Victor Osimhen. Chelsea would never do those deals.
In these circumstances it was right for Toney to take his own destiny into his own hands. He is a talent that we will miss in our league, but if someone had told him at Peterborough that he would play for England and get £50 million tax free to change his family circumstances for generations, he would never have believed it.
The best scenario for him now is that he does so well there that he comes back to Europe with a big bag of money. And who knows, maybe there will be more opportunities for him.