It was in 1991 that David Gold and David Sullivan first dipped their toes into football club
ownership, buying a 29.9 per cent stake in West Ham United.
They had hoped to buy more shares, and buy out the club in full, but two men found that
their backgrounds in the sex industry preceded them.
They were met by a wall of silence at the club
and with no one else willing to sell them their shares, they sold out and, in 1993,
bought Birmingham City.
According to Gold's autobiography, Solid Gold, the two had come close to acquiring Leeds
United (which, in the end, was too far away) and
Tottenham (which was carrying too much debt).
Birmingham's St Andrews Stadium was in dire need of improvement, and the club was in danger
of relegation to the third division, but Sullivan
and the two Gold brothers believed the club was a
sleeping giant.
The then 23 year old unknown Karren Brady was poached from the Daily Sport and
installed as Managing Director.
Barry Fry was brought in to manage the team, although David Gold was initially reluctant
about the appointment.
“I thought he must be on drugs he was so hyper,” Gold wrote.
“I remember him saying to me: “Chairman, I
will get you out of this poxy division.”And of
course he was good to his word, only I was expecti ng to go up into the Premier League
rather than down to the third tier of English football.”
Still, Fry took Birmingham back into the second tier, before being fired and replaced by
Trevor Francis – the first ever million pound player who had enjoyed some success
coaching Sheffield Wednesday.
During his five year tenure, Francis took Birmingham to the top of the
division but could never quite secure promotion.
The highlight of his reign was the the league cup final (which they narrowly lost on penalties
to Liverpool).
He made way or Steve Bruce, who had seen out hs playing career at St Andrews
before finally taking the club into the Premier League in 2002.
Birmingham spent seven out of the next nine seasons in the Premier League, b ut the fans
had never truly taken to Sullivan and the The
Golds.
And especially Brady.
So when the Hong Kong hairdresser turned investor Carson Yeung emerged
to buy a stake in the club in 2007, negotiations for a for sale began . The rest of Gold and
Sullivan's shares were sold to Yeung by 2009 for £81
million.
This would prove a disaster for the club.
Whilst Birmingham did win the 2011 League Cup, beating
Arsenal in the final, they were relegated from the Premier League and have yet to return.
Worse, Yeung would be arrested and later charged
with money laundering.
He was later sentenced to six years in prison.
In July 2016, Yeung's appeal process was exhausted and he is currently seeing out his sentence
in a Hong Kong jail.
The club was sold to another largely unknown Hong Kong based company called
Trillion Trophy Asia.
​ Sullivan and David Gold, meanwhile, returned
to their first football acquisition in January 2010.
They quickly moved to secure 50 per cent of the shares in a now failing West Ham United.
Initially they had been welcomed by the fans.
The team returned to the Premier League and there was a
measure of stability following the chaos of the Icelandic bank collapse, the Tevez and
Mascherano affair and relegation.
But the deal to move to London's Olympic Stadium alienated both friends and foes alike.
Under the terms of the deal, West Ham United would get
a 99 year lease and pay just £2.5 million rent a year
(plus an initial £15 million conversion fee) for a stadium that cost the tax payer anywhere
up to £700 million.
Rival clubs close by, like Tottenham and Leyton Orient, were furious at this perceived advantage
it gave West Ham.
At one point, the whole process was scrapped after the European Commission
ruled that its state aid rules may have been broken.
But despite several court cases, the move went ahead and West Ham began life in the
60,000 capacity London Stadium at the start of the
2016/17 season.
As Arsene Wenger said in 2016: “ I say to West Ham: ‘Well done.
You have won in the lottery and you do not need to sweat like I did for
long years, and fight for every pound.”
The person who led the negotiations of that deal was Karren Brady, now Baroness Bardy.
She was made a Conservative peer when she received
a CBE in the 2014 New Years Honours List.
The move to Stratford has not been popular with many supporters.
The unique match day atmosphere in and around Green Street has
been replaced by a far more modern, corporate experience.
The tight, intimidating atmosphere of the Boleyn Ground has gone, as the running track
needed to keep the stadium suitable for athletics keeps the fans far from the pitch.
There have been problems with crowd trouble and lacklustre
performances on the pitch, especially this season.
Wherever Gold and Sullivan – and indeed Brady -- have gone, they have divided opinion.
Both men are amongst the richest in Britain.
Gold came 271 st on the Sunday Times richlist with a fortune for
£460 million; Sullivan came in at 121 st and is worth £1.1billion.
Both men have diversified and sold most of their interests in the sex business
(Ann Summers being a notable and lucrative exception).
Today they make most of their money from real estate, partly a product from their days investing
in Soho and central London property that has
since exploded in value.
There is no doubt that their money saved West Ham.
The issue, though, is what comes after the ownership of two avowed fans of West Ham United.
Will they be remembered as the the club's saviours who moved the club to a stadium that
might catapult them into football's elite?
Or the men who threw away a club's history for
a tidy profit?
But as Birmingham City fans discovered, sometimes, the grass isn't greener on the other side.