Search: ' Dave Whelan'

As the Glazers show no signs of selling Manchester United, fans must decide how to respond to this news

For a while earlier this year it seemed as though the Glazer family’s rapacious involvement with Manchester United might be coming to an end. Matches were accompanied by large-scale fan protests against the owners while a group of United-supporting businessmen were said to be preparing a take­over bid. Now, however, it seems the three unprepossessing middle-aged brothers who look after their father’s businesses are going to be around for a while yet.

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Playing To Win
The Autobiography
by Dave Whelan
Aurum Press, £18.99
Reviewed by Ashley Shaw
From WSC 272 October 2009 

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Mild And Bitter Were The Days
Wigan 1970
by Ken Barlow, £9.99 
Reviewed by Ashley Shaw
From WSC 272 Oct 2009 

Buy this book

It’s easy to have a pop at Dave Whelan. An old-school Tory businessman with a “pull yourselves up by the bootstraps” philosophy, he has recently taken on a rent-a-quote personality, a reliable fall-back for Sky Sports News on a slow news day. His book, like the man, is a plain-speaking offering that might irk some. 

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Huw Richards responds to Roberto Martinez's departure as manager of Swansea

 In WSC 269 I suggested that Swansea fans “would not swap Roberto Martínez for anyone”. It was incontestably true when written, but by the time of publication anyone reading Swans websites could reasonably have assumed that the club had instead been managed by somebody called Judas. Some of that abuse came from the traditional inability of many fans to grasp that, whatever a club is to them, it is an employer to a player or manager. It also, though, reflected what Martínez had come to mean to Swansea.

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Wigan's chairman Dave Whelan gives his views on his opposite number at Newcastle, Mike Ashley

“Mike Ashley has no class whatsoever. I think he has got what he deserves at Newcastle. You don’t go in there and lower the standards.” Such comments about Newcastle’s beleaguered owner and his fondness for XXL replica shirts could have come from any number of columnists. Instead they were made by another Premier League chairman. Managers snipe at one another publicly all the time these days but it is quite rare for club owners to feud. It’s less of a surprise however that this unofficial protocol should have been breached by Wigan’s Dave Whelan. Of course, Whelan’s beef with Ashley doesn’t really stem from his concern about falling standards in the boadroom. This much is borne out by other comments at the same press conference about Ashley’s predecessor: “Whatever you think of Freddy Shepherd, he had great dignity. People say he made a good living out of it, but he was also Newcastle United through and through.” That’s the same Freddy Shepherd who alternately scandalised and embarrassed Newcastle supporters with his crass behaviour over a period of several years before making £50 million in selling up to Ashley.

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Paul Jewell has always been popular with the football media. Derby fans are not so keen on him, as Richard Barker explains

Last Christmas, Derby County manager Paul Jewell told the Sunday Times that while Harry Redknapp would be his choice as the next England manager, Jewell personally “would never take it; too many blazers, too much politics”. Following his heroic attempts to keep Derby up (played 24; won 0; drew 5; lost 19; for 15; against 56), the thought of Jewell ever being in a position to turn down England is risible. A year after announcing that the national job wasn’t for him, Jewell scuttled out of Pride Park with Derby fans contemplating another relegation battle. So much for his promise: “The pain we are suffering now, I will repay next year with promotion.” He arrived pledging: “I am not here to raise the white flag.” Yet after presiding over the most humiliating season in Premier League history, he also threw in the towel after a rotten ­performance in the Championship.

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