Gardner warms up for United battle

By Chris Blackhurst for MailOnline
Updated: 19:00 EDT, 29 April 2003

MY SEASON ticket form for Fulham arrived this week. Last year, as this, I wondered: do I really want to spend more than £500 to sit for two hours on Saturday afternoons next to the away fans making obscene gestures and chanting abuse?

Before that, I've trawled the streets of Shepherd's Bush looking for somewhere to park, bought a programme which persists in asking the inarticulate to articulate (incredible how many professional footballers like steak and Simply Red), queued for a tasteless, scorching coffee and a burger, which bears no relation to anything of that name served by even the likes of McDonald's.

Then, in addition to the away supporters, I've to endure West London's finest, sharing their bigoted views with the rest of us while the stewards look on, deaf and impassive. And that's regardless of anything that passes for entertainment on the pitch.

I will renew of course. I always do (although I will try to get my seat moved a little further from the oh so charming bunch in the away end). I wouldn't miss another surreal season of following Mohamed's team for the world. There's 'Diddy' David Hamilton acting as MC (remember him?), the rap that blares out over the tannoy (Al Fayed himself chants 'we are not Barcelona, we are not Real Madrid, we are Fulham') and the 'Cravenettes', a dance troupe of scantily-clad girls who seem to reserve their highest kicks for when they're opposite the directors' box.

Last Wednesday, though, I caught a glimpse of the very real. I went to Old Trafford as a guest of Britannia building society (finest provider of mortgages known to man). The contrast could not be greater. Fayed's right: Fulham aren't Real Madrid or come to that, Manchester United.

From my vantage point in the Britannia box (brilliant institution, great people) I could gaze out on a vast bowl, swathed in European Champions League regalia, packed with people in red scarves, shirts and, if the club Megastore is anything to go by, underwear as well. All the way round the ground - not just in one area - were corporate boxes, costing thousands (wonderful, Britannia).

This week, Fulham announced losses of £33m. This year, Manchester United should make profits of around £40m. Looking at the suits in the Old Trafford directors' box, it was impossible to suppress a twinge of envy.

Money making wheezes

OH, to be chairman of a club like this, to spend your time wondering which world-class player to buy next, planning another money-making wheeze (everywhere were ads for Man U credit cards and loans) and looking forward to the coming season with genuine excitement. Oh, to be Sir Roy Gardner, full-time head of Centrica (compared with Man U, an obscure energy conglomerate spun out of the old British Gas) and part-time chairman of the all-conquering Reds.

But then, you think for a moment. Would you like to be Sir Alex Ferguson's boss, the one who tells him, no, he can't have the money to buy Ronaldinho; the bloke who has to preside over contract negotiations with some of the most highly-paid and egotistical individuals in the land (and that's just the agents); who has to somehow ensure next season is just as successful and the club is in a position to mount a convincing challenge to Real; and, at the same time, has to keep the City sweet.

And now, to keep your job, you must see off the threat posed by wealthy new shareholders. For not only has Gardner got stars on the pitch, they're on the share register as well: John de Mol, creator of Big Brother; Malcolm Glazer, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; American Richard Post; Scottish mining multimillionaire Harry Dobson; Ireland's demon gambler and currency speculator JP McManus; bloodstock tycoon John Magnier; and the financier and Celtic's biggest shareholder Dermot Desmond.

Compared with that lot, pacifying Sir Alex and 67,000 fans baying for yet more glory is easy.

Gardner, though, is no pushover. He's appointed Cazenove to flush out the new, heavyweight investors, to see if there's any sense of them acting in concert. If a takeover is coming, Gardner is likely to put up fierce resistance.

Tough manager

FOR within the City, Gardner has acquired a reputation as a doughty operator, a tough manager who learned his trade at the feet of the redoubtable late Arnold Weinstock. Little known to a wider audience until he took the top seat at Old Trafford last year, Gardner has quietly cultivated a supportive following in the Square Mile. Under his stewardship Centrica bolted on the AA motor services, Goldfish credit operation and One.Tel phones to its core, energy business. Even before he emerged as kingpin in Labour's sport of choice, Gardner had attracted the eye of Downing Street, chairing initiatives and good causes.

Just as running Centrica and Man U could not be more different in terms of profile (behind the scenes, arguably, they're not dissimilar, each affording money-making opportunities from huge databases of loyal followers), so too is Gardner a creature of contrasts.

He lives in rural Hertfordshire on a former farm with his wife, Carol, who has her own florist business; wears understated suits which on examination are expensive and tailormade; and built his career on watching the pennies but loves splashing out on fine wines. He loves crosswords and does the shopping at Waitrose, but also keeps a red Ferrari in his garage and has his own gym at home. And, like so many senior business figures, he's a Conservative who now thinks nothing of helping a Labour administration.

His whole approach is one of cool deliberation, not given to headline grabbing flamboyance. The son of parents who never had money, he's been driven since childhood to work hard, to earn money. He grew up in Egham, Surrey, and didn't go to university. For a while, he toyed with becoming a professional footballer but he wasn't good enough and besides, if he had, as he points out, in those days - he's 57 - footballers weren't big earners. He went instead to the local British Aircraft Corporation factory as an apprentice accountant.

Right place, right time

A LIFE in the worthy but dull backrooms of the aircraft industry beckoned. But Gardner did well and he was also in the right place at the right time, as new projects came on stream and required cost-checkers and controllers. After working on the Concorde programme, he left BAC for Marconi Space and Defence, part of GEC, the run by Lord Weinstock.

The way Weinstock ran GEC was to pick his favourites, usually serious young men who impressed him with a grasp for detail, and earmark them for promotion. So it was with Gardner, who progressed from chief accountant of a divisional subsidiary to finance director of that particular group, to managing director of GEC-Marconi, well before it hit the buffers.

He was cautious, keeping an eye on spending, not hiring outside consultants, searching for any sign of impending trouble. He boasts of how he watched who in his organisation was travelling where, because senior executives going backwards and forwards to one of his sites was a sign of a problem there. No wonder Weinstock admired him. The two were from the same mould: sticking to the small things and their own conservative instincts.

But Weinstock's crown was not for him. In a move that went against all Weinstock's history, the great man anointed his son, Simon, as his successor. Gardner had risen far but was not going any further, not at GEC anyway. He went to British Gas for a seat on the board but really for the discreet promise that he might, just might, end up running the company. Waiting for his chance has stood him in good stead for today.

He watched as Cedric Brown, the then British Gas chief executive, was destroyed in the fat-cat pay row. Gardner learned the importance of keeping your head down and realised the power of the Press. Gardner is an assiduous courter of the media, not in a gung-ho, noisy manner but softly, patiently. He got his big chance, finally, when British Gas was broken into BG and Centrica in 1997. The old British Gas had been top heavy with management. At Centrica, Gardner has created a streamlined structure, tightly-managed with a group of loyal, like-minded executives around him.

Cross-benefits

HE HAS also revealed hitherto hidden aggression, taking the business into areas away from energy, making high-profile acquisitions. The results have been good and earned him favourable coverage.

It would be wrong to say it's all one way, however. He now runs a conglomerate, a dread word in some circles, with fingers in lots of pies and yes, while it's possible to claim the AA, credit cards and gas are all about selling products to large numbers of people, it's difficult to see how deeply the cross-benefits penetrate.

And Gardner himself is no Lord Hanson, boldly setting out his stall and making a case for diversification. At United too, if he is to rebuff the group or non-group of wealthy shareholders he will doubtless have to take centre stage, to explain his strategy - something he will not relish. There's no doubting where most people would rather be, though. Fulham or Manchester United? There's no contest. Lucky bugger.