Deryn Coller's story of 1982.

Around October 1981 I got in tow with a guy called Ken Sage, whose company was Called Alusage. We had a common denominator: his auditor was my auditor, Steve Gundry. He is the one person that nobody knows about, but he was the main Driving force behined saving Bristol city. He said to me, ‘’I want you to meet a guy called Ken Sage. He’s got this thing about Bristol city. He’s really cheesed off with what’s happening. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool Bristolian, He thinks the club is very badly managed.’’

I went along to have a chat with him, and I found he had visions. One of them was to return the club to the people, as opposed to the board. The board at the time held solid control, and if anyone outside it had an idea, it did not stand a chance. He wanted to change it all, but he also thought that the club was up the spout financially. I was a share holder at the time – I owned £500 worth of shares, about ½ % . There was a group at the time called Alternate Bristol city or something or other and we met them in the Dragonora hotel around about September or October. They had great ideas but with no substance. What the meeting did though was prompt Ken and myself to see if there were enough people out there who wanted a change, so we thought, we’ll try and change it. Ken was not a shareholder at the time.

I went along to the club’s AGM around about October, and you did not need to be Brain of Britain to see the club was in the proverbial. I asked a few pertinent questions and, as with all people that have the temerity to stand up and question the board, they gave you the answers they wanted to give you. Somehow I managed to get my feet inside the door, and in a corner I asked Archie Gooch, who was a gentle man, whether he didn’t think the club was in more trouble than he actually knew? We agreed to pay for an independent financial report, which was conducted by Arthur Young McClelland Moores, of which Steve Gandry happened to be an employee. They came up with an enormous debt, which we all knew was there but had been hidden.

They formulated a resue plan which was quite simple: from a new company; Place a moratorium on the creditors; unload your biggest liabilities. The accountant said you might be able to struggle on if you get rid of your liabilities. Terry boyle, Jan mollar and Mick Hartford were players who had value. So the rescue plan was: Do a deal with the creditors; do a deal with the Football league (for whom this was a New situation) ; do a deal with the old company on the sale of the ground ; and do a Deal with the eight players who comprised a large slice of the liabilities.

All of them were equally important. The company could not afford the eight players. Understandably Alan Dicks had tied them up on lucrative contracts based on First Division wages and the club was in the Third Division at the time. Every week we were losing another £1,000 – a lot of money in those days. A lot of people hold the Ashton Gate Eight up as saviours and to some extent they were. If they had not torn up their contracts the club would have folded. But if the club had folded they would have got nothing, not a carrot. The rescue plan was based on how much money was going to be paid out in the next twelve months. What you’ve got to bear in mind is the new club had nothing, not a penny. All it had was what the seven directors had put in, which was about £10,000 each. And around £50,000 of that had to go to the Football League as a guarantee, so the working capital was about £20,000. We were living from hand to mouth, week in week out. Often we had board meetings where we all had to stick £300 in the pot, put it in the club, and the club would buy this or that or pay wages. The Ashton Gate Eight all walked out with around £10,000 each and if they had not taken it the club would have gone down and the other staff would have lost their jobs. Whilst they made a sacrifice, a guy said to me once, ‘’your first loss is your best loss’’, to which was their contracts, they would have taken a bigger loss. And I think that at the end of the day Gordan Taylor of the Professional Footballers Association realised it was not brinkmanship or gamesmanship, but this was real. If they didn’t do a deal at 12 o’clock then he’s going to have to deal with the contracts of god knows how many creditors.

It was the first ever case of it’s kind and the Football League wouldn’t allow it to happen Again. It was a very good scheme to save the club. You talk about the Ashton Gate Eight, but there were a lot more people in Bristol who took a hit than just them. A lot of the creditors had to accept 10p, 15p, 20p in the pound, and they did it without whinging. A lot of them were pragmatic and said, we’ll take 20p, because we know what the Alternative is. By doing what we did the creditors got 19.9p more than they would have got if the club went belly up.

We were surprised at the level of debt, though not the overall tenor of the report, We were surprised at the level at which it was bust, but we knew it was bust. I do not belive Alan Dicks was responsible. My view is the buck always stops at the board, The board, Individually and collectively, had to be responsible for the decline of Bristol City. The report came out just before Christmas 1981. Ken and I met the directors and suggested certain routes they could follow, one being the BCFC (1982) Plc route. The directors realised they were in ‘no win’ land. It was almost relief for them that other people were prepared to take over. They cogitated for four or five days and agreed. Then we all had to find £12,500 each, as a minimum of £50,000 is needed to launch a new plc. We had to find two more people, who were Ivor Williams and Leslie Kew, and we formed a company. And of course we had the Ashton Gate Eight business to deal with, which went to the wire, becuse Gordan Taylor and his advisers belived it was a double bluff. But the one thing I know to be true, at one minute past 12 on Wednesday 3rd February, that the club was

going in to liquidation if the players had not signed that document. We were on deadlines as well. The Football League wanted guarantees which we couldn’t give paying those wages The club would not nescessarily have gone down at a minute past 12. Ken Sage and myself And the other two directors would have walked away, because we knew that we were on a hiding to nothing. There was no way the club could have been saved. It might have struggled along for another four to eight days, but it would have gone bust.

I was under a lot of stress, I nearly lost my house and my job. My marriage came close to finishing. I was doing eighteen hour days at city, as was Ken. We finished one particular board meeting at half past four in the morning. And I came home and my wife said to me, ‘’where have you been?’’ And I said, ‘’At a board meeting.’’ And she said ‘’Nobody works until half past four in the morning’’. And she thought that I was out with some floozy somewhere…….. This was during the crisis Which went on for months. BCFC 1982 started in Februrary, but we had to deal with the Ashton Gate Eight, the Football League, and acquire the ground through a share issue.

We closed the share issue out, because we heard rumours that Osbourne Clarke – [Bristol based solicitors] was about to buy the million pounds worth of shares on offer. We also heard a rumour that the old Bristol stadium company, the greyhound people, wanted to develop their site [at Eastville stadium, now Ikea store] and were also looking at Ashton Gate, and through the share issue would acquire the ground and make Bristol City a tenant. So we had to close the share issue early, and the only way we could do that was to put in another £25,000 each, before, Osbourne Clarke got their mits on it.

David Russe put in £15,000 and he didn’t want to sit on the board or anything; he just said, I’ll do it. Bob Boyd put some money in; also Bob Marshall, John Pontin, and Des Williams… The amount of times that we had a board meeting where we needed to pay a bill of just £600; so the directors would put £75 or so each in the pot to pay that bill, and that happened more times than I cared to remember. It doesn’t seem like much now ---- but it was a lot of money in those days. My total commitment in to Bristol City for the first six months was over £70,000 which was all I ever had in the world and I kept it from my wife , because she would have gone absolutely ape, if she had known. She did find out Subsequently and went absolutely ape….

The first type friends of Bristol city groups were with John Southern and Alan Williams. They collected around £4,000 after writing to all the secretaries of local football clubs, and That made an enormous difference. A lot of people rallied round in very, very small ways, But those small ways made a big impact. You’ve got to put in mind that if you go home at night, open the fridge and there is nothing there to eat, unless someone comes round with a bowl of cornflakes, or someone brings you an egg and a piece of bacon, you can’t have break-fast in the morning. AND

THAT IS HOW IT WAS.