"Champagne Louis"

Excellent post Tom. much of which I have read about and even tried to tell people about on here.

Edwards, albeit a ruthless and very dubious character was United through and through, and contrary to popular belief didnt take money out of the club until very late on, when he was in dire need of cash to salvage his ailing business which was under alot of scrutiny for the dodgy goings on.

Louis Edwards was not a nice man. Thats not disputed, but what is in question is this notion that the club has funded greedy businessmen since its foundation, and thats simply not true. Edwards made little of nothing out of United for a very long time, almost 15 years. In that time he invested alot of money in the team, and his dream was to build the ground which we all see today. It was his vision for Old Trafford which he instructed Martin Edwards to carry on with, and many dont know that Martin Edwards far from walking away from United when he sold his stake in the club, worked tirelessly to make the vision of OT that his dad had, actually happen.

Yes Martin Edwards made alot of money off the back of United. But theres much good work he did which goes unrecognised, and that work was done to complete a vision that his father had had some 40 years previously.

This is why you cannot compare the current owner to the Edwards family, because the Edwards family, for all their faults, and all their greed, always did what they considered best for United, and were it not for Martin Edwards floating United on the Stock exchange, much of what has happened to United in the last 10 years wouldnt have happened. Carrington wouldnt exist. The ground would only be holding 55,000 people, and United wouldnt be the commercial force they are.. There were bad things attached to the PLC. United was run more like a business, but those slating it should remember that without the PLC the odds are our reign supreme in the 90s would have stopped alot sooner.

People say that the PLC was the worst thing for United. It wasnt. It funded much of what we know today, and the board of the PLC steered United to levels unseen in our history. Where the PLC went wrong was it wasnt taken seriously enough by the fans ( depsite warnings from Martin Edwards himself who told the fans to buy shares to stop it being taken over ). had the fans taken the warnings, especially after Murdoch, Glazer wouldnt own United. Sadly they didnt, and our club is now being taken down a path no previous owner had ever wanted it to go..
 
fredthered said:
Excellent post Tom. much of which I have read about and even tried to tell people about on here.

Edwards, albeit a ruthless and very dubious character was United through and through, and contrary to popular belief didnt take money out of the club until very late on, when he was in dire need of cash to salvage his ailing business which was under alot of scrutiny for the dodgy goings on.

Louis Edwards was not a nice man. Thats not disputed, but what is in question is this notion that the club has funded greedy businessmen since its foundation, and thats simply not true. Edwards made little of nothing out of United for a very long time, almost 15 years. In that time he invested alot of money in the team, and his dream was to build the ground which we all see today. It was his vision for Old Trafford which he instructed Martin Edwards to carry on with, and many dont know that Martin Edwards far from walking away from United when he sold his stake in the club, worked tirelessly to make the vision of OT that his dad had, actually happen.

Yes Martin Edwards made alot of money off the back of United. But theres much good work he did which goes unrecognised, and that work was done to complete a vision that his father had had some 40 years previously.

This is why you cannot compare the current owner to the Edwards family, because the Edwards family, for all their faults, and all their greed, always did what they considered best for United, and were it not for Martin Edwards floating United on the Stock exchange, much of what has happened to United in the last 10 years wouldnt have happened. Carrington wouldnt exist. The ground would only be holding 55,000 people, and United wouldnt be the commercial force they are.. There were bad things attached to the PLC. United was run more like a business, but those slating it should remember that without the PLC the odds are our reign supreme in the 90s would have stopped alot sooner.

People say that the PLC was the worst thing for United. It wasnt. It funded much of what we know today, and the board of the PLC steered United to levels unseen in our history. Where the PLC went wrong was it wasnt taken seriously enough by the fans ( depsite warnings from Martin Edwards himself who told the fans to buy shares to stop it being taken over ). had the fans taken the warnings, especially after Murdoch, Glazer wouldnt own United. Sadly they didnt, and our club is now being taken down a path no previous owner had ever wanted it to go..
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Fred, completely agree with what you said about Louis Edwards. However, Martin Edwards is a completely different kettle of fish in my opinion. Maybe I am biased, but I find the guy reprehensible, and think that he did so much damage, not only to Manchester United, but also to the game of football as a whole. Yes the Board throughout his tenure did do some good things - but then again, I would expect any Board at Manchester United (present owners excepted) to have done good things. They could never be seen to be standing still otherwise there would have been so much flak flying about their ears. The plc, although I didn't like it so muchprsonally, wasn't so bad in that they did act in the interests of Manchester United for the majority of the time, and it was possible for the fans groups to have a dialogue with them, and they would listen to a certain extent - far away from what we see today. But the main reason that the plc was formed, you will see in my thread about Martin Edwards, was mainly as Maurice Watkins so succinctly put it; "to make money for the shareholders." Of course, the people mostly holding the majority of the shares came from inside the United Boardroom. Edwards wheeler dealing outside of United also put a bad taste in my mouth. He was responsible along with a number of others for the greed which now permeates through the Premiership and its set up.
 
fredthered said:
Excellent post Tom. much of which I have read about and even tried to tell people about on here.

Edwards, albeit a ruthless and very dubious character was United through and through, and contrary to popular belief didnt take money out of the club until very late on, when he was in dire need of cash to salvage his ailing business which was under alot of scrutiny for the dodgy goings on.

Louis Edwards was not a nice man. Thats not disputed, but what is in question is this notion that the club has funded greedy businessmen since its foundation, and thats simply not true. Edwards made little of nothing out of United for a very long time, almost 15 years. In that time he invested alot of money in the team, and his dream was to build the ground which we all see today. It was his vision for Old Trafford which he instructed Martin Edwards to carry on with, and many dont know that Martin Edwards far from walking away from United when he sold his stake in the club, worked tirelessly to make the vision of OT that his dad had, actually happen.

Yes Martin Edwards made alot of money off the back of United. But theres much good work he did which goes unrecognised, and that work was done to complete a vision that his father had had some 40 years previously.

This is why you cannot compare the current owner to the Edwards family, because the Edwards family, for all their faults, and all their greed, always did what they considered best for United, and were it not for Martin Edwards floating United on the Stock exchange, much of what has happened to United in the last 10 years wouldnt have happened. Carrington wouldnt exist. The ground would only be holding 55,000 people, and United wouldnt be the commercial force they are.. There were bad things attached to the PLC. United was run more like a business, but those slating it should remember that without the PLC the odds are our reign supreme in the 90s would have stopped alot sooner.

People say that the PLC was the worst thing for United. It wasnt. It funded much of what we know today, and the board of the PLC steered United to levels unseen in our history. Where the PLC went wrong was it wasnt taken seriously enough by the fans ( depsite warnings from Martin Edwards himself who told the fans to buy shares to stop it being taken over ). had the fans taken the warnings, especially after Murdoch, Glazer wouldnt own United. Sadly they didnt, and our club is now being taken down a path no previous owner had ever wanted it to go..
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with much of this. However, the formation of the PLC and the subsequent footballing and economic success also directly resulted in Glazer and the debt. Imagine if 10 or 20% of the PLC shares had been given to a supporters trust when the PLC was formed. Glazer wouldn't have been able to conduct a hostile takeover.

Too late now.
 
Wibble said:
I tend to agree with much of this. However, the formation of the PLC and the subsequent footballing and economic success also directly resulted in Glazer and the debt. Imagine if 10 or 20% of the PLC shares had been given to a supporters trust when the PLC was formed. Glazer wouldn't have been able to conduct a hostile takeover.

Too late now.
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I also agree that the PLC days were directly responsible for the 90's success and so on. However it's not often you see a business gifting shares to a third party such as supporters. A hostile takeover was always the danger of floating United and something we all new would eventually happen. We all like to believe we built the club along with Sir Matt and we did, but once TV came into the picture and United's global potential was exposed the inevitable happened. Maybe we should have had more foresight when the shares were originally floated and bought them..?? We didn't as we hated the fact we were a PLC, they even changed the United badge and removed "Football Club" . Commercialism became United but it did bring us the success we wanted and this only blurred our vision as we rejoyced for the happy times were here...!! It's all after the event now but hindsight is a great thing especially in business terms..!!!!
 
BalBoA said:
why get Tom Clare involved?
i have a huge respect for him for getting promoted with less then 40 and all i asked for was how did he do it??
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You can be banned for your plain ignorant! Tom Clare is a respectful Man United historian whos post should be put on sticky so some ignorant fans like yourself would not miss the chance to read his contribution to the forum!
 
Thanks Tom.

I have read many of your posts in "Shareholders" and it's very very good. Sometimes I have tears in my eyes and sometimes I just smile. It's reminds me of when my father tells me about WC final 1958 with Brazil and Pelé and his "talking" about Gunnar Nordahl (AC Milan).

I hope you are allright Tom and have a long life in front of you.
 
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