Albion director Derek Chapman has his say on Dick Knight's new book

I have been in Qatar working during the past week so I have been following The Argus’ serialisation of Dick’s book with interest from afar.

I have also read Ray Bloom’s response to Dick’s account of certain Albion events in last Friday’s newspaper.

I have been involved with the club as a fan since 1968 and as a director since 1999. We received wonderful, and at times critical, financial support from a number of sources but, for many of those past 14 years, I was one of only three directors – Ray and Dick being the other two – who consistently put money into the club. As such, like Ray, I think I’m well placed to make a few observations on the book’s content.

I’ve never actually worked out exactly how much money I have put into the club over the years (note I never use the word invest). It must be over £1.5 million but only a proportion of this shows up as shares.

A lot of the money I put in was used to help pay wages every now and again or as sponsorship monies to support the club when it most needed some commercial income.

In addition, the construction company I owned at the time, Adenstar, carried out most of the work at Withdean at cost, or at a very small profit, and (like many other Albion suppliers at the time) we often had to wait several months to be paid.

Frankly, I have never needed the comfort or security of owning more shares in the football club. The club had no money or assets for the majority of the time so shares were worthless anyway.

Also, I have never wanted any of my money back at any point. I put the money in to help the club I love survive – and I never expect to see the money again. In any case, I believe that football club directors are just custodians of the club. It’s our job to look after the club and eventually to pass it on to the next generation.

I’m aware of course that some people believe that I made money out of the building of the Amex – so it’s time to dispel another myth!

Martin took care of planning, design (except when we were trying to reduce costs or make it more buildable when I got more involved), and relationships with the key stakeholders.

I helped with the tender and choosing the contractor.

I was then responsible for managing the contractor on behalf of the club to ensure that the stadium was delivered on time, on budget, and to a high quality.

I am fulfilling the same role at our new training ground. To be clear: I have never asked to be paid, and neither have I received or made any money, for carrying out these duties.

In fact, when I helped out as interim CEO of the club for three months in 2012 leading up to the time Paul Barber joined us, I did not ask for or receive any payment for this role either, although the directors bought me a lovely watch as a thank you gift for the work I had done.

During the period 1999 to 2008 we had some farcical board meetings, which occasionally would last for up to eight hours.

We would discuss the team for half an hour and we would talk about how we would pay our debts and wages for seven hours. For the last half hour of the meeting, we would then discuss our dream of building a £50-£75 million stadium for the Albion.

Ray and I would often discuss the idea again on the way to and from away games. We were worried that if we ever got planning permission our problems would really begin.

I can assure you that banks in the UK had lost their appetite to fund new football grounds outside of the the Premier League long before 2007-2008.

Dick, Ray, and I are relatively well off but funding a project of such a size was well out of our league.

I often shared my fears about the project with Ray and (another fellow Albion director) Robert Comer.

My nightmare scenario was that we would win planning consent and not be able to start work on the build. And I didn’t think the fans’ patience would last very long if that had happened.

Alternatively, the fans would soon start calling for our heads – or worse! – if we somehow started the build only to run out of money with the stadium only a quarter completed and the club owing a lot of money.

During this time, as we considered all options to fund the stadium, I actually said to Dick that if a rich and well-intentioned investor came along and said that he would pay off our debts and fund the stadium in return for all of our shares for free, then it would be a great result. However, I was very surprised when Dick replied that he would still want his money back as well. I would have just been pleased enough to see the club survive and the stadium built.

So, by 2005 the club was well and truly broke. And we had absolutely no chance of being able to build the stadium even if we got planning.

The money just wasn't there.

Then, along came Tony – what a result! Someone to help the club with the money it desperately needed and someone who, on top of everything,was a true Brighton fan.

I had known Tony and his brother, Darren, since I became a director of the club in 1999.

I knew Tony was a lifelong Albion supporter, and I also knew Tony’s family’s history with the club went back a very long way.

However, I didn’t know that Tony had the sort of money that we would ultimately require and that would change the club’s entire history. Somebody was certainly smiling on Brighton.

Suddenly, we had a charmed life. But what I couldn’t understand was that Tony was putting in substantial sums of money and yet he wasn’t even a director of the club. What’s more he had left Dick as the club’s chairman and Dick carried on making decisions like he still owned the club, some of which were made without even consulting Tony.

This situation carried on until 2009. We were managed by Micky Adams and then Russell Slade. We had a disastrous season. And we nearly went down. This despite Tony providing substantial funds for new players.

By this time Tony had put so much money into the club it dwarfed all other contributions, including those made by Dick.

At this stage, the only sensible solution open to the board was to make Tony the club’s chairman. After all he owned 90% of the club so any decision the board made could only really happen if Tony sanctioned it.

As part of the change, Dick was to become life president.

Dick would still enjoy boardroom hospitality, would continue to watch games from the directors’ box with his family, and he would still be invited to all club events.

But what amazed me was that Dick also asked for money. I was even more amazed when, very generously, Tony paid Dick for shares that were essentially worthless.

Anyway, my take on all this is that when people say that Dick saved the club in 1997 and Tony built the stadium, they are wrong. Dick saved the club in 1997, Tony saved the club in 2005 – and then Tony built the stadium!

The way Dick and Tony operate is very different. When Dick ran the club, he made all the decisions. To be honest, I don’t know if he took any notice of the other directors – probably not!

We were always so strapped for cash, it was always about survival anyway. And we had very little choice as the decisions we did take were made out of necessity.

However, I did admire the way Dick was never beaten – not by Archer, not by Lewes Council, and not by anyone else that stood in his way at that time. Dick always kept going.

Tony’s style is very different.

At board meetings – and despite owning the club outright – he will always listen to others and, if the consensus is different to his own personal view or his wishes, he will usually go with the majority.

He also uses the experience, knowledge, and the talent around him on the board and, where appropriate, across the wider club to reach the best possible decisions. It’s a fully democratic process and it’s not one man making all the decisions.

I’m really not sure what to make of Dick’s proposal to sell his shares to fans. The board has its fair share of fans already: Tony Bloom, Ray Bloom, Robert Comer and I are lifetime fans! Martin Perry and Marc Sugarman were both born and raised in the city and have always been Albion fans too.

During Dick’s time as chairman the board looked at a share issue for the fans, but all of us – Dick included – concluded that it would involve too much cost to the club. We needed big investors, not thousands of small investors at £1 a time.

Dick will know that his new proposal has the potential to cost the club a fair amount of money to administer and he’ll also be aware that fans taking up the offer will end up owning a very small proportion of the club’s shares giving them no more of a say in the running of the club than they already have through the club’s various existing communication channels.

But if it's something Dick really wants to do, and it’s not just a stunt to help sell his book, I would obviously expect him to follow the correct process.

And perhaps Dick might also like to donate any money he raises from the share sale to Albion in the Community, the club’s charity he helped to build.

We all know what Dick has been doing in the past few weeks. He is one of life’s great salesmen. And now he is trying to sell his book.

But it’s important to set the record straight on some of the things I’ve read and heard this past weekend: the club was not allowed to see the book in advance; neither the club nor its other shareholders were aware of Dick’s plan to sell his shares before last Wednesday’s Argus article; the club was not asked to stage a launch for the book at the Amex; and the club has never been contacted about stocking Dick’s book in its stores.

But, then again, maybe we should not allow such facts to get in the way of another good story!

And, in any case, I suppose allowing what might look like a little spat with the club to go unchecked, while it further increases media and public interest in the book, certainly doesn’t hurt sales either!

Anyway, I do wish Dick good luck with his book. Like most lifelong Albion fans, I’m sure I will buy a copy!