By Jon Colman

Last updated at 08:22, Friday, 11 July 2008

Maybe it’s the effect of a sunny Cumbrian afternoon, but there seems no air of bereavement about Fred Story at the end of his first week as the former owner of Carlisle United.

There is no pain in his voice, no detectable anguish, as he stretches back in his chair in his office at Story Homes and explains why he decided to sell the football club that had consumed his life for four years.

“I never had a burning ambition to own a football club in the first place, because I was aware of the pitfalls involved,” he says. “I bought Carlisle United because I thought I was in the best position to sort it out. I expected to get a lot of satisfaction from doing that, and I have.

“But it’s all-consuming. It’s taken a lot more of my time than I expected. You eventually draw a line where you say you’ve achieved what you wanted to achieve. The club is stable, it’s sustainable, and it’s being run properly. Now I’ve got a life to lead.”

The upshot of these thoughts was the sale of the club to four directors; a deal completed last Thursday and which has prompted relentless public comment, much of it sceptical. More of that shortly. First, when did Story’s mind settle that his ownership was not long for this world?

“About September 2004,” he laughs. “No, it was probably once I appointed John Ward last October. I felt then that we had a manager who was professional and could take the club forward.

“There’s nothing I can tell John Ward about doing his job and I would never presume to. Once he was appointed, I realised that the main part of my job was done.”

Around Christmas time, Story confided privately that he was indeed looking to sell United. Quiet conversations became spinning rumours, which eventually gave way to the accepted knowledge that the Blues were destined for new control.

Which leads us back to the new four-man regime – David Allen, John Nixon, Steve Pattison and Andrew Jenkins. All directors under Story and, as a collective, the target for suspicious comment these past eight days. Was the deal a fait accompli in the face of high-profile interest from former owner John Courtenay, among other parties? Will Story continue to control the club by proxy? Has the ex-owner played United’s future too safely, when greater investment might have come from other candidates? And what of the £1.5 million which the club still owes Story’s construction firm (the loan introduced by Story to consolidate previous debts upon buying the club from Courtenay in July 2004)?

He attacks the questions and the implied criticisms firmly. “People who think I’m going to have some influence on these four fellas just because I’ve worked with them are sadly mistaken,” says Story, who will continue to sponsor the club. “I have no share ownership now, I’m not on the board of directors, and the idea that I will have an input in the decision-making process is rubbish.”

But why sell to the quartet, and not another suitor? “There were three expressions of interest from outside the area, but once I made it apparent that they had to have the interests of the club at heart, they disappeared pretty quickly,” he says. “I could never really get to the bottom of what their agendas were. I certainly couldn’t get the reassurances I needed to take it further.

“There was local interest too, and the people involved had the right agenda of being stewards of the club. But I think they also had a good, hard look at the risks of owning a football club when you run a business in the area, and all the rubbish that is talked.” Here, he is referring to the supporters’ trust, whose running conflict with Story included a High Court battle over the legality of his ownership, a skirmish the construction tycoon eventually won.

“I don’t want to give them the oxygen of publicity,” he says. “But I think it’s right as a club owner that you shouldn’t allow these people to influence the football club if you think their agenda is wrong. They then try to attack you by going for your integrity, which is the cheapest shot to take. It’s the sort of thing that makes local businesses aware they’ve got the most to lose by getting involved.

“Local owners are the safest bet, without a doubt. Not someone coming for the glory, throwing money at it without thinking of the repercussions. When you look at the history of Carlisle United, when we’ve had local owners, we’ve had steady success – and glittering success in the First Division – and when we’ve had owners from outside, you can see for yourself what the results have been.”

The question still hangs. Why not Courtenay again? “To talk about why I didn’t sell to someone is to have a go at them,” he says. “I just know that the four people who have taken over have got the club’s best interests at heart. I’m not saying other people didn’t, but these four were the best people. And bear in mind that it was a financially expensive decision to me, because other people were offering money, effectively to replace the Story Construction debt. This decision has cost me £1.5 million, because I’ve spent four years working at Carlisle United and I didn’t want to see it undone.”

On the debt, he adds: “The club has got plenty of cash in the bank, it’s got enough to keep itself running and pay its bills, and it’s got the debt to Story Construction of £1.5m. I’ve got an agreement with the directors that if they can pay it back, if circumstances allow them to pay it back, that’s fine. But there is no strict framework to say they must pay it back by a certain time. And I have agreed that as long as these four directors own the club, I won’t charge them interest on the debt, so effectively they don’t have to worry about it.”

Is it not, though, the safety-first option to sell to a new regime whose chief executive (Allen) is an accountant?

“There is a burning ambition in these guys,” he replies. “It’s just that they don’t say we’re going to be in the Premiership in five years. It might not be as exciting as someone coming in and throwing millions, but people need to check the price tag when someone comes and makes those promises. I’d have thought Carlisle fans more than anyone know that. If they’re foolish enough to want a boom-bust thing, I don’t think they care about the club.

“People have said I’ve been too safe. But we’ve had the four most successful years we’ve had for 30 years. There are no bigger fans than the four men who are looking after the club now. To say there isn’t any passion is rubbish.”

Asked to describe the club he walked into when he took control in 2004, Story pauses, then quietly says, “Ground Zero”. The outlook: proper systems not in place, creditors at the gates, money being haemorrhaged. “That sounds like a swipe at John Courtenay, but it must have been very difficult for him to run the club from another country (Ireland). He is on record as saying he put in more than £3m of his own cash which he never saw back. The fact it was losing money wasn’t through John’s lack of generosity, or a lack of trying. It was a result of the club not being run properly.

“Introducing the loan, so we could pay off all the debts, was the best thing we could have done. It allowed people to think about running the club rather than fending off creditors. Suppliers started sending things not at a premium, sponsors were getting on board because they were confident the club had some stability.”

The January 2005 floods, which devastated Carlisle but eventually served to unite the people within its football club, was also Story’s first opportunity to speed up United’s regeneration. “People forget how run-down the infrastructure was. We had doors off hinges, turnstiles not working…my initial response was that the flood was a disaster for us, but we worked well with the insurance company and turned it into a fantastic opportunity.”

On the pitch, Simpson was plotting a revival which would lead United back into the Football League via dramatic play-off success in the Conference, and then, to vast acclaim, the League Two title 12 months later, via a Football League Trophy final at the Millennium Stadium which was worth £200,000 to the club. “When we went up to League One, I didn’t know if we were ready for it,” Story says. “But we sorted it. Paul Simpson was a big ingredient, and we lost him to Preston, but we sorted that as well. And while I ended up sacking Neil McDonald, I think our first year in League One was fantastic.”

Which leads us smoothly onto the McDonald issue, and the startling dismissal of Simpson’s successor after a single game of the 2007/8 season, two days after the transfer-record busting capture of Joe Garner. Story has always withheld the minute detail on the Geordie’s sacking which, at the time, gave rise to a banquet of lurid rumours. Now, the former owner provides the finest of lines through which we may peer.

“I liked Neil but I was convinced we weren’t going to progress if he stayed as manager,” Story says. “I’ve never wanted to be insulting to Neil by saying anything. Perhaps he should have listened more. That’s all I will say. Neil was new to management and it is something you learn with experience. Hopefully he will come back as a manager one day and succeed.”

Was the Garner signing, and the record £140,000 fee, a statement of intent from the owner – and a rebuke to lingering suggestions that he might attempt to drive the Blues forward on the cheap? “Look, I wish we’d paid 10 grand for Joe Garner,” he says. “I wasn’t bothered about breaking the transfer record. At the end of the day, your job is to get as much as you can for the fans’ money. The reality is Joe was a bargain. But it was a bit frustrating, because I feel Joe could have been secured earlier and on better terms.”

McDonald’s eventual successor, Ward, plainly carries Story’s respect. Yet the decision to appoint the former Cheltenham manager was not without its agonies. “The hardest decision I ever had to make was not giving Greg Abbott the job,” Story says. “He’s a fantastic guy, did a smashing job as caretaker and I really do think he will be a manager. If I hadn’t had such a strong candidate as John Ward, I’d have given the job to Greg. But John being available was too good an opportunity to miss.”

Under Ward, United maintained their trajectory until a damaging dip in form cost them promotion to the Championship last spring. Among the most cynical fans, there is the notion that the Blues’ hierarchy were intimidated by the idea of reaching the second tier and the failure to make the cut was, in fact, a matter of design. At this suggestion, Story bristles.

“The idea that we purposely throttled back to avoid promotion is absolute rubbish,” he says. “We bit the bullet and paid £140,000 for Joe Garner. It cost £100,000 to pay Neil McDonald’s contract up because I made the decision that he wasn’t right. It cost money to get John Ward here. Then we still went and signed players, not necessarily for headline fees but there were signing-on fees which cost just as much.

“We were in line for losing £300,000 this year. That isn’t why we sold Keiren Westwood, but if you start losing money on a regular basis, we’ve seen what happens. We didn’t expect Joe Garner to get injured, we didn’t expect David Raven and Danny Livesey to get suspended for a few games. I think the Nottingham Forest postponement in the winter – which I think the referee got wrong – had an effect because it meant we had a cluster of big games in a row later on and it was just too much to bear.

“Losing games then punctured our confidence and we lost our momentum. It would have been fantastic if we’d got promoted, but you need a bit of luck as well. If it was a science, we wouldn’t get so excited about it. But no, we didn’t bottle out of trying to win promotion. And if people don’t believe John Ward is serious about getting to the Championship with Carlisle United, they are fools.”

Apart from putting Cumbria’s only professional club on a sound footing, Story regards the stunning penalty shoot-out win over Aldershot in 2005, the sequence of heavy away victories in spring 2006 (Boston 5-0, Northampton 3-0, Darlington 5-0) and the remarkable 3-1 triumph over Leeds last November as the personal highlights of his reign. “And in terms of what football can do to you, the biggest revelation was walking on the pitch at Stoke after we’d won promotion back to the Football League,” he recalls.

“I saw someone in the crowd and waved, and all of a sudden this whole section of people were waving and cheering back. I got a bit carried away with that. Paul Simpson told me to hold onto that, because you don’t often get moments like that in football. Incredible.”

Regrets? “Not really. I think losing Kevin Gray last year was a big mistake. He would have been an asset behind the scenes. As for the trust, I think John Courtenay should regret giving them shares, but that’s not my regret. I don’t regret standing up to them. I think the fans recognise I’ve done the right thing.”

On neighbours Gretna, who briefly soared then collapsed during Story’s Carlisle tenure, the former owner says: “People always want to attach themselves to success, and I probably did feel a bit threatened by it. But the way to address it was to be successful ourselves. If there was a threat from Gretna, we fended them off. That gave me a great deal of satisfaction.”

Story has admitted he would have remained at the helm after all, had Carlisle achieved promotion last season; the challenge of the Championship would have been a strong enough temptation. If the new owners are eventually to establish the Blues at the second tier, he is adamant that this can only be done with an increased fanbase. And no, he says, the concept of moving United away from Brunton Park never crossed his mind during his reign – nor does he expect it to be on the agenda of the new regime.

That, however, is so much conjecture. Our task today is to write the Fred Story era into Carlisle United’s history, obliged to note that he departs as a generally popular owner, a feat which slots him into a minority of lower-league football chiefs.

“Michael Knighton was unpopular because he didn’t put the interests of the football club first,” Story says, pointedly.

“I’ve enjoyed working with all the people there – staff, players, volunteers, directors…they all deserve my thanks. So do the fans. I suppose I’d like to be judged as someone who did a good job for the football club. But that’s out of my control. The important thing for me is that I can look back with pride on what I’ve done at Carlisle United.”

Unquestionably, the man is pleased and a mite relieved to have stepped away after four intense years. But a hunch says he’ll miss it just a touch more than he thinks.

First published at 05:36, Friday, 11 July 2008
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk