Wally meets...Mike Walters chats to one of football's most infamous chairmen Peter Ridsdale

By Mike Walters in Mirror Football Blog

Published 22:30 30/12/11

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Happy New Year to all troubleshooters, Red Adairs, flying doctors – and Peter Ridsdale.

Come on, give the man a break. Preston’s new chairman has acquired a reputation for leaving behind another fine mess at every club he has run.

From tropical fish tanks at Leeds to firing the manager who sold his memorabilia to pay the heating bill at Plymouth, Ridsdale has been an expedient fall-guy when money’s too tight to mention.

Had he been a chef, he would have been blamed for a fly in the soup while the kitchen burnt down.

Had he been a copper, he would have been blamed for the crime rate.

And had he been a banker, we’d all be skint.

But Ridsdale, who will be 60 in March, loves football – and he is adamant he doesn’t deserve the flak which has followed him since he left Leeds with a famous old club hurtling towards the rocks.

“When you are subjected to all the abuse, you don’t have any choice about developing a thick skin,” he said. “Do I find it easy to live with? No, I don’t. Does it hurt? Yes, it does.

“And the reason it hurts is that I’ve done a better job in football than I’ve been credit for. After 24 years, there are a lot more positives than negatives on my record and I’ve made more good decisions than bad ones.” Like walking in through the door at Deepdale and sacking Phil Brown before taking off your hat and coat?

Brown walked the plank after a run of one win in 11 games, but Ridsdale insists he was only thinking what everyone else was thinking when he pulled the trapdoor lever.

“That was a considered decision taking into account the views of people who had been at the club a lot longer than me.

“It was not a case of me making a sweeping gesture the moment I arrived. It was based on a consensus of opinion.”

Ridsdale has been here before. He was slaughtered by a later regime at Leeds for having that fish tank in his office, which cost £200 a year to run, but here he is – back in the goldfish bowl and loving the hustle of football business.

He said: “I was the whipping boy when Leeds went into financial meltdown after they were relegated and I have to acknowledge my part in their downfall.

“But in my 10 years as a director, we won promotion from what is now the Championship and we won the title under Howard Wilkinson two years later, and in my five years as chairman we were in the top five every season and reached two European semi-finals.

“Yet I was the one who carried the can, as if I made every decision unilaterally, and you can only be kicked for so long – I’m sick of being portrayed as the bad guy.

“Yes, we made mistakes while I was in charge, but a lot of mistakes were made after I left and I don’t see others being hung out to dry for them.

“I was asked to go and help steer Barnsley out of the abyss, and in five years at Cardiff I delivered them into a new stadium and a state-of-the-art training ground, and during my time there we went to the FA Cup Final and the Championship play-off final.

“By the time I handed over to the new owners from Malaysia, they had doubled their average gates, trebled their season ticket holders and I had fulfilled my brief.

“And I stopped Plymouth from going out of business, which is not bad for a bloke who only went to Home Park one afternoon to watch a match.

“Of course I found it difficult to tell Peter Reid we had to get him go – I had appointed him eight years earlier at Leeds before I left Elland Road.

“He was a gentleman, a professional, and his gesture of selling a Cup Final medal to pay the club’s heating bill during the big freeze last winter will never be forgotten.

“But ultimately you survive in the Football League by winning football matches and when Plymouth didn’t win any of their first 10 games this season we had to make a call, even though it was an unpopular one.”

Today, as proud Preston entertain League One big hitters Sheffield Wednesday, caretaker bosses Graham Alexander and David Unsworth will hope to advance their claims to succeed Brown on a permanent basis and Ridsdale has promised to give them due consideration.

After all, in 24 years there are few things he has yet to experience in football. Just one promotion would be nice, though.

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