Visionary by Phillip Vine

Author:Phillip Vine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2019-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Own Goals

The Derek Jameson Show Thursday 24 August 1989

THERE ARE a few things Knighton now knows: that there are a few days of calm before all storms; that there is a cliché to fit all situations; that when the proverbial hits a fan it’s better to be on holiday in Majorca, as Edwards was, than to be in London waiting to appear on the Derek Jameson television show.

It started the following Thursday with a headline in the Daily Express.

Don’t Juggle with United, Mister Chairman.

Inside the paper James Lawton suggested that Knighton ‘may have self-glorification on his mind’.

Knighton could ignore headlines for a while but not the sheer, bloody spleen of men whose ambitions to own Manchester United had been thwarted. They were like lovers spurned, these men, Midani, and Burrows, in particular. And Robert Maxwell, too.

All of them in their different ways capable of metaphorical crimes of passion.

* * *

On the same Thursday that the Express article appeared, Knighton was preparing for the Jameson show. The host, with his star-spangled toothy grin as wide, as fixed, and as empty as the space between football goalposts, was an amiable chat show man. His bearing, Knighton thought, was full of creases born of midlife crises that have ended with smiles. When he talked, this former editor of the Express, the Daily Star and the News of the World, his face rippled like the back of the net when a goal had just been scored.

Knighton’s fellow guests on the programme were George Best and Samesh Kumar, the recently installed chairman of newcomers to the Third Division, Birmingham City. Inspired by Knighton’s recent performance on the Old Trafford pitch, there were rumours that the guests would indulge in a £5m keepie-uppie charity challenge bet as part of the show. Knighton, though, was more excited by the prospect of meeting Best than of appearing and performing on live television. He says he never had heroes but that he made an exception for the Northern Ireland internationalist.

He and Best shook hands and Knighton detected a half-camouflaged shyness in the Irishman’s sparkling eyes and words. They say, Knighton thought, you should never meet your heroes. Best, however, was warm, complimentary.

‘People like Michael,’ he said, ‘young, extrovert, new chairmen, first class, excellent for the game.’

Best’s beard was full and black but, studied closely, there were flecks of white to be seen, hints of mortality amid the vigorous profusion of hair. His eyes were still a piercing blue, the same eyes that held Miss Worlds and opposing footballers in equal thrall. His body remained trim but had advanced a fair way from the skinny Belfast bag of bones he was when he first played football for more than fun. Knighton could smell that Best had been drinking but he was not yet drunk. Kumar was fresh and pleasant. His family were in the rag trade in Manchester. Despite being nervous and in awe of Best he at least had had the bottle to turn up.

A reporter had come

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