Chairman who saved Man City recalls darkest hour in which club nearly "died"
David Bernstein was the Manchester City chairman who turned down an offer to merge the club with Wimbledon.
His answer was just as unflinching when Scottish giants Rangers wanted to make City their feeder club. It’s fair to say that Bernstein is the man who saved City during their darkest hour in more ways than one - and was also instrumental in the deal that took the club to the City of Manchester Stadium and turned the Blues into a tantalising investment opportunity for Sheikh Mansour.
Bernstein celebrated his 80th birthday last May, the day before the team he has supported all his life were presented with their seventh Premier League title. Sixty-eight years earlier, on the day of his bar mitzvah, he had been transfixed in front of a black and white TV as City won the FA Cup.
Bernstein is just as important to the Manchester City story as the Abu Dhabi prince who transformed the second-best team in town into European champions. Perhaps even more so.
When he took over as chairman from Francis Lee in March 1998, the Blues were just a couple of months away from being relegated to the third tier of English football for the first time in their history.
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But the only way wasn’t up. City trailed Gillingham 2-0 going into injury time of the Second Division play-off final when a miracle happened.
Kevin Horlock reduced the deficit - and then Paul Dickov scored an equaliser that Bernstein believes to be more valuable than the Sergio Aguero strike that famously clinched the title in 2012.
City eventually prevailed on penalties - and although a rollercoaster few years followed, a move to the stadium being built for the Commonwealth Games was secured on that day at Wembley. The rest is history.
Bernstein said: “I’m not sure too many of City’s younger fans understand the significance of Paul Dickov’s equaliser - or, for that matter, Kevin Horlock’s goal.
Sheikh Mansour is the current Man City chairman (Getty Images)“Manchester City wouldn’t have died if we hadn’t been promoted, but it would have been a long way back because I would have had to oversee huge spending cuts.
“The move to the new stadium probably wouldn’t have happened - and that was a key element in Sheikh Mansour’s decision to buy the club in 2008. It was a tough time to be a City fan. The club was extremely vulnerable.
“There was an offer to take a short-cut back to the Premier League by merging with Wimbledon. A month after we beat Gillingham came a letter from Rangers chairman David Murray that would have turned us into their feeder club.
“Both proposals got short shrift, of course. City fans would have torn Maine Road down! I understood that, because I was one of them. Looking back, perhaps it was fortunate I was chairman because someone who didn’t understand the club may have been tempted.”
Bernstein’s time as chairman ended in 2003, just a few months before City left Maine Road, when he resigned after major shareholders John Wardle and David Makin caved in to a demand from manager Kevin Keegan to sign Robbie Fowler.
Bernstein feared City were overstretching themselves financially. He was so well-regarded in the game that he later became chairman of the FA.
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Bernstein has written a book about his time at City. ‘We Were Really There’ is a compelling read - for both City fans and those who claim the club has no history before 2008.
He said: “Some people don't like what City have become but, in my opinion, football is big business. What I don’t understand is why investors from the Middle East get a level of criticism that owners from the United States and Russia seem immune to.
“City’s owners have not just built a football club. They have helped to redevelop a huge area of East Manchester. Of course, City have 115 charges hanging over them - and if they are found guilty their achievements will be tarnished.
“But I have nothing but admiration for Pep Guardiola. If City win a fourth successive Premier League title and retain the Champions League this season, you would have to say he has built the best club team English football has ever seen.”
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