Autobiography

that neither David Sullivan, the Gold Brothers
nor even his nemesis Karren Brady had the
balls to tell him he was sacked. He was right,
of course. It was left to poor old Jack Wiseman
to do the dirty work. The remarkable thing is,
we have stayed firm friends, I suppose as a
result of him being such a charming human
being.
He was, for example, the only person you
would forgive for his bad language, which was
never malicious. I remember the first game
that Barry was in charge, a match at Crystal
Palace which we lost 2–1. Barry burst into the
boardroom and shouted at their chairman, Ron
Noades, ‘You lucky bastard!’ I almost spilled
my wine I was so shocked. Thankfully
everybody in the room burst out laughing, but
there were a number who laughed nervously,
including Noades, who wasn’t sure about this
bubbly little man who had bounded into the
inner sanctum.
I remember another occasion when we had
been beaten 3–1 at Barry’s old club, Southend.
After the match, Barry burst into the Southend
boardroom and said again in a very loud voice,
‘You lucky bastards!’ The room was full of
directors and their ladies. thankfully everybody
broke into laughter, though I had mixed
feelings. But what do you do? More often than
not he knew the people he was ribbing, and
they knew him. It happened again a couple of
weeks later. We lost again, this time at Notts
County. We were standing around
congratulating the opposition board members
and their wives when in comes Barry, again
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