Ron Noades: Football club owner

Controversial and ambitious football chairman who went on to win a divisional manager of the year award

Noades: in his career he was involved with Southall, Wimbledon, Crystal Palace and Brentford (Alex Lentati/Evening Standard/Rex Features)

Ron Noades made a considerable, and often controversial, contribution to London’s sporting life.

As a serial football-club owner he launched Wimbledon on the road from the Southern League to the Premier League, guided Crystal Palace through the most successful period in their history and combined the roles of chairman and manager with Brentford. A quirk of fixture fate sent Palace to Villa Park on Boxing Day, 48 hours after Noades succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 76. It was at the home of Aston Villa, in a pulsating FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool in 1990, that he enjoyed “the best game of my life” and the “most important” with the club he bought for £600,000 in 1981 and sold 17 years later for almost £23m.

Managed by Steve Coppell – to whom Noades had entrusted control in 1984 as an untried 28-year-old – Palace beat the Cup holders and soon-to-be First Division champions 4-3. Six months after being humiliated 9-0 at Liverpool, they reached Wembley for the first of five visits under Noades’ stewardship. In their first major final, Palace led Manchester United 3-2 in extra time before Alex Ferguson’s team forced a replay which they won 1-0. The south London club had won promotion 12 months earlier and a year later finished third in the top flight.

Noades was in business when the opportunity arose in the early 1970s to take over Southall of the Isthmian League. When he paid £2,800 for the majority shareholding in Southern League Wimbledon in 1976 it seemed he was merely graduating from an amateur outfit to a semi-professional one. “Dons 4 Div 4” was an impressive PR campaign, costing him all of £3,000. One stunt involved Tony Greig, the England cricket captain, becoming a director. In 1977 Wimbledon replaced Workington in the League. Nine years later they were in the First Division, though Noades had left Plough Lane for Selhurst Park in 1981.

There was an odd postscript to the Noades era in London SW19. In 2009 he confirmed he had considered uprooting Wimbledon to Milton Keynes in 1979, nearly a quarter of a century before the club’s owners, along with the Buckinghamshire businessman Pete Winkelman, took the same, vehemently criticised step. Noades purchased debt-ridden Milton Keynes City for £1 and installed three Wimbledon directors, including Sam Hammam, on the board. Unconvinced the move would be a money-spinner, he ended up selling Wimbledon to Hammam.

Noades’ reign at Palace started inauspiciously; managers came and went and the team languished in the lower Second Division. Coppell, the League’s youngest manager, could lead them only to 15th place in 1984-85. The average crowd, nearly 30,000 in 1979-80, plummeted to 6,440. Contrary to his hands-on image, Noades counselled patience, trusting Coppell to transform Palace by stealth. The former England winger recruited brilliantly from neighbouring non-League clubs, signing Andy Gray (Dulwich Hamlet) and Ian Wright (Greenwich Borough). He later paid Leicester £75,000 for Mark Bright, who forged a prolific striking duo with Wright.

The holder of an FA coaching badge since 1978, Noades worked closely with his manager, accompanying him on scouting trips. He reputedly persuaded a reluctant Coppell to buy Geoff Thomas from Crewe after a sixth viewing. Thomas later represented England, as did Gray and Wright, and captained Palace against United at Wembley.

Promotion provided Noades with something resembling the south London “superclub” he had envisaged when he proposed merging Palace and Wimbledon in 1986, an idea rejected by both sets of fans. He was a staunch advocate of the FA’s move in 1991 to establish the Premier League, whose chief executive Richard Scudamore this week saluted his “fundamental” role in its formation.

The previous year Noades was accused of racism after a Channel 4 documentary. Palace’s black players, he said, “lent skill and flair”, but, he added: “You also need white players in there to balance things up and give the team some brains and some common sense.” He claimed he was “stitched up”, with the quotes taken out of context. At best the remarks appeared injudicious and naive, although Noades remained friendly with black players such as Gray, Wright and Bright.

The squad dispersed, Coppell departed (for the first time) in 1993 and Palace lurched between the top divisions. In 1995, a reporter asked manager Alan Smith what avoiding relegation would mean. “A new Bentley for the chairman,” he answered pointedly. In 1998, after a stint as caretaker manager, Noades sold Palace to Mark Goldberg for £22.8m. Geoff Thomas tweeted on Christmas Eve: “Not many people invest in a football club and come out with more money than they put in.” Noades spurned an approach from Manchester City, reasoning that they would not have accepted him as manager, and bought Brentford for £650,000.

As chairman and manager – “I’m 60, so it’s now or never” – he took them to the fourth-tier title at the first attempt. Named divisional Manager of the Year in 1998, he ended his dual role two years later after an FA Cup defeat to Kingstonian. He sold his majority stake in the club in 2006.

He was an avid golfer, his final years spent buying and developing courses as chairman of the Altonwood Group. The home he shared with his Welsh wife Novello was used in the ITV show Footballers Wives, with the swimming pool, which included a mosaic of a footballer, featuring in the opening credits.

Diagnosed with cancer in November last year, Noades underwent surgery, chemotherapy and brain radiotherapy. He became reliant on oxygen cylinders before making his illness public two months ago.

Ronald Geoffrey Noades, football club owner, chairman and manager: born London 22 June 1937; chairman of Wimbledon 1976-81, Crystal Palace 1981-98, chairman-manager Brentford 1998-2000, chairman 2000-03; married Novello (five children); died Purley, Surrey 24 December 2013.