David Conn: Fans fear Keegan's reign may spell glory or bust

Major shareholder takes control as Manchester City supporters regret departure of chairman who ran prudent regime

Manchester City fans' signature tune, following the mournful "Blue Moon" ("without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own") and the deeply morbid "City 'til I Die", evolved on the all too recent 1998-99 tour of the Second Division: "We're not really here". In a week of comfortingly familiar boardroom fall-outs, resignations of the chairman, David Bernstein, and a director, Chris Bird, City fans have demonstrated a surprisingly sure grasp of the club's reality, and a fear of its speculate-to-accumulate policy under their spendthrift manager, Kevin Keegan. There has been widespread support for Bernstein; in a Manchester Evening News poll, 92 per cent of City fans said he would be badly missed.

City have spent £46m on players in rapid time, announced a £14m loss last year and took out a £30m, 24-year mortgage on gate receipts at the new City of Manchester Stadium, which is being built for the club entirely with public money. Nevertheless, Bernstein is credited by City fans with running a prudent regime, which they worry will be jeopardised if Keegan is given too free a hand by the board under the acting chairman and major shareholder, John Wardle.

Bernstein declined this week to add to Wednesday's enigmatic statement, in which he said he had resigned because of "a divergence of views on fundamental strategic issues particularly concerning finance and management structure". Most fans concluded the difference was Bernstein's caution versus Wardle's preparedness to back Keegan's strategy of buying City's way into European football.

"I am touched by the response of the fans, which has been incredible," Bernstein said. "Not many chairmen are missed when they leave." Certainly not at City, where Peter Swales was never forgiven for backing Malcolm Allison's financially reckless second managerial stint in 1979, which led to relegation in 1983, a formative experience for a generation of City supporters. The vitriolic, drawn-out ousting of Swales a decade later led to the "second coming" of Francis Lee, who was supposed to recapture for City the glory days of the late Sixties, early Seventies, in which he had starred as their centre-forward.

Bernstein, an accountant and professional company director, was brought on to the board by Lee in November 1994 to steer the new City on to the Stock Exchange and make a fortune for the shareholders. But City did not float, they sank. Relegated and in debt because of £11m spent building the new Kippax Street Stand, they reached for help from Wardle and David Makin, City fans and owners of J D [John, David] Sports high street chain.

Makin, who still watches City from his seat in the Kippax, did not want to become a director and he and Wardle instead appointed to the board Dennis Tueart, City's former winger who now has a small promotions and travel company.

Lee famously said at the club's 1998 Annual General Meeting, when City were struggling in the First Division, that he would "jump off" the new Kippax if City were relegated to the third flight for the first time in their history. He only escaped having to do it because he resigned shortly beforehand. Makin popped up on a local radio phone-in after a dire 1-0 home defeat by Bury, saying, almost in tears, that he would "get rid of the chairman". Within weeks, Lee was gone and Bernstein was handed a very different role: to save a club in crisis.

Throughout the odyssey back to the Premier League, Bernstein preached prudence, Makin and Wardle constantly underwrote City's losses, borrowings and share issues which have taken their ownership of the club to 29.95 per cent. Tueart introduced a key figure in this week's blood on the Maine Road carpet: Chris Bird, a former head of sales at the local Piccadilly Radio, who was then running his own small PR firm. His first job was to prune City's rampant gossip grapevine then he rose to chairman's assistant, chief operating officer, then managing director-development, on a pay packet of £180,000, until last week's resignation. Bird was memorably described in Blue Moon, Mark Hodkinson's 1999 book on City, as "linear, determined, confident, dogged, a supreme foot-soldier for the Bernstein administration." No more.

Makin and Wardle have grown J D Sports from a single shop in Bury in 1985 to 166 stores nationwide. Like JJB, their larger rival based in Wigan, they profited from the 1990s explosion in sports merchandising and expanded aggressively. They floated the company in 1996, becoming involved with City shortly afterwards. Two years ago, they each made nearly £11m by selling JD shares, while retaining 28 per cent of the company. Last year JD took over another chain, First Sport for £53m, turned over £245m and made a pre-tax profit of £20m. Their pay packets were £136,000, plus dividends: £1m for Wardle, £773,000 for Makin.

Big players financially, they have kept a low profile, barring the odd phone-in. They supported Keegan's predecessor, Joe Royle, financially; after City were promoted to the Premiership in 2000, they spent £13m on players only to be relegated again.

Keegan's demands to sign players since he replaced Royle have seemed insatiable and the board – chaired by Bernstein – gave him the money. After announcing their £14m loss and debts of £27m, including £6.2m loaned by Wardle and Makin, City spent a further £21.5m on seven foreign players named in their annual report: Nicolas Anelka, Sylvain Distin, Vicente Vuoso, Mikkel Bischoff, Tyrone Loran, Karim Kerkar and Peter Schmeichel. Only Anelka, Distin and Schmeichel have figured in the team this season. This week Bernstein said: "We weren't prudent. We were the third-highest spenders in Europe; we spent massively." Still, he is painted as more cautious than Wardle, whose philosophy is apparently to back Keegan, spend City's way into the top six and reap the financial rewards of European competition.

Last month's public row over the signing of Robbie Fowler prefigured the resignations, with Keegan criticising Bernstein for returning late in the deal to negotiate a cheaper price from Leeds. Eventually the striker was secured for the lesser fee of £3m, plus £3m based on appearances, but there was well-sourced talk from within the club that Wardle should take over transfers from Bernstein.

Bird is understood to have become unhappy because Bernstein wanted Alistair Mackintosh, an accountant and the joint managing director-finance, to become the club's chief executive. This would make him Bird's boss: Bird felt he had not been adequately consulted, and he resigned. The board were due to consider his resignation on Wednesday, but apparently the directors had a meeting, without Bernstein and Mackintosh, on Tuesday. They decided they did not approve of the proposed reorganisation, Bernstein felt he was being undermined and instead of attending Wednesday's meeting, issued a statement resigning.

Wardle, now acting chairman, announced a "detailed management review" in the summer, and many expect Bird to be invited to come back, now Bernstein has gone. Makin turned up on a radio phone-in again this week, describing Bird approvingly as a "human dynamo", and asking fans to trust what the board is doing. Bird has not commented, and while it is difficult to imagine him staying away if asked, he will want to avoid giving the impression that he resigned as a tactic to force the issue with Bernstein.

Wardle sought to reassure City fans in the aftermath of the resignations, saying City's target is European competition, the "utopia" of trips to Juventus, Barcelona or Munich, which he said could be achieved with financial stability. Keegan, besides being a "fantastic manager," is, he said, "au fait with the world of business and finance and the last thing he wants to do is take this club down a road we cannot afford".

City fans well remember trudging down the A6 for their derby with Macclesfield and have seen how similar spending intended to bring European success failed at Leeds, and that relegation meant administration at Ipswich Town and Leicester City. They fear that Keegan's impatience spells glory or bust, and seemed this week to yearn for some humbler achievements: consolidate a Premiership place, maybe have the odd Mancunian in their side, for old time's sake. They felt safe with Bernstein, and credited him with the club's recovery. It is typical that City will move into the new City of Manchester Stadium, being converted for them by Manchester's council tax payers, not with dignity and grace, but in the familiar frenzy of perpetual crisis.

davidconn@independent.co.uk