What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiography (70 page)

When the agenda to remove Venables from the company was read out, the board was asked to vote. Crystal and Igal Yawetz voted
against
removing Venables, while Colin Sandy and I voted
for.
Berry abstained. He said I didn't need his vote, that in my capacity as chairman, I would have the casting vote, which was correct. But it showed me for the first time a new side of Berry. It seemed to me that, not knowing how this would pan out, he simply sat on the fence in order to keep his options open. Venables was officially fired there and then, but still maintained his director status. As soon as the decision was made, Venables got up and walked out.

After the meeting, Nick Hewer drove out through the baying mob at the main entrance relatively easily (as no one recognised him) and came round to the East Stand to pick me up and take me home. To the disappointment of the fans and thugs at the main gate, my driver, who had positioned my car
inside the ground, drove out of the main gate alone - the mob could see there was no one in the car other than him, so he escaped relatively unscathed.

At 5 p.m. that Friday, I received a call on my mobile phone from David Gold, chief of Herbert Smith's litigation department. Gold told me that Venables had gone to his lawyers and they had served an
ex parte
application to the court to have the decision overturned. This came as a big shock to Herbert Smith, and particularly Margaret Mountford, not to mention myself. A hearing was called for around 6 p.m. that night, giving us hardly any time to prepare our counter-arguments and engage a barrister.

The hearing took place in front of a judge who was completely out of her depth with regard to football matters. Venables' lawyers put forward the argument that the club would be badly disadvantaged, that players would leave the club on the announcement of Venables' dismissal. On top of that, they claimed there was a tournament the club had agreed to play in South Africa where Venables' presence was a contractual requirement. All of this was a pack of lies. What made it worse was that these lies had been given credibility by being included in a statement by Brian Fugler, a solicitor, who had presumably sworn this on the basis of what he had been told. Venables employed the lawyers Kanter Jules, a small firm known to be difficult. Bombarded with all this nonsense, the judge reinstated Venables!

Margaret was very embarrassed over this situation and felt sorry that the thing had gone so badly wrong. The dismissal of Venables as chief executive should have been a formality in accordance with the Companies Act, but the unprecedented decision of this judge had completely thrown a spanner in the works. There was nothing we could do about it.

As we had a disaster on our hands, David Gold agreed that he and another litigator would come and visit me at my home on Sunday to start compiling evidence to put forward to appeal and overturn this judge's decision. Meanwhile, Eric Hall got together a bunch of people, including a load of thugs and some players' wives, to form a protest group outside my house. My driver slowly edged the car past them. I told him to just drive - they would get out of the way. When I got in that Friday night, Daniel told me that this time I really
had
caused World War Three. Never mind Bambi's mum - I was the man who'd shot Bambi! The Adonis of football, God's gift to the game, the chirpy chappy Venables was culled by the money-man Sugar.

Daniel told me, 'Give it all up, Dad. Let Venables give you your money back and get out.' Apart from the fact that Venables had no way of paying the PS8m I'd injected into the club so far, I was adamant I was not going to be pushed out of this situation and was determined to fight the matter.

That Sunday, David Gold introduced me to Alan Watts, one of the younger litigators in the firm. Gold had chosen him as his credentials in this matter, apart from being a good litigator, were that he liked football and was a Liverpool supporter! At least it wasn't Arsenal.

I explained to Gold and Watts that the judge had been lied to. It was obvious that players
wouldn't
leave the club, as they were contracted to us - they couldn't simply walk out. Anyone who knew anything about football would have known this.

Gold agreed that the judge didn't understand this point and most probably thought the players were like any other group of workers, who could simply leave. Of course, if players
did
decide to walk out, they wouldn't be able to play for another club unless they had Tottenham's permission.

I also told Gold and Watts that this so-called South African tournament had been cancelled over a week earlier. I even showed them a memo from Peter Barnes to that effect,
proving
they'd lied to the court. And not only had they lied, but Fugler's statement had misled the court.

Gold asked me if I knew how to contact Fugler. I found his phone number, called him and asked why he had done such an outrageous thing. Fugler started to waffle about how he'd been assured that Spurs
were
going to South Africa. The following Monday, Fugler sent a notification to the court to cover his arse, excusing himself and saying he'd made a mistake. Gold had coached me to tell Fugler a few home truths on how he was compromising his position as a lawyer and how I could report him to the Law Society. However, despite Fugler's letter to the judge, the judgement was cast in concrete.

It took two weeks to get a new hearing in front of another judge. Throughout the course of that fortnight, I put together a witness statement, as did Colin Sandy. Included in this witness statement was every single thing that had happened to date concerning my involvement with Tottenham. I also disclosed to Herbert Smith the 'Cloughie wants a bung' incident and the McLintock arrangement. Herbert Smith wanted a copy of the McLintock invoice to add to the witness statement, but when Colin asked Tottenham's accounts department for a copy of it, they said they had lost it. We kicked up merry hell until someone, who must have had a conscience, anonymously dropped it into Colin's in-tray a day later.

Herbert Smith had employed the services of a brilliant barrister by the name of Philip Hislop. We met with him prior to the hearing and he told me that while I'd gone into great detail in my witness statement, most of it was irrelevant, as he would be arguing this matter purely on company law. All the issues about bungs and Venables' other wrongdoings were actually a
sideshow and he had no intention of presenting these to the judge. He was going to stick to the letter of the law as far as the Companies Act was concerned and he told me we had a 99 per cent chance of winning. As for the judge who had been hijacked a few Fridays ago, she was totally and absolutely wrong.

On arrival at the High Court in the Strand for the first day of the hearing, there were huge crowds standing outside, screaming my name, snarling abuse at me and calling me 'Judas'. As we walked up the staircase inside the court building, crowds of fans were standing above, spitting on me and Ann, who'd decided to be there to support me, as the whole world had ganged up on me. As we entered the courtroom, we needed security to clear a pathway, as the fans' abuse was increasing.

As soon as proceedings started, Venables' lawyers, Kanter Jules, a firm made up of Jewish partners, stood up and declared they hadn't had enough time to prepare for the case due to the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. They requested more time and, frustratingly, the judge granted it to them. Unbelievable! If they were so observant of Jewish law, they wouldn't have been in court on Friday night two weeks earlier.

It would take another three weeks to get a hearing. Kanter Jules's people were constantly making excuses and delaying matters, saying it wasn't convenient for one particular partner or another. Eventually, however, we pinned them down and got to court. Once again, the street outside was packed with fans. Venables had employed a public relations company, who had probably printed the banners saying, 'SUGAR OUT!' that appeared everywhere.

Crystal had delayed putting his witness statement in and, one day at White Hart Lane, I bumped into him and suggested that he was purposely holding up the court hearing. I also reminded him, half-jokingly, to make sure he didn't put a pack of lies in the statement, bearing in mind he was a barrister. I mentioned this to David Gold in a casual conversation, at which point Gold explained to me that what I had done was tantamount to tampering with a witness. I couldn't understand what he was talking about. He said that I wasn't allowed to intimidate or interfere with witnesses and now he felt that he needed to write to Crystal and tell him that his client, namely me, had meant no wrong.

I protested to Gold that this was nonsense - such a letter would pour more oil on the fire. I told him it was just a throwaway remark on the stairs at Tottenham, but he insisted on writing this letter. As I expected, this opened up a whole new can of worms. It was manna from heaven for Crystal. He knew I'd meant nothing by what I'd said, but because Herbert Smith had gone
to the trouble of writing to him, he sensed they were worried. Lawyers have no bloody common sense sometimes - they can't see their actions will
cause
trouble, they can't adapt and use a bit of shrewdness. They are trained robots who do things according to procedure! In hindsight, I was lucky I hadn't whacked Crystal in the boardroom a few weeks earlier, as he'd have done me for GBH.

Crystal employed the services of a solicitor in Manchester to issue contempt of court proceedings against me on the basis of my trying to intimidate and tamper with a witness, namely him. Margaret told me that this was a very serious matter which, if proven true, could mean imprisonment. She said I would need to be represented by a separate set of barristers at this contempt of court hearing, which would have to take place before the main case could continue. This was the first time Margaret really worked with Nick Hewer and she told me, in a way only Margaret could, 'Now look here, Alan, you keep that Nick fellow right out of this; he's done nothing but cause you trouble, what with the privatisation media circus, and now he could land you right in it.' Funny how things work out - they are the best of pals now.

All this aggravation was caused by Gold, who could not see further than his law books. I'd warned him that Crystal was slippery. We employed the services of a very senior barrister, Derry Irvine (who later became Lord Chancellor). He sent his junior counsel to Herbert Smith to draft a witness statement for me in defence of this contempt of court allegation. One of the things I needed to show the court was what a twisting liar Jonathan Crystal was. Nick Hewer told me about an occasion when, by pure accident, he had seen Crystal's antics in court. He and Margaret Mountford were attending a hearing brought by an individual shareholder, an old boy by the name of Mr Northcote, who was making some claim against Amstrad over the privatisation issue. Margaret had told me that the case was nonsense, but nevertheless we had to take it seriously.

As the hearing was about to start, proceedings were interrupted by Jonathan Crystal, who walked into court and asked the judge for a couple of minutes' recess. Crystal requested that the judge postpone a hearing that was to take place later in the day because he wouldn't be available to represent his client. He said that he had an
emergency
hearing in another court scheduled at the same time. The judge granted Crystal his wish, the Northcote case continued and, as predicted by Margaret, it got thrown out.

The plot thickened when Nick met me that afternoon for a meeting at Tottenham. When the meeting started, he saw that Crystal was also there. Nick thought this was strange, as he'd seen Crystal that very morning in court
and heard him tell the judge that he couldn't attend a scheduled hearing this afternoon because of some other emergency hearing - yet here he was at Tottenham for a board meeting!

I included this incident in my witness statement in my defence of the contempt of court matter. Alan Watts had to get special permission from the Northcote judge to disclose the cancelled Crystal hearing and to release the transcript of that day's court proceedings, which showed that Crystal had lied to him. Armed with this information and copies of the minutes of that day's Tottenham board meeting, we had conclusive proof that Crystal had lied to the judge and wasn't to be trusted. We worked through the night preparing this witness statement, as the court hearing was the next day.

Crystal and Venables were standing outside the courtroom smirking, thinking I was in deep trouble on this contempt of court issue. Their barristers insisted it should be the first thing to be heard. The smile was wiped off their faces within fifteen minutes, when Herbert Smith handed them copies of the witness statements and the brief being put forward by Derry Irvine.

Crystal went white. There was a lot of shuffling around with his lawyers and then they asked the judge, Vice-Chancellor Sir Donald Nicholls (the most senior judge in the Chancery Division), to delay the contempt of court hearing. The judge had also been served a copy of my witness statement - he knew very well what all the fuss and delay was about, and he kind of smiled knowingly.

Philip Hislop, acting for me, stood up immediately and stated that this case had been delayed several times already and that the contempt of court issue was a sideshow, created to cause further delay. The judge accepted this and the contempt of court issue was put to one side, clearing us to continue with the main case. Alan Watts turned to me, smiled and said, 'One-nil to you.'

I never forgave Crystal for the aggravation he caused me. He was a wicked man. I had the bit between my teeth and I was going to teach him that messing with me was the wrong thing to do. I instructed Herbert Smith to draft a complaint about Crystal to the Bar Council - I wanted him reported as the cheating liar he was. The process took about a year, after which the Bar Council suspended him for a month.