MB: Initially, I was working as Finance Director for a US venture capital backed startup operation in Mayfair when my wife and I (she born in Swansea) decided that London was not a place to go on living with kids. She got a job in a hospital in Carmarthen and I applied to a couple of recruitment agencies in the area. To cut a long story short, I was eventually imposed on Peter Day and Mike Lewis (in typical Silver Shield style they were not involved in the interview process!). Ego and rank being what they are, they were even more put out to find that I was coming in as another Director - so things started off excellently!

GM: So what sort of contract were you appointed on?

MB: I came initially for three months until Christmas 1998.

GM: From a finance director's point of view, what state were the club's finances and procedures in?

MB: There were no monthly accounts or forward projections of any sort, and nor did there seem to be any development of procedures, standards or ideas. Everything happened out of chaos, or so it seemed to me so it was pretty obvious why someone had to be imposed from outside.

GM: So how did the roles of the main players of the time fit together?

MB: The management structure did not work at all. Apart from Peter Day, both Steve Hamer and Neil McClure also thought they were running the Club. Ultimately, neither Hamer nor McClure were talking to Day, and then they (Hamer and McClure) fell out with each other.

GM: That sounds like a recipe for chaos?

MB: Yes, there was also the bizarre situation of Hollins reporting to Hamer, who could authorise him to do things without reference to the funding available or to Day, and the whole position was untenable. Something (or rather someone) had to give, and Day it was who went.

GM: The 3 months must have been up at this stage, so what was your position now?

MB: Yes, I think it must have been the summer of 99 by now. I was working completely without any sort of contract or employment letter, and McClure refused point blank to give me one under the flimsy pretext that 'it's not clear what you'll be doing when we get to the Morfa!' - a statement which could have applied to many of the staff, and which glossed over the years in between then and the Morfa becoming reality. Essentially, you are in a black or white relationship with McClure: either he loves you to death or you could die at your desk and he wouldn't notice.

GM Would you describe your professional relationship with McClure as good one?

MB: I guess I didn't agree with him very often and so I guess he didn't like me very much. This is probably one reason why he appointed Lewis to the role of Managing Director after Day. To be fair to McClure he had a problem choosing either myself or Lewis: neither of us being particularly suitable at that time (and me not particularly wanting it back then).

GM: Looks like we were just muddling along then waiting for something to happen?

MB: Not exactly - it wasn't the intention but with so many egos in the pie, agreement of principles and sticking to them lasted as long as a winning run. It was a strangely run business: to give an example of this, in all the other finance director jobs I've had Board Meetings have been run with the financial position being discussed first, as this frames the context for all the rest of the Meeting. In SCFC in the early days it was discussed plumb last, after Cyril, the Evening Post, and every other single issue. In other words, no-one wanted to know the scale of the losses. I even went through a stage of writing the Agenda with the financial report first, distributing it with the Board Papers to the attendees and faxing it to Ninth Floor, but it came back with the running order changed and being put back to last again. I won the battle eventually, but logic was in short supply back then!

Then McClure was then sold this cracking idea by someone in the City: how about floating the Club (and won't you have another bottle of pop?).

GM: You sound skeptical about the flotation idea?

MB: How anyone could have believed that there were investors who would passively invest cash in a hugely loss-making business with no turnaround prospects was beyond me at the time and I still can't fathom it. A case of believing what you want to believe, I guess.

GM: So why do you think McClure went for it?

MB: McClure was under pressure to get out of the Club because of the cash drain and he needed a plan to sell to his own Board. To me, he seemed to have a pretty fixed idea in his head that a Third Division Club should lose £750,000 per year and built the costs up to this level, until his Board called a halt.

GM: As Finance Director I assume you were heavily involved in the float?

MB: Yes, I then spent months working on legal documents and financial plans, on due diligence procedures and very little on developing the Club. Gary, I don't know if you read the financial press at all, but the number of companies that get involved in buying or selling businesses and during the process (which is always months long and very intensive) take their eyes off the ball in their own business is legion.

I'm not saying that the Club didn't function, but it certainly didn't move ahead as it could have done during this period. Unglamourous areas such as the development of Football in the Community, which I firmly believe is a long-term way of building supporters, did not get the input they require.

GM: So you believe it was this stagnation that ultimately had an adverse effect on the outcome?

MB: No - I just don't believe that the end-investors were ever there in the first place. Needless to say, by the time the flotation was ready to go, Ninth Floor received the thumbs down from their stockbrokers and the transaction was off - the best part of £100,000 in fees later.

The only by-products were that McClure had had impressed on him by his advisors the need to demonstrate management stability: so he had handed out ridiculous contracts to Hollins, Lewis and myself in the Summer of 2000.

Also, there had to be a further streamlining of management reporting before I would sign up, ridiculous contract or not: I felt that it was untenable for the business to float with the football and non- football sides reporting to different individuals (Hamer and Lewis) and I was not going to be responsible for the financial performance in this case.

This, and other matters between Hamer and McClure which I was not privy to, led to the much publicised bust-up and Hamer left, though his heart still remains very much pro the Club and he was very helpful to the consortium.

GM: So you are confirming what a few of us were saying at the time?

MB: I'm not sure exactly what you were saying at that time, Gary! In my own case he needed someone with City experience to be FD of a company listed on the Stock Exchange and there can only be a few (and I mean a few - I have never met another in Swansea) west of Cardiff. So I was (ultimately) in the right place at the right time.

Clearly if someone offers you more money than sense you don't turn it down, but I would add that my own contract included a fully expensed BMW 523i which I never felt was in any way appropriate to take give the financial situation.

GM: So are you saying you declined it?

MB: The entitlement was in my contract, but I never asked the Club to get one for me. So, yes, I declined to take it.

GM: So how did things develop from then on in?

MB: We were then in a situation of trying to sell the business. Lewis and I were to chat to anyone who approached us and then refer them up to Ninth Floor (as it had then become). Strangely, everyone seemed to lose interest at this point.