Exclusive:Bryan Gray interview: Baxi buying Preston North End, exit in 2001 and being asked to make a return
Gray was PNE chairman for more than seven years in the 1990s
Former Preston North End chairman Bryan Gray has reflected on his seven years at the club, in an exclusive interview with the Lancashire Post.
Gray was appointed to the role after Baxi bought the Lilywhites in the summer of 1994. During Gray’s time, Deepdale was transformed with three stands redeveloped. On the pitch, PNE won promotion from division three, division two and, in 2001, came one match away from reaching the Premier League.
Reflecting on his arrival in 1994, Gray said: “Prince Charles, as he then was, had a project called ‘Seeing is Believing’ - which encouraged business people to go and see what's happening in society and then think what they can do to help people's lives be made better.
“So, I went on a ‘Seeing is Believing’ visit, went back to my Bamber Bridge office and thought, ‘What can I do, now I'm being challenged to help?’ I met Ben Casey, who said: ‘What about Baxi sponsoring Preston North End?’ I was intrigued by that.
“I'd been here once as a Barnsley supporter but didn't know anything else about it. I came and had a look at the stadium and thought, ‘This is like a time warp.’ If you walked under the old stand, you could see the war stretchers hanging on the wall, the old-fashioned urinals.
“I went to see the owner, Malcolm Woodhouse - he'd done a great job of keeping the club alive and had always said he would never stand in the way if somebody came along and they could take it forward.
“So I said to him: ‘I've got this idea to create a community football club, build a new stadium and see if we can develop Preston North End for the benefit of the supporters’. Baxi, of course, had lots of Preston North End supporters as part of the workforce as well.
“So Malcolm agreed, and with the support of Trevor Hemmings and other local businessmen who owned shares, the deal was done very quickly and Baxi took over in September 1994. We didn't debate who should be chairman, it just seemed kind of obvious it was my project!
“That seemed very naive, but that's what happened and I had a clear plan, which was to create a stadium that was for the community and something special. Ben Casey had already got a vision and a design concept for the stadium, so we were well advanced already.
“And that was the beginning of the story... I had good colleagues: Laurence King was the finance director for BAXI and a key part of the project. Derek Shaw at the time, and Ben Casey in terms of his vision for the stadium.
“I inherited John Beck but I didn’t think he was part of the future. Very quickly, I appointed Gary Peters and Gary was a great manager. So, I had the right people around me who could go on this journey.”
Gray was stepping into the big world of football yet didn’t overthink the move, instead focusing on the task in hand and work to be done at Preston. There is often a buzz to being involved in the game but Gray stopped himself ever getting caught up in that.
“I felt proud and responsible because this was going to be a community football club,” said Gray. “I wanted the stadium to be used every day of the week, so the development of the football museum, the fitness centre, the community trust and latterly the NHS presence here, they were all part of developing the stadium as a community facility.
“So, I got the buzz from the fact that we were delivering the vision, but it's dangerous to get too involved as a fan. You've got to keep that slight detachment because you're working with a manager and you've got to support them delivering what they want, not take over their role.”
There will be more pieces to come from our chat with Gray - on David Moyes, David Beckham and where the club finds itself today. You will be able to listen to the full chat, too.
Gray’s time at Deepdale came to an end in October 2001, a few months on from David Moyes’ departure and the play-off final defeat to Bolton Wanderers. He still remembers that day vividly and the pride he felt at seeing a sea of white, BAXI shirts in Cardiff. Going into the final, though, he sensed his time at the helm was coming to a natural conclusion.
“Seeing that was a very proud moment, but it was also a moment that brought home to me the journey we'd been on, and it was almost written in the stars that it wasn't going to carry on in that way,” said Gray.
“Either the Premier League is just going to be too big for me; and if we are not in the Premier League, we've got to think about where we go from here and that's a big job as well. We still had one side of the stadium to finish, we'd have to regroup, pick ourselves up and that's emotionally draining for everybody.
“There was weight lifted straight away but there was a sense of regret that we hadn’t finished the job. Equally, you have to be realistic that others have to be able to take over. If things always depend on one man, whether it's the manager or the chairman, then you've got it wrong. You've got to have a team of people who can carry on whatever happens.”
Gray - as part of his talk to the Sporting Memories group at Deepdale beforehand - revealed he had been offered the chance to return to PNE by Trevor Hemmings. While his memories of North End are fond it just didn’t feel the right thing to do.
“I think it's never right to go back,” said Gray. “I think often, in life, it's a mistake to think you can go back to where you were, because you never return to where you were. You return to somewhere else and therefore you start from a different place. So generally speaking, don't go back, always go forward.”