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Posh ambitions
 By
David Thorpe
Peterborough is a town which offers a perfect glimpse of modern Britain.
Nestling between motorway exits, new estates eat up the green belt around
the town, housing commuters exiled from London property prices.
The bars sell beers seen in only the most local of pubs and in many ways
Peterborough United football club reflects the rest of the town.
Never higher in modern times than the old Division Two, fans have grown
used to seeing talented young players arrive, raise expectations and be
sold on.
Supporters don’t resent this, it is the Peterborough way. Their
hopes have never climbed higher than just making sure they survived into
next season.
But 31-year-old Dublin-born self-made millionaire Darragh MacAnthony hopes
to change all that. Having an estimated fortune of close to £100million
by the time he was 30, Darragh decided he needed a new way to relax.
With youth, money and international contacts on his side MacAnthony had
plenty of options — making it all the more surprising that his chosen
method of having fun was buying a loss-making football club in Cambridgeshire
whose closest brush with celebrity came when Posh Spice allegedly threatened
to sue the club because they use the club nickname The Posh.
The Rathfarnham native moved to Spain with his parents as a teenager and
set up his business, MRI Properties international aged just 22. He now
employs more than 1,000 people all over Europe, buying, developing and
selling property in holiday hotspots from Bulgaria and Budapest to Marbella.
Having devoted his 20s to building-up the business Darragh’s perspective
on life changed when his mother died aged just 51 and he had a son of
his own.
He said: “Those things made me realise what is important in life
and I decided that my dream of owning a football club could wait no longer.”
MacAnthony acknowledges it was a strange move for him to buy Peterborough
United.
Darragh said: “This is a bit of fun for me. I have always wanted
to own a football club, I would be a massive fan of both Celtic and Liverpool
but couldn’t buy them. I was tipped off about Peterborough being
for sale, came here and fell in love with the place.
“There is actually quite a decent Irish community in the area and
I would like to tap into that. Our intention is to buy a few Irish players
and to make links with clubs in Ireland. I have seen what Irish ownership
has done for Sunderland and I want to do the same for Peterborough.
“This club has enormous potential, there is not another league team
for miles around, and the area is expanding all the time, the population
is expected to rise by another 200,000 over the next decade, so the population
is there to justify a successful football team.”
In less than a year as chairman of Peterborough, MacAnthony has spent
more than £5.5million including £1million on new players,
massive by League Two standards.
The result of this largesse is that Peterborough are now unmatchable favourites
to win the League Two title this season, something which Darragh believes
is only the start.
Darragh said: “My plan is to have us in the Premiership within five
years and to have a new all-seater stadium within 10 years.”
He says that whatever success Peterborough enjoy in the coming years he
will never make money from the club.
“There is no money in football at this level. When you get the to
the Championship money starts coming in and obviously by the time you
get the Premiership profit is always possible but it will cost so much
to get us there that I won’t make a penny from the club.
“We are losing money on a daily basis now but I knew that when I
came here. It will take a lot more money to get Peterborough into the
Premiership but whatever it costs we will spend.” |
