THE wealth that flows from Manchester United’s unparalleled global reach is one reason Malcolm Glazer is so keen to buy the club. The power of that worldwide fanbase, mobilised against the American billionaire, is a reason he may fail.
According to Oliver Houston, the vice-chairman of Shareholders United, the group set up to guard the club’s independence, they have more than 22,000 members from all around the world, from Albania to Zambia and Zimbabwe. All are devoted to fighting the Glazer family’s takeover bid.
“This is not a threat from Shareholders United but if Malcolm Glazer ever turned up at Old Trafford, he would probably be lynched,” Houston said. “It wouldn’t be orchestrated by one particular group, it would be a spontaneous outpouring of contempt. The game would be abandoned, there would be pensioners waiting to lynch him.”
For some 27-year-old men, a two-week break in February means a skiing holiday in the Alps but for Houston it means 14 uninterrupted days at the helm of a PR operation, run from a single battered mobile phone, orchestrated to prevent the world’s richest football club falling into the hands of one of America’s richest men.
“We are a club under siege,” Houston said. “The board, the manager, the players and the fans know how much is at stake. Sovereignty has become more important than silverware. Although we always want to win trophies, we can always win something next season, but the battle for sovereignty is a one-off and, if we lose it, we’ll never get another chance to win any silverware again.
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“Not until every last avenue has been exhausted will we give up and even if Glazer takes over, we will keep fighting for ever and the battle will be passed down generations, just like support for the club.”
Houston’s father, a United-loving actor, took him to games at Old Trafford from an early age but the first game he remembers attending was a 2-1 victory over Arsenal in 1984. “I was brainwashed from birth,” he said. “My father said I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up, a murderer or an armed robber, but if I supported anyone else apart from Manchester United, I would be kicked out of the house.
“He was born and bred in Manchester but moved down to London shortly before I was born so I was the only United supporter in my school, because in those days all the glory hunters used to follow Liverpool.”
Houston’s other job is as a communications officer for the Trades Union Congress and he is as passionate about defending the rights of Colombian trade unionists as he is about defending those of Manchester United supporters. Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist — 90 per cent of all trade unionists killed in the world are murdered in Colombia by right-wing paramilitary death squads.
“Many people would think safeguarding the future of Manchester United is frivolous compared with trying to save lives in Colombia in the longest-running civil war in the world,” he said. “Being held up at roadblocks may seem exciting and people might think that what I do at Shareholders United is a step backwards from that but the thing that really gets my adrenalin going, the one thing that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, is when this campaign hits full tilt. I’ve been held up at gunpoint in downtown Bogotá, so Malcolm Glazer does not scare me.”