PETER DE SAVARY IS IN A hurry. The man who made his millions from oil refineries, shipping and property has three months to keep Millwall in the Coca-Cola Championship and things are not going according to plan. When the 61-year-old entrepreneur arrived at the New Den amid a fanfare of publicity to take up his post as chairman, the South-East London club were bottom of the table and heading for League One. Two months and two league wins later and the situation remains critical.
“This business of football is dead simple,” De Savary said. “You have got to win matches to satisfy the fans and fill the stadium. Our stadium is half-empty for every match, but if we could win matches there would be a waiting list to get in. People don’t want to give up their Saturdays for losers. People like winners.”
That has been De Savary’s mantra since he was expelled from boarding school at 16 after being found in bed with his headmaster’s au pair. Fourteen years later, the boy who was kicked out of Charterhouse with one O-level was a millionaire with the world at his feet. Mention his name to people of a certain age and they remember the flamboyant tycoon who funded and led Great Britain’s doomed America’s Cup sailing challenge in 1983. Mention sailing to De Savary and the man who admitted that he knew nothing about football two months ago wants to talk about Millwall. “I like watching football,” he said, “but I do not like it at all when we play badly. When we play well, I love it.”
Millwall have scored seven goals in 16 league games at the New Den this season — two since De Savary arrived — and are 23rd in the table after Saturday’s 1-0 defeat away to Queens Park Rangers. “The club was at a low ebb when I arrived,” he said. “The club was in need of money, better football, different and additional management in certain areas. It needs a major overhaul in every area. I have a plan to regenerate the club, but it is bloody frustrating that it can’t be done in a week.”
The first part of his plan was to make David Tuttle the youngest manager in the Championship. The 34-year-old former Crystal Palace and Millwall defender has built up a good rapport with his players and the club’s long-suffering supporters, but De Savary wants unlucky defeats and boring draws turned into victories and he is willing to put his money where his mouth is. “We have a young manager who is Millwall through and through,” De Savary said. “We have put our faith in him and we will strengthen our squad. We are doing our best to avoid relegation, but if it happens we will face it. Millwall has a history of coming out of corners and dark places. We will restructure ourselves and our ambition will be to get into the Premiership.”
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To get that far, Millwall will need to shed their reputation as the club that everybody loves to hate, an image that De Savary insists is outdated. “Millwall is a fun, safe, exciting place to be,” he said. “You can bring your wife and your children. It is like going to the theatre, it is showbusiness, but our product is football and at the moment running Millwall is as risky as putting on a West End musical.”
This one could run and run.