Peter Kenyon’s Big Lie …
A very famous scientific experiment took place some 45 years ago, designed to test people’s obedience to authority.
Participants were invited by Stanley Milgram’s team of ‘scientists’ to administer increasingly large electric shocks to an unseen patient in a neighbouring room. Despite the cries of pain and anguish and the ever-louder pleas for the misery to stop, two thirds of Milgram’s sample group, wishing to comply with what they thought the scientists wanted, sent 450 volts of electricity coursing into the body of the hidden patient.
This was deadly, of course, which rather proved Milgram’s suspicion that most of us, under the right circumstances, will submit to authority figures in order to win favour and approval.
The 1961 Milgram experiment is the ultimate logic of the theory of the ‘Big Lie’ beloved of tyrants and manipulators everywhere. Repeat a falsehood loudly and with confidence often enough and ‘support’ it with ‘research,’ until it is so well ingrained that it loses its power of controversy and becomes ‘true.’
Peter Kenyon is football’s latest purveyor of the ‘Big Lie,’ treading heavily in the footsteps of the clever folk who had us believe that Risdale’s Leeds would be a major force in Europe and that the Forest of Clough were too good to go down.
Kenyon left United to earn a shilling more with Abramovich and must now curry favour with his master. Cleverly, he has understood that ‘Blofeld’ Abramovich wants nothing less than world domination and so Kenyon must shout from the roof tops that this is indeed possible.
This was very much in evidence during the interviews he conducted in advance of Sunday’s clash of the titans. Kenyon revealed Chelsea’s ambition to be the biggest club in the world within eight years and apparently no-one laughed out loud.
“By 2014, we want to be internationally recognised as the No 1 club,” he said. “Our revenue has grown dramatically and is now on a par with United. It’s a very ballsy vision but one that has captured the interest of the owner.”
Self deception is the price Kenyon must pay for having sold his soul and ‘captured the interest of the owner’ with a design so grand, it has surely addled the minnion’s brain.
Ambramovich has invested an enormous sum but still a mere fraction of his total wealth, in an effort to turn English and European football into a coronation. He has no need for anyone who doesn’t share his ambition. To convince himself that his boss is not stark bonkers, Kenyon has flip charts and revenue graphs which tell him that Chelsea’s income has increased from £90.5 million to £149.1 million in the past three years. The domestic fan-base has apparently quadrupled to almost four million. The process is complete when he climbs into the company Daimler and sees man and boy turned out in Chelsea’s blue.
But in the dark corner of his mind where the truth still lurks, Kenyon knows this is all nonsense and Chelsea, for all their recent success cannot be considered a real football power of substance until their achievements span decades.
Kenyon almost admitted as much when he confirmed: “Manchester United was built around heritage, whether that was the Busby Babes, 1958 and Munich, winning the European Cup in 1968 or the Fergie years. Their record of eight Premiership titles, two doubles and the treble in 1999 has set the benchmark for every English club.”
Perhaps, Kenyon was winking to the assembled journalists as they wrote down his words. Perhaps, it is true that the ravings of a lunatic do not matter. And if truth be told, they don’t. But Kenyon is not so dumb as to be unaware that his former position gaurantees him an audience when he compares United unfavourably to the ‘new’ Chelsea. People will listen. With the rash of recent takeovers by assorted foreign business groups and puppet front-men, there is a feeling that football is changing and that maybe, just maybe, new powers will emerge. Kenyon, Ambramovich and Chelsea’s ‘fans’ are betting that United will go the way of Burnley, Preston North End and other northern football empires with their glories now in sepia.
Yet, even with a wallet the size an eastern European country, Ambramovich and Kenyon would do well to heed Sir Alex’s advice and hold off a little longer on placing their wager.
“I know Peter. His comments don’t bother me,” Sir Alex confirmed. “I am hardly going to start quaking and trembling about them. In any case, How can you tell whether you have 50 million supporters or 500 million?
“How other teams look at these things is their business. My only experience is that anywhere we go there always seems to be a mass of people crowding round the players all wearing shirts. There are all sorts of mythical tales about our club. All I know is that we have a great history and have all these supporters because we entertain. We will not change from that.
“There is nothing wrong with people having ambition. That is the ambition they have got but there are other great clubs in the world. Ourselves, Arsenal and Liverpool have history, so have Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and the Italian giants, so Chelsea have a big mountain to climb to get above that lot because there are a lot of clubs there.”
United’s Chief Executive David Gill, also lashed Chelsea’s presumption. He said: “We’ve got a fantastic stadium selling out every week, which is brilliant, 75,000-plus. We’ll do what we can do and let actions speak louder than words.
“Peter’s entitled to his view. But we know what we’re doing. We’re trying to continually grow — on the pitch in particular. Off the field will follow. We know the history and heritage of this club. We’ll plough our own furrow.”
Chelsea can count on the demographics and wealth of London. They have back to back championships. They have top players and a great manager. But with all that, they are still not and cannot be Manchester United. As Kenyon should know, tradition, heritage, values, a worldwide fan-base spanning generations, handed-down memories, epoch-defining legends, unprecedented success, international fame and instinctive, glorious, entertaining football, are not so easily bought as chief executives. AU
© Copyright: Absolutely United 2006
