Watford's ground owner revealed after rumours of Nigel Wray's involvement

One morning my own anonymous source, who remained unknown to me and I named “Deep Throat”, contacted me at the Watford Observer and passed on a name.

Three weeks later I was still no further in discovering anything further but the Independent newspaper, acting on the tip when I passed it on to them, were surprised after weeks of digging, to find the ownership of Watford’s ground registered officially.

There was no attempt at covering up the identity of the new owners for there it was, registered in officialese. The company secretary was registered as Steinberg, Mark Neil. The directors were listed as “Collins, Steven Ross; Steinberg, Mark Neil”.

This put to rest the fear that Nigel Wray, owner of Saracens, was behind the deal and seeking to mould the ground to his own rugby-orientated plans, although one fan dug out a past deal, which had nothing to do with Watford, had been undertaken by Wray and the new ground-owners.

It was then that the director behind the new deal was revealed; Watford’s new vice-chairman David Meller.

“As long as we pay our rent, then there is no issue. We cannot be kicked out. It is impossible,” he said, adding the fact there is a clause in the agreement enabling Watford to buy back the ground.

"If we are doing well we buy it back and we don’t have to pay rent. The lease is watertight. One of our directors is very knowledgeable on property and has worked very hard on the deal. It has absolutely nothing to do with Nigel Wray,” he assured me.

In denying the rumours about Wray’s involvement, the Watford board had declined to reveal who had negotiated the deal.

“They were protecting us. It is nothing to be ashamed of. It is money the club needed and would not have been obtained any other way,” Meller explained.

It transpired the director responsible for the detailed negotiation was the longest-serving director, Charles Lissack, who had once been linked with the Wrighton take-over of Watford when Elton John was trying to sell the club in the late 1980s.

Lissack, who Graham Taylor rated as an extremely knowledgeable director when it came to football and players, had a somewhat low public profile.

He was a regular attendee at reserve and first-team games but had attracted little interest from fans apart from the fact he was often to be seen with a very attractive woman on his arm back in the early 1990s.

He knew Jack Petchey and had joined the board in 1990.

Lissack backed up Meller’s comments. “It is a watertight deal with a structured figure if we want to pay it back,” said the man who had been responsible for negotiating the Wealdstone ground-sharing and other of the club’s property deals.

Meller said: “I don’t have sleepless nights about the lease or the landlords whereas I did before because we did not have the money. Incidentally, the owner of the freehold is a company, not an individual.”

Faced with the massive hole in the accounts some six months earlier, it was Meller who suggested the sale and lease-back option.

Patrick Blondeau's contract settlement proved expensive

It was decided in the face of mounting speculation and anxiety, the club would reveal their side of the negotiations and the reason behind it.

“Now the facts are out, the conspiracy theories can be laid to rest. We aim to buy back the ground as early as possible,” said new chairman Graham Simpson.

It was understood the purchasers of the ground wished to remain anonymous because football is an emotional subject for many fans and it was thought the individuals did not want to be pestered on the subject to selling the ground back or visited at their homes.

What then happened to the £6million from the sale of the ground?

The net figure after paying the former owners Benskins a further £750,000 was £5.3m. After paying two years lease on the ground to cover the critical period of the contract problems with players, this resulted in the surplus being reduced to £4m.

The rental was £630,000 per annum. Watford also settled the contracts of Ray Wilkins, Pierre Issa, Patrick Blondeau and Ramon Vega at a total figure of £1.3m – a very expensive outlay and one that certainly did not register as value for money.

There was an ironic tailpiece to this for Blondeau was joined by Vega in France as they both signed for the relatively obscure Union Sportive Creteil-Lusitanos in the summer of 2002.

Vega was quoted as saying he would have preferred to have stayed in the UK but the importance of getting regular football outstripped the need for money.

Former Watford chairman, Sir Elton John, had come in for criticism for pulling out of Watford and resigning following the collapse of ITV Digital, an event which was beyond Watford’s control.

The timing of his departure was just before the axing of Luca Vialli, whose appointment he had once described in a misguided flush of over-reaction as Watford’s greatest-ever signing.

“Whatever his decision, nothing can take away from what he has done for this club. Without his input, we would not have achieved what we have done in all those glory years,” said chairman Simpson, who revealed he had written to the chairman asking him to help in the club’s hour of need.

“Even if he did not help us, he would always be welcome at Watford.”