My cousin (once removed) Peter Donoghue almost took over City but the deal fell through at the last second

[RayCTID]

A bold statment

 

[JGL07]

Now I know there have been a few spoofs on the theme that has appeared on BM over the past week, but this one is legit and @Gary James will (hopefully) back me up!
Peter Donaghue was my mum's first cousin (her mother and Peter's father were brother and sister).
Peter was a local Moss Side businessman who owned a string of laundrettes in and around south Manchester as well as few other properties.
He organised a consortium to challenge the then City board in the mid 1960's (Albert Alexander) which included a rally at the Free Trade Hall.
As a result, Alexander went along with a few recommendations put forward by the consortium, took Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison on as the managerial team - and the rest is history!

But I do like to think that the club could have been owned by a laundrette magnet rather than a TV salesman..... and if the club was still owned today by the Donaghue family, (Peter passed away in the 80's) that The Smiths would be booming out before the kick off to each game and I'd have a free Tunnel Club season ticket.....

I have met a Clem Donaghue, who was profoundly deaf, and once gave him a lift back to his home. I always assumed he was the brother of Peter Donaghue? I may have got the wrong end of the stick?

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

I have met a Clem Donaghue, who was profoundly deaf, and once gave him a lift back to his home. I always assumed he was the brother of Peter Donaghue? I may have got the wrong end of the stick?

Hmmm interesting. I don't know too much of my mum's side of the family.
There was only one cousin of my mum's left when I spoke with him about Peter in 2017.
My mum sadly passed away in 2019 (which is when I last spoke with that cousin)

 

[petrusha]

For a number of years, I've interacted from time to time on Twitter with Norman Giller, who used to be chief football correspondent for the Daily Express in the sixties and seventies, when it was a proper newspaper and used to have the highest circulation in the UK. He's also a Spurs fan and now, in retirement, writes large numbers of books, one of which was a biography of Danny Blanchflower.

I bought a copy, influenced by the fact that Danny Blanchflower was my mum's favourite footballer. She's something of an intellectual, and liked him as he had a reputation for being the most articulate figure in the game when he was captaining Spurs to the first Double by any English team in the 20th century.

Anyway, the biography included the story that, in late 1964, Blanchflower was approached by a chap called Peter Donaghue, who said he was heading a consortium that was trying to take over the moribund Manchester City. Donaghue told the Irishman that the latter was his consortium's choice as City manager if they managed to complete their takeover.

According to Giller when I asked him about this anecdote from the book, Blanchflower was never altogether convinced that the consortium would actually succeed in the objective of gaining control at Maine Road. However, he would have been interested in managing the club he'd supported as a boy. Growing up in Belfast, he'd apparently idolised Peter Doherty, so felt a strong affinity for the club where the legendary Doherty had enjoyed his greatest days.

Blanchflower became a superb football journalist, but when he later gave management a try, he wasn't a success. And as City's next managerial appointment was Joe Mercer, assisted by Malcolm Allison, it's impossible to have any regrets over the way things turned out. Still, I thought this was an interesting little snippet concerning a dalliance with a great figure of English football.

 

[Gary James]

But I do like to think that the club could have been owned by a laundrette magnet rather than a TV salesman.....

I think I’d have preferred a fridge magnet to Swales!

Now I know there have been a few spoofs on the theme that has appeared on BM over the past week, but this one is legit and @Gary James will (hopefully) back me up!
Peter Donaghue was my mum's first cousin (her mother and Peter's father were brother and sister).
Peter was a local Moss Side businessman who owned a string of laundrettes in and around south Manchester as well as few other properties.
He organised a consortium to challenge the then City board in the mid 1960's (Albert Alexander) which included a rally at the Free Trade Hall.
As a result, Alexander went along with a few recommendations put forward by the consortium, took Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison on as the managerial team - and the rest is history!

But I do like to think that the club could have been owned by a laundrette magnet rather than a TV salesman..... and if the club was still owned today by the Donaghue family, (Peter passed away in the 80's) that The Smiths would be booming out before the kick off to each game and I'd have a free Tunnel Club season ticket.....

I will back up the story of Peter Donaghue (spelt Donoghue in the MEN and so that’s how it appears in my books). He set up a group that wanted changes in the boardroom and his determination to change things increased when it was revealed that City’s vice-chairman had gone to Old Trafford to ask for a merger!

I‘ve covered all of this in a few books (probably Farewell To Maine Rd is the best for the story). Ultimately pressure from Donaghue and his backers killed off the merger talks BUT (and this is where there’s a sliding doors moment which in this case may still have led us to where we got with Swales) two of Donaghue’s group were Michael Horwich and Chris Muir. They were two of the key figures who in 1970 (after we’d won the ECWC & League Cup that year) launched a takeover claiming City was not as successful a club as it ought to be. The takeover was bitter at times and ultimately broke up Mercer & Allison; ended the Alexander family direction; brought Swales in and (apart from 76) killed off our successes! Horwich & Muir (plus Ian Niven) were very much Allison fans and one of those three even had a superior tone and the audacity to tell the 21 year old me when my first book came out about City that Joe Mercer had ’done nothing for Manchester City. It was all down to Allison, so why do you even have a photo of him in your book?’

That man also pushed Swales to bring back Allison in 79.

Maybe if Donaghue had succeeded though those others would have been supporting figures rather than leaders. I’d love to know why Donaghue didn’t form part of the 1970 takeover. He seemed to have a good grasp of things.

 

[Gary James]

According to Giller when I asked him about this anecdote from the book, Blanchflower was never altogether convinced that the consortium would actually succeed in the objective of gaining control at Maine Road. However, he would have been interested in managing the club he'd supported as a boy. Growing up in Belfast, he'd apparently idolised Peter Doherty, so felt a strong affinity for the club where the legendary Doherty had enjoyed his greatest days.

Blanchflower was definitely a Blue. There are a few articles where he talks of being obsessed by Doherty and learning that he played for City so he fell in love with City. He talked about how wonderful our shade of Blue was in one article too.

Before Joe Mercer there were a few big names in the mix to become manager. I think Blanchflower was mentioned again but Peter Doherty was definitely considered. As was someone called Bill Shankly, not certain if he ever found success anywhere else though!

 

[East Level 2]

.......
But I do like to think that the club could have been owned by a laundrette magnet rather than a TV salesman..... and if the club was still owned today by the Donaghue family, (Peter passed away in the 80's) that The Smiths would be booming out before the kick off to each game and I'd have a free Tunnel Club season ticket.....

You can have your Tunnel Club season ticket, but the Smiths before kick-off (or any other time) would be worse than a season in the third division.

 

[J.G.Blue.]

A bold statment

Persilanaly I am Fairy sure you are trying to Dazel us with your wit, I think some of us wish you would just Vanish!

 

[The Lightbowne Cowboy]

He(Peter Donaghue) could of had a sign on his office door. "My beautiful football club".

 

[petrusha]

Blanchflower was definitely a Blue. There are a few articles where he talks of being obsessed by Doherty and learning that he played for City so he fell in love with City. He talked about how wonderful our shade of Blue was in one article too.

Before Joe Mercer there were a few big names in the mix to become manager. I think Blanchflower was mentioned again but Peter Doherty was definitely considered. As was someone called Bill Shankly, not certain if he ever found success anywhere else though!

I remember reading Alec Johnson's book 'The Battle for Manchester City', published in the 1990s. It was expected to be an inside account of the Francis Lee takeover, but it turned out to be a history of the club over the previous thirty years. Disappointingly, it contained very little that wasn't common knowledge.

One of the few things that was new information, at least to me back then, was that Shankly had applied for our job in 1965 and Johnson claimed that Don Revie did, too. I suppose there was a difference between throwing their hats in the ring if dissatisfied with their respective boards at the time and actually opting to leave a club at the top of the first division for one that had just finished halfway down the second tier and had an average home league gate of 14,000. (That said, the fact they were interested at all shows what potential MCFC were still regarded as having.)

Anyway, it all worked out rather well for us in the end, even though Joe Mercer must have been a high-risk option given the way he'd suffered a stress-related illness at Villa. City was arguably a more nerve-racking job at the time! The comment mentioned in your other post by that director about Mercer doing nothing for our club is disgraceful. I can guess who it probably is, but if you prefer not to say, fair play. I won't post my conjecture on here.

There's no doubt that Mercer had it right in a video I've previously seen but that I've not managed to find just now on YouTube. As I remember, the comment was to the effect that he (Mercer) certainly needed Allison, but Mal needed Joe every bit as much. And Allison proved as much when at City without Mercer, both in 1972/73 and at the end of the decade. Pretty pathetic, but revealing, that a club director couldn't see that.