Last year he ended his long tenure as an Old Trafford director.Having fought off BSkyB, protested against the encroaching power of the 29 per cent shareholders, John Magnier and JP McManus, and bitterly battled Glazer, United fans have now summed up their campaign in a simple call: "Not for Sale". In May 2002 he made another £20m by selling most of the rest to Harry Dobson, the Scottish mining businessman. The FA then allowed club directors to be paid, and Martin Edwards became United's full-time chief executive. He was always paid handsomely, rising to £96,000 by the end of the 1980s.Edwards claimed later he only agreed to the 1991 flotation as a means of raising the £10m which Michael Knighton had promised in his crazy, abortive takeover attempt.
However, also listed among the reasons in the club's official prospectus was "increasing liquidity" to shareholders - City-speak for making them cash. The financial returns expected of Stock Market companies were against FA rules, so United, like Tottenham Hotspur before them, bypassed those rules by forming a holding company, Manchester United plc, and floating that. The FA was silent then, as it is silent now.United's band of long-campaigning fans resent the myth that they accepted the plc, have done well out of it, and are only lately protesting."Fans were very concerned about the profit motive behind the flotation," recalled Dr Adam Brown of Manchester Metropolitan University, a United fan who was appointed to the Government's Football Task Force in 1997. "Season ticket prices doubled over two years and a group formed to lobby against it."Edwards made £6m by selling shares on flotation. United, no longer restricted by the FA's stipulated maximum, declared an 18p dividend, which made Edwards another £608,000, and dividends have increased in most years since.Professor Smith became the chairman and while Alex Ferguson took United back to Championship-winning times, United plc developed their megastores and superstores and the branding and the prawn sandwich operation which made them the world's richest club while alienating many loyal fans.In 1995, the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association formed in the Gorse Hill pub in Stretford to campaign against the tide of commercialism and, according to its then chairman, Andy Walsh, ultimately to "roll back the plc".Edwards sold shares in chunks as the price rose during the 1990s commercial boom. United immediately began to pay substantial dividends out, up to £151,284 by 1981.
They were still restrained by the FA's stipulated limit on dividend payments per share, so their advisor, Professor Roland Smith, devised a fiendishly simple solution: they dramatically increased the number of shares in a famous rights issue opposed by Busby himself, allowing United shareholders to buy 208 shares for every one they owned.Louis' son, Martin, bought further shares, then borrowed £600,000 to pay for the 208-fold multiplication. He finally made it when he was appointed a director by a grief-stricken board the day after the Munich air crash in February 1958, in which eight of Busby's side died For four years he was happy with that. Then, in 1962, he began to gobble up Manchester United shares. In 1965, he became chairman.Even then, he was happy to run United like many other club chairmen - for the fun and the fame. He developed the long-term plan to cantilever Old Trafford and fans were never overcharged, paying peanuts to watch Busby's third great side, of Best, Law and Charlton, reach the holy grail of European Cup victory in 1968.It was a decade later, with their meat business in trouble, that the Edwards family began to make money out of Manchester United.
