As George Gillett digested the words he was reading, the blood drained slowly from his face.
Surely there was a misprint in this report about Steven Gerrard marrying his long-term partner Alex which completely changed its meaning.
He read it again but it came out the same, so he phoned his co-owner: “Tom, there's something you need to know. Our team captain is gay.”
A bemused Hicks asked for the evidence and when Gillett read it to him, in between guffaws, he explained that in England the term “partner” can refer to a member of the opposite sex.
Their captain wasn't tackling for the other side. Alex was a woman.
It was just another example of the The Madness of King George, typified by him pulling a fistful of dollars from his pocket and claiming there was no limit to how much manager Rafa Benitez could spend. He could sign “Snoogy Doogy” if he wanted.
“He just sat there chuckling away looking like one of the Muppets,” said Jamie Carragher. “It only needed Hicks next to him and we'd have had Waldorf and Statler.”
Gillett’s favourite phrase, when Benitez tried to pin him down on his transfer budget was: “I'll give you £50million plus whatever we get in the draft”, which was so nonsensical it almost had Benitez butting walls.
He answered one transfer budget request by telling Benitez he’d spotted a new running machine in America, and perhaps if he got one it would improve the players he already had.
As someone who saw the Benitez e-mails remarked: “They looked like they'd been sent from the funny farm.”
The irony was that Gillett confided in more than one journalist that Benitez had serious mental problems. He even coined a name for the condition. Rafa, he would say, is a “Serial Transactionist.”
Not long after Robbie Keane signed for £20million, Gillett breezed into the hotel restaurant on the morning of a game, shouting “Hey, where's Keano? I gotta see this Keano.”
Keane piped up: “I'm Keano.”
To which Gillett replied: "Jeez, you're not very big for all that money we spent on you, are you?"
He was on true eccentric form when Liverpool travelled to Fiorentina.
Ten minutes into the second half, he disappeared inside the stadium only to return laden with Cornettos, Magnums and choc ices, which he handed out to everyone in the directors' box. At 10pm. With winter around the corner.
A senior figure tells of the comical nature of one of the early board meetings.
Halfway through, Gillett stood up and announced he and his son Foster were leaving to watch the players train at Melwood.
There was an embarrassed silence as the pair left and a decision was taken for the entire board to climb into cars, zoom off in pursuit of the Gilletts and re-convene the meeting in the Melwood dining room - a scenario made even more surreal by Gillett constantly leaping up to wave at players.
Whenever he was at his Colorado ski resort and heard a footballer was visiting surgeon Richard Steadman’s nearby clinic he would ingratiate himself with them.
He once cornered Robbie Fowler, phoned a senior figure at Anfield, and said: “You'll never guess who I'm with out here in Colorado. Let me put him on.”
When Robbie said “hello,” the Anfield man asked: “Are you as embarrassed about this as I am?”
Robbie replied: “Far more embarrassed” and was told: "OK, just turn the phone off, hand it back to him and pretend you lost me.”
But a hard-nosed operator lurked behind the avuncular exterior.
One morning, Gillett burst into the office of commercial director Ian Ayre after suspecting he’d been conspiring against him with Tom Hicks and unleashed a tsunami of abuse: “You f***ing *******, you've been trying to sell my f***ing club from under me. This is not the f***ing way to do it. I'm going to make sure this is the last f***ing day you work here.”
He swore and threatened for three minutes, veins popping out of his skull, sweat dripping from his brow, slaughtering a man who'd been in his job less than a year but who was already turning around the club's finances.
When he stopped, Ayre explained himself, and told him: “If you've got nothing else to say to me, then I've got nothing else to say to you.”
To which Gillett replied: “Anyway, what's going on in our club?”
***
As the din from the fans protesting outside the boardroom grew louder, Tom Hicks sidled up to a senior club figure and asked what the hell was going on.
“You can't have it both ways,” he was told. “When I asked you why you bought Liverpool you said one of the reasons was the fans who are so engaging and loyal. You can't expect them to be those things then sit back and take it up the a**e when you're giving it to them with both barrels. That's why they're out there.”
Hicks muttered “gimme a break” and sauntered away with the noise ringing in his ears.
The billionaire Texan didn’t take to people threatening his power.
At the initial 2007 press conference, although he had only been involved in the deal for weeks, he demanded the running order be changed so he spoke ahead of Gillett, who had been working on it for six months.
There was never any doubt about who was the alpha male in the partnership.
Gillett would bad-mouth Hicks and vow to stand up to him but, time after time, he would cave in.
A classic example came in the spring of 2009, with Rafa Benitez's proposed new five-year contract. He swore to a senior Liverpool figure he would never sign it. Three days later, it came back signed.
When they rowed, Hicks swatted Gillett away like a mosquito.
A typical scenario would be Hicks dismissing him with a put-down and Gillett playing the injured victim asking: “What have I ever done to you?” To which the Texan would reply: “What have you ever done?”
An Anfield insider who saw one row unfold said: “Hicks looked at him like he was a sad little man. He made reference to the meat-packing deal which brought them together and said: 'When you were a minor shareholder you acted like you were in control. Now you have parity you are insufferable.’”
Anyone who challenged Hicks was bullied into a corner.
Only days after buying the club, he decided to ditch plans for a new stadium and get his architects in Dallas to design something bigger.
“We ain't building that stadium,” he said to project manager Martin Jennings, “it’s not big enough. I'm going to get new designs done.”
When Jennings told him the architects had allowed for an option to expand the planned stadium to a 70,000 capacity, Hicks snapped back: “Are you f***ing listening to me? Are you with us or against us?”
To which Gillett rode in on cue: “Martin, we ain't building that f***ing stadium.”
They didn't build that stadium. Or their own one.
***
Whatever happened, Hicks always seemed to come out on top.
Seven minutes before kick-off of a 2007 Champions League against Barcelona, Gillett demanded someone get him a scarf, intending to show the world how much he loved the club.
A senior club figure told him: “This is Liverpool. You don't wear big scarves, especially if you're a director.”
A peeved Gillett then took his seat in the directors' box, only to find, standing next to him with the biggest, reddest, shiniest Liverpool scarf resting on his shoulders, Tom Hicks - and a cameramen clicking away at the pair of them.
Hicks with scarf, Gillett without. He wasn't happy.
George Bush’s Texan buddy, on the other hand, never sought anyone's advice and cared little about tradition or taste.
How else do you explain him walking into the Anfield boardroom before one game and hitching up his suit trousers to reveal a new pair of cowboy boots bearing the Liver Bird crest?
Worse still, he told everyone he had summoned to admire his leather masterpieces, that if they wanted a pair he could get them a good price.
TOMORROW: Killer e-mail revealed in Hicks' attempt to sack Benitez and why Rick Parry sold the family silver.
Source
Surely there was a misprint in this report about Steven Gerrard marrying his long-term partner Alex which completely changed its meaning.
He read it again but it came out the same, so he phoned his co-owner: “Tom, there's something you need to know. Our team captain is gay.”
A bemused Hicks asked for the evidence and when Gillett read it to him, in between guffaws, he explained that in England the term “partner” can refer to a member of the opposite sex.
Their captain wasn't tackling for the other side. Alex was a woman.
It was just another example of the The Madness of King George, typified by him pulling a fistful of dollars from his pocket and claiming there was no limit to how much manager Rafa Benitez could spend. He could sign “Snoogy Doogy” if he wanted.
“He just sat there chuckling away looking like one of the Muppets,” said Jamie Carragher. “It only needed Hicks next to him and we'd have had Waldorf and Statler.”
Gillett’s favourite phrase, when Benitez tried to pin him down on his transfer budget was: “I'll give you £50million plus whatever we get in the draft”, which was so nonsensical it almost had Benitez butting walls.
He answered one transfer budget request by telling Benitez he’d spotted a new running machine in America, and perhaps if he got one it would improve the players he already had.
As someone who saw the Benitez e-mails remarked: “They looked like they'd been sent from the funny farm.”
The irony was that Gillett confided in more than one journalist that Benitez had serious mental problems. He even coined a name for the condition. Rafa, he would say, is a “Serial Transactionist.”
Not long after Robbie Keane signed for £20million, Gillett breezed into the hotel restaurant on the morning of a game, shouting “Hey, where's Keano? I gotta see this Keano.”
Keane piped up: “I'm Keano.”
To which Gillett replied: "Jeez, you're not very big for all that money we spent on you, are you?"
He was on true eccentric form when Liverpool travelled to Fiorentina.
Ten minutes into the second half, he disappeared inside the stadium only to return laden with Cornettos, Magnums and choc ices, which he handed out to everyone in the directors' box. At 10pm. With winter around the corner.
A senior figure tells of the comical nature of one of the early board meetings.
Halfway through, Gillett stood up and announced he and his son Foster were leaving to watch the players train at Melwood.
There was an embarrassed silence as the pair left and a decision was taken for the entire board to climb into cars, zoom off in pursuit of the Gilletts and re-convene the meeting in the Melwood dining room - a scenario made even more surreal by Gillett constantly leaping up to wave at players.
Whenever he was at his Colorado ski resort and heard a footballer was visiting surgeon Richard Steadman’s nearby clinic he would ingratiate himself with them.
He once cornered Robbie Fowler, phoned a senior figure at Anfield, and said: “You'll never guess who I'm with out here in Colorado. Let me put him on.”
When Robbie said “hello,” the Anfield man asked: “Are you as embarrassed about this as I am?”
Robbie replied: “Far more embarrassed” and was told: "OK, just turn the phone off, hand it back to him and pretend you lost me.”
But a hard-nosed operator lurked behind the avuncular exterior.
One morning, Gillett burst into the office of commercial director Ian Ayre after suspecting he’d been conspiring against him with Tom Hicks and unleashed a tsunami of abuse: “You f***ing *******, you've been trying to sell my f***ing club from under me. This is not the f***ing way to do it. I'm going to make sure this is the last f***ing day you work here.”
He swore and threatened for three minutes, veins popping out of his skull, sweat dripping from his brow, slaughtering a man who'd been in his job less than a year but who was already turning around the club's finances.
When he stopped, Ayre explained himself, and told him: “If you've got nothing else to say to me, then I've got nothing else to say to you.”
To which Gillett replied: “Anyway, what's going on in our club?”
***
As the din from the fans protesting outside the boardroom grew louder, Tom Hicks sidled up to a senior club figure and asked what the hell was going on.
“You can't have it both ways,” he was told. “When I asked you why you bought Liverpool you said one of the reasons was the fans who are so engaging and loyal. You can't expect them to be those things then sit back and take it up the a**e when you're giving it to them with both barrels. That's why they're out there.”
Hicks muttered “gimme a break” and sauntered away with the noise ringing in his ears.
The billionaire Texan didn’t take to people threatening his power.
At the initial 2007 press conference, although he had only been involved in the deal for weeks, he demanded the running order be changed so he spoke ahead of Gillett, who had been working on it for six months.
There was never any doubt about who was the alpha male in the partnership.
Gillett would bad-mouth Hicks and vow to stand up to him but, time after time, he would cave in.
A classic example came in the spring of 2009, with Rafa Benitez's proposed new five-year contract. He swore to a senior Liverpool figure he would never sign it. Three days later, it came back signed.
When they rowed, Hicks swatted Gillett away like a mosquito.
A typical scenario would be Hicks dismissing him with a put-down and Gillett playing the injured victim asking: “What have I ever done to you?” To which the Texan would reply: “What have you ever done?”
An Anfield insider who saw one row unfold said: “Hicks looked at him like he was a sad little man. He made reference to the meat-packing deal which brought them together and said: 'When you were a minor shareholder you acted like you were in control. Now you have parity you are insufferable.’”
Anyone who challenged Hicks was bullied into a corner.
Only days after buying the club, he decided to ditch plans for a new stadium and get his architects in Dallas to design something bigger.
“We ain't building that stadium,” he said to project manager Martin Jennings, “it’s not big enough. I'm going to get new designs done.”
When Jennings told him the architects had allowed for an option to expand the planned stadium to a 70,000 capacity, Hicks snapped back: “Are you f***ing listening to me? Are you with us or against us?”
To which Gillett rode in on cue: “Martin, we ain't building that f***ing stadium.”
They didn't build that stadium. Or their own one.
***
Whatever happened, Hicks always seemed to come out on top.
Seven minutes before kick-off of a 2007 Champions League against Barcelona, Gillett demanded someone get him a scarf, intending to show the world how much he loved the club.
A senior club figure told him: “This is Liverpool. You don't wear big scarves, especially if you're a director.”
A peeved Gillett then took his seat in the directors' box, only to find, standing next to him with the biggest, reddest, shiniest Liverpool scarf resting on his shoulders, Tom Hicks - and a cameramen clicking away at the pair of them.
Hicks with scarf, Gillett without. He wasn't happy.
George Bush’s Texan buddy, on the other hand, never sought anyone's advice and cared little about tradition or taste.
How else do you explain him walking into the Anfield boardroom before one game and hitching up his suit trousers to reveal a new pair of cowboy boots bearing the Liver Bird crest?
Worse still, he told everyone he had summoned to admire his leather masterpieces, that if they wanted a pair he could get them a good price.
TOMORROW: Killer e-mail revealed in Hicks' attempt to sack Benitez and why Rick Parry sold the family silver.
Source
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