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'I just want to play with my spreadsheets'

Shining a light into corners that some would like kept dark does not make Kieran Maguire, an Albion fan and lecturer at the University of Liverpool’s Sports Business Group universally popular.

By Nick Szczepanik • 09 April 2020

By Price of Football Podcast
Kieron Maguire, left, presents the Price of Football podcast with Kevin Day.

Hence the ‘Rain man’ and ‘self-publicist’ jibes – the latter something he rejects.

“I don’t look for publicity, and I was once described as a ‘self-styled football expert’ but I’ve never claimed to be that. I just want to go back and play with my spreadsheets.”

But he does own up to making repeated references to ‘small clubs like Crystal Palace’ during interviews. “It is pathetically childish or childishly pathetic but really it was just a standing joke between me and my mates that I spend half my time on the radio and TV when they know how anti-social I am.

“There is this paradox of ‘The Baron’ [a nickname they gave him after his careful financial stewardship of a cricket tour to Amsterdam], who goes on the media, and the real me who wouldn’t say boo to a goose but says that [about Palace] on quite a regular basis.”

This split personality as well as his love of spreadsheets and accounts is regularly ridiculed by Price of Football podcast host Kevin Day, who, as many will know, is a Palace fan.

“I had to have my arm twisted to go along with the idea of doing a podcast, as did Kevin,” Kieran says. “The producer, Guy Kilty, who does 5Live Money, thought there was a gap in the market and persuaded me and then decided that we needed a presenter as it would be a nightmare if it was just me talking.

“When I was first approached last August, I was still living in Manchester and Guy suggested Justin Moorhouse because he lived there too. But my wife and I had just decided to relocate back to Sussex because I missed the Albion and I wanted to be closer to my football club after 40 years trailing up and down the M6 to watch them.

“So if I was moving, we wanted someone who would be relatively close so that we could record the shows together. I’d always liked Kevin’s work on Match of the Day 2, so I contacted him on Twitter and he took it up.

By Evening Argus
Brian Clough in the Goldstone dugout.

“I never told him I was a Brighton fan, by the way. He only found that out after about four episodes. I think it adds to it, although it was pretty tough going into the studio after the derby. You’re up against a professional comedian having lost the biggest game of the season, so I just took it on the chin. It’s all you can do.

“But Kevin is a genius, the way he gently teases the stuff out and makes it sound like two blokes talking in a pub, which is the feeling that we were trying to get. That is testament to his professionalism and it has worked beyond our expectations. 

“And he is a very funny guy as well. Prior to meeting Kevin, the only time I had ever met a celebrity was when I was queuing up in a service station behind Animal from The Anti-Nowhere League. He was really pleased to be recognised.” 

Another revelation on the podcast was that Albion were not quite Kieran’s first love. “I was born in London and my mum and dad got their first house out in Essex,” he says. “I used to go and watch Chelmsford City from about the age of seven, on my own because my dad didn’t like football, literally with a milk crate to stand on.

“He worked for Amex and they relocated to Brighton. When I knew we’d be moving, I started following Brighton because they were a proper Football League club. Chelmsford were in the Southern League and their rivals ironically were Hereford United, and I had a hatred of Hereford because they got promoted to the League ahead of Chelmsford.

“We moved to Woodingdean in 1973 and I lived about five doors down from Andy Naylor. One of the neighbours asked if I wanted to go to the football and we’d catch the bus to the Goldstone until I went to university.”

1973, of course, was the year that Brian Clough sensationally arrived at the Goldstone to take over as manager, so Kieran became an Albion fan at one of the most exciting times of the club’s history. 

“Clough had such an impact on the crowd, which was amazing, although the football wasn’t very good. But we moved on to the Peter Taylor era and Peter Ward and everything that went along with that.

“One of the tragedies was that we didn’t have the blanket TV coverage of football that we do today because Ward was a wizard and the highlight packages would be unreal. He was having lumps kicked out of him in every match but he would just get up and get on with it and he was playing on rolled mud for half the season, but it didn’t stop him.

By Evening Argus
Mark Ormerod in action against Scarborough in 1996.

“And we’ve only got perhaps half-a-dozen matches on video from that era to hang onto out of all those incredible moments. But being a teenager in the North Stand in those days was a fantastic time to be an Albion fan. As practically all times have been.”

Well, almost all. “The Hereford match in 1997 was the longest 90 minutes of my life. It wasn’t just relegation that was on the line, for us it was our existence.

“Anyone who was there who says they enjoyed it is a liar and it was the same for the Hereford fans. Whenever we had the ball in their half they were biting their nails and the opposite was also true.

“Like many fans, I’ve watched the highlights many times and that final-minute punt over our defence when Adrian Foster just lifts the ball into Mark Ormerod’s hands … it was that close.

“It was terrible. But the fact that we are still taking about that 23 years later is testament to what football can do to people’s lives. If I listed the ten greatest moments of my life, probably half a dozen would involve the Albion.

“People say I am a very dull person so perhaps they wouldn’t be surprised at that. But that togetherness, camaraderie, that shared experience you get from football, is something we’re probably all appreciating a bit more today that we have done before.

“I still get goose bumps every time I get off the train at Falmer, see the stadium and think: ‘How on earth has this been created?’ We all have those memories of The Goldstone and I think I did one trip to Gillingham because my kids were four and two at the time so it was a non-starter from a domestic point of view. But the leap from Withdean to what we have at The Amex is beyond belief.

“I am Tony Bloom’s biggest fan. I am completely in awe of the guy and things such as the fact that we didn’t go for an off-the-shelf stadium that could have cost £20m less.

“I go to other grounds and think: ‘When I’m watching my team at home I’m in comfortable seats and legroom even though I’m 6’ 3”.’ I think we are very fortunate to have what we do.”

THE THIRD AND FINAL PART OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH KIERAN WILL BE ONLINE ON THURSDAY