The Roland Harris Column

Thursday 06 June, 2002

What Uncle Ronnie would say about Mr Mumtaz's bid to buy the Bantams

"Send me a saviour, any saviour!"

That was the call from Bradford City before Dr Gul-nawaz Akbar of Mumtaz threw his hat into the ring. Not the call is: "Send me another saviour, any other saviour!"

The word Mumtaz seems to conjure up things in the minds of the people of Bradford. People tend to talk badly of these people. Not me, I love the curries.

But it is not the curries that people protest about. The business dealings people say.

Yes its the business dealings. They people are not repeatable. They are not good to do business with.

Considering the number of times that that same string of rubbish has been thrown at Geoffrey Richmond I might say that if that is true then Dr Akbar would fill GR's shoes nicely. For the record I think that both Geoffrey Richmond and Dr Akbar suffer form the same problem. Success. Success that makes rivals jealous and start to spread rumours and tell tall stories. The only bad business man in the one that beats you.

Drugs they say. They always say drugs whenever they want to blacken any businesses name. No but this is true they say, there is proof they say. There is record they say. I say over this summer someone will pay £15m for a guy with convictions for drug use (as well as the others Mr Bowyer has picked up).

As my Uncle Ronnie says to me "The problem with drugs in society is that they are out of society." He says this over a spliff and in that way he makes a fair point.

One thing Uncle Ronnie can always do is cut to the bottom line in any situation. If he was bothered about anything other that old 45s and getting high Uncle Ronnie would say this: The reason that some City fans don't want Dr Akbar is cause he is an Asian.

To those people I say this: Get a life.

This is England. If your going to shout your heart out for Sven's men tomorrow. Sven's men who include Sol Campbell, Rio Ferdinand, Darius Vassell, Emile Ivanhoe Heskey et al, then you are shouting for the multi cultural Britain we live in.

If you have a problem with Asian's owing businesses or Asian's owning City the please take your problem elsewhere. This is the modern world. This web site is not called Sean McCarthy's Bootlaces, its called Boy From Brazil because this is the modern world (Not really the reason although I would like to think it was- BfB Editor).

I'm going to be the first to say to Dr Akbar. Welcome to Bradford City. Get around the table. Let's talk; lets see what we can do together.

Football clubs are closely knit together with local businesses. Too often in the past City have not represented the businesses of Bradford. If Dr Akbar is successful in his bid for City then great, if not I hope he gets involved with whoever is successful.

Good to have you here Dr Akbar.

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