But this better-educated breed of businessman seems to understand they must do so over the long term, by nurturing their clubs and working with supporters, by cherishing the game's traditions and heritage, as Hicks and Gillett promised and spectacularly failed to do at Liverpool.

I’ve been watching Liverpool for years, this kind of analysis makes the games so much more enjoyable. It means I can appreciate the quality of Liverpool’s game off the ball as much as the amazing attack on the ball. It gave me a lifelong aversion to swimming, and it probably explains why Viv has never wanted any responsibility over others in her working life. According to my sister, Viv, his 21st birthday lasted three days and three nights playing the drums, but this depicts a father I simply don’t recognise. Pimenta] said that in the past people [players] might say, ‘I’d like to go and join…’ - and they would quote a club, it may be a Premier League club.

He informed me that, due to a stroke of luck, one of the technicians had noticed something alarming on my lungs and that I was to admit myself to the hospital immediately. The tobacco industry is amazingly resilient although a lot of people think the business has disappeared. The formal process sets dates by which you want bids and if you want to bid come see us, get an information memorandum, get the facts, go into a data room and look at the facts, etcetera. As Chairman of the British Horseracing Board he came close to securing a new funding mechanism for the sport, while his brief tenure in the same role at Liverpool FC saw an intense court battle over the sale of the club. Thus, was planted the kernel of this narrative which started out as nothing more than providing a history for the family to learn more about the life I have been privileged to lead.

Few can have had as interesting or varied a career as Sir Martin Broughton – a very British businessman. They have got a team with a fantastic manager but a team that has competed at the top level for quite a few years now without spending quite at the level that some of the others have. Few can have had as interesting or varied a career as Martin Broughton - a very British businessman. Neither Steve nor I was strong on vegetables, although truth is, we mostly had vegetables out of a tin.So it wasn't that we have got an exit plan, it was more that testing the markets to see what is out there. We knew our grades would not be good enough for University and, in any case, we could not afford that. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters Martin Broughton, the Liverpool chairman, leaves the high court in London today.

This is an emerging change in the Premier League: the presence of business people of a higher calibre than those traditionally involved. It was near the end of the season and it was only a few games later when Roy Bentley led Chelsea to their first Division 1 Championship, under manager Ted Drake. Supper was taken immediately before bedtime and normally consisted of two slices of white bread and dripping. He was a hero and was injured by the runaway horse but died of tuber-­ culosis four years later when Dad was seven.Some days there were hints of improvement, a temporary reprieve, and my wife, Jocelyn, and I would head into London for a Chelsea match, or dinner or a night at the theatre. Broughton said he “very much” regrets missing out on Chelsea, but is encouraged by what he has seen from the new owners. That money has so far failed to produce success on the field, with Chelsea in the middle of the Premier League standings and fighting to stay in the Champions League after losing to Borussia Dortmund 1-0 in the first leg of the round of 16 on Wednesday. I am ashamed to confess that I still can never be sure which is which, but I shall miss two such pleasant lads’.

Purslow observed, as many serious business people do, that the deals which are concluded are usually ones nobody talked publicly about beforehand. We never had a TV until I had left school, so the big treat of the week was to visit my grandparents as they had one. Until Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea (in 2003), I think you had a decade where nine out of the 10 years it was Manchester United or Arsenal [who won it]. Over the previous six weeks the bacteria had built up quite a home ‘a vege­tation’ on my heart valve and it had wreaked havoc on my body. He repeated what he has said for a week, that the club's American owners committed "flagrant abuses of undertakings" when they tried to sack Christian Purslow, Liverpool's managing director, and Ian Ayre, the commercial director, and oppose the board's agreed sale to New England Sports Ventures.

Broughton joined British American Tobacco in 1971, becoming finance director in 1988, group chief executive and deputy chairman in 1993 and, ultimately, chairman and chief executive in 1998. It turned out that Grandad (Spencer) was really my father’s stepfather and that his actual father had died when Dad was young. They lived about a mile away and Viv, Steve and I would walk over there late afternoon on Sun­days, and then Mum and Dad would come over and collect us between 8–9pm and walk us home. We were part of the remainder so were put to the side as Frost wanted all those dressed alike in the centre for the cameras.