The former England rugby star on being terrified of birds, drinking for two days after winning the World Cup and being bullied by Austin Healey

Hello, is that Will? Hi, yes, I’m just out in the garden, Small Talk. I’ve been making snowmen and I’ve got freezing cold hands. I’m going in before I get covered in snow by my five-year-old.

Sounds like you’re having fun … It’s been a long time since I’ve been snowed in. Maybe I haven’t paid my subs or something but the gritters haven’t been out round here.

What did Greenwood Jr get for Christmas then? We finally relented and got him a Nintendo DS.

His first computer? Well he plays on my computer all the time. He loves Ben 10, Tom and Jerry and he’s into YouTube too. It’s quite frightening considering I first played a ZX Spectrum probably in about 1984 as a 12-year-old. All I remember was playing Daley Thompson’s Decathlon and the tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, jump. But, I was no good at the javelin. I couldn’t quite get 45 degrees.

It was a tricky one all right. Are there rules on how much TV and computer he can watch? [Hesitating] Yeah, but it comes more from the wife. The missus is very much against him watching things like Star Wars and Harry Potter for a few more years. He likes Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Up and other Disney Pixar films.

What’s your favourite children’s film then? The Jungle Book. It’s one of the great ones. When you first get an England cap you have to sing a song on the bus. I’m absolutely tone deaf and rubbish at lyrics and the only thing I could think of was I’m The King of the Swingers.

So how did that go down on the England team bus? I imagine some of the songs are a bit cruder? Well, on the whole, you don’t have a chance for improvisation. You stand up, you sing; you get booed immediately, whether you’re good enough to win X Factor or you sound like someone from Emmerdale. You’re stuffed really. That’s not the purpose really, the purpose is to stand up and basically just humiliate yourself as quickly as possible and get back down again and hope you get another cap and you can boo someone else.

What was the musical taste like in the England team in your day? In the World Cup side there would be fights over what to listen to. Dorian West and the old gang wanted the Clash and the Jam, stuff that was more Johnno’s era. And then the youngsters were all into, I think he was called 50 Cent then. He still might be called 50 Cent, or Puff Daddy, or he might have changed his name again. So, it tended to be that we had to bargain and to go alternate songs. If you landed on this planet from a distance you’d think: “Crikey, what a slightly odd mix.”

In an old Small Talk with Austin Healey he said he used to hide your lucky socks on tour … He did a lot of things! It was basically bullying [laughs]. Basically bullying but, basically small-man syndrome at 5ft 8in and going bald.

You wouldn’t let a little man like that bully you? Well, the problem with Aus is that you have to be able to, literally, go the whole way or just not bother, because he really doesn’t know when to stop. It was just a constant battle.

Healey also said that he used to bathe his lucky shorts in holy water. We’re still trying to work out whether that was just him trying to wind us up. He just talks shit. Has always talked shit, will always talk shit.

Your nickname is Shaggy. Is that a Scooby Doo reference? Yeah, that was started when I went to university in Durham. I was Stick-Man when I first started school, well, I was Twig-Man then it became Stick-Man when I became a little bit bigger. To Jason Leonard and Austin I’m just plain old Big Nose. Shaggy refers to my inability to grow a beard, my curtains haircut in the mid-to-late 80s and early 90s, my physique and my cowardliness. I was a perfect match.

Surely you’re not that cowardly? You, an England rugby player … No, complete and utter coward. No matter how much you try and persuade people they go: ‘Yeah yeah, whatever, you’re just lying.’ So, you go: ‘OK, don’t say I didn’t warn you. If we ever find ourselves in a dangerous situation and I run away; don’t say I didn’t try and tell you!’

Are there things that you’re scared of? Oh, terrified of things. I couldn’t ever go into the jungle because of the thought of eating or sleeping when you’re near spiders or creepy crawlies.

So, when your son finds a spider in his room, you go running to your wife? Well, I’m terrified of birds. I once had to ring Mark Cueto because there was a blue tit in my house. I was hiding in the garden, then when he finally got it out I dived on the floor and started going: ‘My eyes! My eyes!’ I’m convinced to this day it was a raven, he swears it was a blue tit. The worst thing was, when he chased it upstairs into the bedroom the bird shat on my pillow. He knew. I’ve been stuck in a hotel room at Lucknam Park, one of the most gorgeous hotels in the world – we love going – and a bird got into the room. That was just panic, I handed my wife off and hid and slept in the bath for two hours.

That’s quite an odd phobia … However, if I was outside now – which I am – and a bird landed on my knee; no problem. Birds in a room, it’s just not happening for me. In a confined space where they’ve got nowhere to go and I think their default action would be to peck my eyes out.

It’s possible … Unlikely, I know. But fears, on the whole, tend to be irrational.

Have you ever drunk a yard of ale through a sock? I’ve done a variety of things back at Durham before becoming a professional rugby player. But someone who now works for Heineken and drinks responsibly should never, ever repeat such a story. The old university stuff really, you know …

So, you couldn’t tell us how many cans you drank after winning the World Cup? That’s a very good question. Some people are useful at drinking just because of their sheer size, but I’ve never been that great. Again, it goes back to my Stick Man legs, I’ve nowhere to put it. However, when you win a World Cup it’s fascinating, because when you go out and you think: ‘Well, I’ll have to go to bed about 2am or 3am at this rate,’ and literally two days later you’re still going. And, you know what, I didn’t even feel like I had been drinking. It was just such a euphoric high with your great mates, having achieved something you’d always wanted to do. If you were to put in a room what was drunk, no one would believe you. I suppose it’s like that adrenaline rush of strength that you get, that ability to go out and have a good time and not even notice the hours drifting past. The Cargo Bar in Darling Harbour is just one of those special places that I’ll probably never go back to again, but if I walked past it as a 75 year-old I would be able to close my eyes and see Lawrence Dallaglio on the DJ deck, Tindall on the dance floor. You know, guys tucked away sharing a quiet pint, lads who like a dance floor, lads who didn’t like a dance floor. It’s one of those ‘go-to’ moments in your head.

Were there any guys who did like a dance floor but just couldn’t dance? On that occasion, they gave it a go. Which is very rare. Only when winning the World Cup could some of those lads be on the dance floor.

Who’s the worst dancer in the World Cup winning team? It’s clearly not [Matt] Dawson, is it?

When you won the World Cup, did you worry that the only way was down? I read one quote that I thought was quite apt – “Why bother running for the bus when you’ve already caught it?” – but I genuinely don’t think our intensity dropped. You’ve got to remember that after that World Cup guys were back on a rugby field seven days later. Fourteen days later we were playing in a Heineken Cup game which is as close to international rugby as you can get. A full season, a Six Nations and then a tour to Australia and New Zealand. In hindsight, it is the most ridiculous schedule to put players through. And, hence, no wonder brilliant players of the calibre of [Jonny] Wilkinson, Tindall, [Phil] Vickery and Richard Hill had so many injuries in the following few years. I don’t think you realise until you come back from a World Cup the physical intensity. It goes back to that adrenaline surge I was talking about. You get through a World Cup because the last thing you want to do is miss it. Because you knew that team was special. You knew it was going to achieve something. So your mind – that unbelievable tool – blanks a lot of pain. I think a lot of bodies, genuinely, just went into shut down after that World Cup because we’d worked so hard for it.

What do you to find that next adrenaline surge after you’ve already won a World Cup? There’s no doubt that one still searches for that buzz and that’s why the guys love doing the Strictly Come Dancing stuff and the ice skating, and that’s why they’re then so competitive and they do so well. But I’ve often been terrified of TV. As a kid, my old man would make me stand up and do things and it was like ‘Oh my god, please don’t make me do it.’ But, the adrenaline rush of going live is where I find my butterflies. I’ve also got involved with other rugby projects, I’ve just finished filming a programme called The School of Hard Knocks, which is out in February. We took underprivileged, unemployed offenders from east London and in the space of 10 weeks we turned them into a rugby team. So, I was doing three or four days a week with these guys; tracking them down – some of them were homeless – and making sure they turned up for training. Boys who you would have walked across the street to avoid, perhaps on day one, by the end of it they were lads that I was absolutely delighted to call my pal. It’s very difficult to recreate the high you experienced on a sporting field but it doesn’t stop you trying. That’s why [James] Cracknell swims to Gibraltar. That’s why Josh Lewsey is climbing Everest next year. It’s why Lawrence Dallaglio is cycling from Rome to Paris to Cardiff to Dublin to Edinburgh, to raise money for Sport Relief. You will never be able to turn off those competitive juices. It is a tap that will drip forever.

OK on to the more important stuff. Cheese or Chocolate? Oh my god, chocolate. If you opened my ice cream cabinet there would be a tub and a half of chocolate magnum ice creams, there will be Dairy Milk, there will be Cadbury’s, there will be Mars Bars tucked away. While my life was devoted to eating the right things nutritionally when playing for England, sneaking chunky Kit Kats into the hotel was still a piece of great pride.

What is your favourite book? I’m just nearing the end of the second book in the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson. Meanwhile my wife has had a total leave of absence with the house-keeping duties as she’s discovered Twilight. She’s read all four books and apparently Stephanie Meyer has started writing the book as though it was from the eyes of Edward so she’s now reading that online. My go-to book throughout my life has been the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser. I’ve read them three or four times. I see the coward and the cat in Flashman that he runs away with all these medals and he’s basically a coward and I, sort of, see a great deal of symmetry.

Last one then, can you tell us a joke? Oh, crikey. Two parrots on a perch, one says: ‘Can you smell fish?’

Small Talk feel like it’s missed the punchline. Parrots on a perch? … Oh, we’ve just worked it out. That’s poor on our part. No, it’s very, very, very poor on my part. But, it’s the best I can do.

We appreciate the effort. You’re lucky to be able to talk to me today because I’ve had gammon flu the past two or three days. It started off as swine flu but I went to the doctors and he cured me [Laughs].

Two for the price of one, that’s great. We’ll let you go now, Will. Will do, you take it easy. Nice to chat. Have a great weekend.

Will Greenwood is a Heineken ambassador. Heineken are proud to be celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Heineken Cup, the best club rugby competition in the world. www.heinekenrugby.co.uk

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Carlos Tevez certainly seems to think so after an astonishing attack on the Manchester United right-back. Neville is not the most popular among the ABU tendency, but does the Old Trafford stalwart deserve such abuse?

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• Dinara Safina beats Elena Baltacha 6-1, 6-2
• No2 seed dispatches Scot in less than an hour

Elena Baltacha’s impressive Australian Open came to a swift end in the third round today as she was dismissed 6-1, 6-2 by No 2 seed Dinara Safina. The experienced Russian was simply too powerful for Baltacha to handle and cruised to victory inside an hour.

It was always asking a lot for Baltacha to stand up to Safina, especially from the baseline, but the Russian has been notoriously wobbly at times over the past year and if the Scot had been able to stay with her early on, then perhaps things might have been different. She got on the board in the first set by breaking Safina in the third game, but she had a rare bad day on serve and double-faulted three times when facing break point.

If Safina had been at all nervous, the Baltacha double-faults removed any doubts and though a more relaxed Baltacha battled hard in the second set, the result was never in doubt. Two more breaks of serve gave Safina a 5-2 lead and she served out confidently for victory.

Despite the defeat, Baltacha will have taken a lot of confidence after equalling her best grand-slam performance in reaching the third round, an effort which will maintain her ranking in the eighties.

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• Announcement to New York Stock Exchange expected today
• Offer gives family flexibility from lenders’ conditions

The Glazer family is expected to announce to the New York Stock Exchange today that their £500m bond issue has been fully subscribed.

A 322-page prospectus released for the issue showed Manchester United’s total debt stands at £716.6m but, according to reports in the Times, more than 50 investors, primarily insurers and low-risk pension fund providers, have taken up the offer at a fixed annual interest rate of nine per cent, with the interest to be paid quarterly.

The bond offer, secured on United’s stadium and other assets, gives the Glazer family flexibility from the strict lending conditions imposed by banks.

The Glazers have made provision to channel up to £127m back into the parent company in the first year alone to start paying down the club’s enormous debt.

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• Honour in recognition of his 2009 world championship victory
• “We decided it would be a good idea to name it after him”

The late George Best has his airport; Muhammad Ali a boulevard in his home town, Louisville; Sir Matt Busby Way and Brian Clough Way pay tribute to two great football managers; and the tradition of commemorating cricketers by naming gates after them has given the ironmongery trade a welcome boost.

This select bunch has now been joined by the 2009 Formula One world champion, Jenson Button, who will have a footbridge in his home town of Frome, Somerset, to honour his deeds in perpetuity, or at least as long as people want to cross from one side of the river to the other.

Planning permission has been granted but if anything can take the glitter off the accolade for the man the local newspaper insists on calling the Frome Flyer, it is the news that winning the world title did not inspire his former neighbours to construct a pedestrian-friendly version of the Arc de Triomphe. Instead, an existing project will get an attention-grabbing moniker.

“The bridge is going to be built anyway,” said the town’s mayor, Damon Hooton. “So we decided it would be a good idea to name it after him. He will have a presentation scroll to commemorate it and we will put a plaque on the bridge with a suitable commemoration on it. We’re hoping the bridge will be built between now and the summer.”

At least Button is in illustrious ­company. In 2001, the town of ­Pierrefort in central France named a street after the current president of the ­Fédération ­Internationale de l’Automobile, Jean Todt. In 2007 Stevenage borough council announced that Button’s new McLaren team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, would get his own Hertfordshire thoroughfare – a year before he won the drivers’ championship.

Formula One offers untold riches and an enviably glamorous lifestyle but these can be transient. A crossing of the river Frome, however, is a lasting monument. Button joins Billie, the 1923 FA Cup final’s white horse, who has a crossing named after him at the new Wembley stadium, in sport’s footbridge hall of fame. And it took the horse 84 years to be honoured.

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Today’s questions are boot-licking morons …

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• Manchester United stars’ wages continue to rise
• Champions’ 2009 salary costs stood at £123m

As Manchester United’s title defence loses ground this season, there is evidence that their players’ financial fortunes continue to improve.

The biggest burden on any football club is naturally the wage bill. And despite United’s debt ravaging their financial situation – Cristiano Ronaldo’s £80.7m departure last summer being the sticking plaster that keptUnited in the black – total salary costs at Old Trafford have been steadily rising.

In 2008, salary costs of £121m were shared between 68 players and 476 ancillary staff. The number of other staff rose before June 2009 but the loss of six players from the total meant the £123m total salary costs implied an average wage rise of more than 10% per player.

This season it looks like rising still further, with the total salary bill from the three months to September last year up by almost another 10% from the same period the previous season.

Although United do not make clear how they apportion their costs over the course of a 12-month period, that could well be a cause for concern for the Glazers. “Over the past three years salaries for players and coaching staff have increased significantly,” the club admitted in the bond prospectus they released this week.

They certainly have. In 2007, staff costs were £92.3m, before rising 31% in 2008. It was assumed that this was due to bonuses paid for the double Premier League and Champions League triumph that season. But player salaries, although not performances, have been rising in value ever since.

Warren says no to Chester

Stephen Vaughan, the former owner of Chester City, is not a man to look a gift horse in the mouth. He has, he says been “speaking to possible investors in the football club and one potential investor in talks has been boxing promoter Frank Warren”. Perhaps Vaughan’s description of a “potential investor in talks” is different to what yours and mine would be. But one thing is for certain: his description of an investor is different to Frank Warren’s. “I am not buying Chester City,” Britain’s most successful boxing promoter told Digger. “Someone rang me yesterday but I’m not interested.”

Sullivan’s half measure

If two unconnected investors hold equal equity in a heavily indebted football club and cannot agree on how to run the business, it is unlikely that club will prosper. Such is the lesson that can be learned from Liverpool under Tom Hicks and George Gillett’s stewardship. But that is precisely the situation that David Sullivan and David Gold have taken on at West Ham United, where they and Straumur now each own 50% of the club.

It is hardly surprising, then, that the gone-within-four-years exit strategy drawn up by Straumur will be chivvied along. Sullivan’s option to buy the other half of the club at a pre-agreed price actually expires in May and it is now expected that he will take out the collapsed Icelandic bank even before the season ends.

Empty days for Cup

The Football Association is looking at a new strategy to pep up the FA Cup after poor attendances at third-round replays this week. Only 6,731 loyal souls went to the Cardiff City Stadium (capacity 26,828) for what is normally a lively cross-border fixture against Bristol City on Tuesday night. In an economic crisis there are fears that the guidelines for a minimum £15 ticket price for FA Cup matches are being taken a bit too literally – they are only guidelines after all – by clubs.

Pension policies intact

Football League players’ retirement incomes are underpinned by a 5% levy placed on all transfer fees paid by Premier League clubs. But lower-league footballers who fear for their pensions in the midst of a weak January market so far should not fret yet. In recent windows 80% of the levy paid by top-flight clubs has been returned to them, since the Football League Players Benefit Scheme has been overpaid.

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The fitness test and timidity are thwarting the survival of the well-cushioned professional

When the corpulent Edwardian newspaper baron Lord Northcliffe encountered the skinny Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw in the West End one evening, he remarked: “Good God Shaw, you look like there is a famine in the land.” The Irishman studied the considerable bulge of the Daily Mail proprietor’s stomach and replied: “And your Lordship looks like the cause of it.”

For some reason this exchange popped into my head when I read that Mido is on the verge of signing for Hull City. The last time I saw the Egypt striker he was playing for Middlesbrough and packing more padding than a Stanley Cup goaltender.

“He holds the ball up well,” was the verdict of the bloke behind me. He was right, though it has to be said that Mido’s ability in that area was greatly aided by the crater that rapidly developed around him whenever he stood still.

For Tigers fans of a certain vintage the sight of Mido’s billowing waistline will bring back happy memories of the legendary Billy Whitehurst, a belligerent centre-forward with a stomach a friend of mine once claimed “could host the Super Bowl”. When Big Billy played against Leeds disgruntled fans at Elland Road taunted him with chants of “Have you ever seen your dick?”

Whitehurst, I should say, denied being overweight. “I weren’t fat … the kit was too small,” he once explained after relating how Reading fans had sung “Ninety pies an hour” at him during his brief spell with the Royals. Since a typical Whitehurst anecdote begins: “I’d had an argument with this bloke who’d come at me with a big spanner. I’d got it off him and done him over the head and then his kneecap and fucked off,” I reckon it is probably wisest not to argue the point.

Should Mido return to the Premier League he will undoubtedly be subject to a stringent medical. At one time passing the medical examination before a transfer was nothing more than a formality. Of the stars of yesteryear only the lank-haired 70s maverick Frank Worthington truly botched one, missing out on a move from Leicester City to Liverpool because of high blood pressure.

In Worthington’s estimable autobiography, One Hump or Two?, the elegant striker puts his condition down to over-excitement created by a week of sensual excess in southern Spain. A look at the book’s photo section suggests another possible cause – form-hugging knitwear and high-waisted pants. When you’ve got an orange-and-brown striped tank top cutting off the circulation to your arms, doing the Hustle in a Marbella night spot is likely to send all that displaced haemoglobin shooting out of your ears.

Things are different these days, of course. The dawning of a new more stringent medical examination was signalled a decade ago when John Hartson (who has some claim to being the Welsh Billy Whitehurst) flunked a high-profile fitness test, scotching a £7m move to Spurs. His agent, Jonathan Barnett, was not impressed claiming: “Even Mother Theresa would have failed that fitness test.”

Yes, the days when the prospective new signing was simply shown a picture of the Hai Karate sex-bomb Valerie Leon in a negligee and if he responded with a hoarse “Phwoar!” he was considered to have all the attributes necessary for the red-blooded hurly‑burly of the Football League had gone. We had now entered an era when the honest British pro was expected to display more stamina and athleticism than a dead Albanian nun.

In the days of Worthington and co character was the thing, the ability to withstand pain, hardship and the interminable Norman Wisdom impressions of the dressing-room joker.

Which was fair enough in many ways. After all, when centre-backs trundled about the pitch like runaway traction engines and referees displayed as much compassion towards the victims of violence as Caligula, fitness was a transient thing. There was little point in wasting a doctor’s fee to find out if a player was in prime condition when two weeks later he was likely to be lying in a hospital bed contemplating a career running a tobacconist’s with an ankle joint that offered a more accurate prediction of coming damp spells than the BBC Weather Centre.

Players were cheaper, too. Purchasing a pre-owned centre-forward was a bit like buying a used car. You approach the motor with a look on your face that you hope conveys a mixture of steely toughness and extensive mechanical knowledge. You lift the bonnet, scratch your head, kick the tyres and, if no bits fall off, you cross your fingers and hand over the cash. Now signing a player is more like investing in a house. You have to have a thorough independent survey before the bank will advance the money.

Insurance is the key. Terms and premiums are based on risk. If Fifa hadn’t outlawed the tackle from behind, brittle forwards such as Mido would likely have become as hard to secure cover for as a firework factory on the slopes of Mount Etna.

Once a large policy on a player is secured, however, it offers all sorts of temptations. In the current financial climate clubs are getting increasingly desperate. Surely it won’t be long before somebody buys an international striker, takes out a hefty policy on him, then pays two likely lads to steal him, strip him of parts and drive him over a cliff so they can claim the insurance? If I were Mido I’d keep that in mind.

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Clubs from France’s Top 14 are dominating the Heineken Cup with the help of lavish spending, but there are less expensive lessons Premiership sides can learn from their game

What a change. With one more round of the Heineken Cup pool games to go it’s easy to see four French clubs going through to the quarter-finals whereas last year there was only one – Toulouse, and they squeaked through as one of the two best losers.

As in 2007 when Wasps beat Leicester in an all-English final, no French team made the 2009 semi-finals, so why the French success this year and are there lessons we should be learning or tricks we should be copying?

After five pool games, Biarritz and Toulouse are already through while Stade Français sit top of their group with a four-point advantage over Ulster, and Clermont Auvergne hold the nap hand in Pool Three. They may currently be in third spot, level with the Ospreys and a point behind Leicester, but tomorrow Clermont are in Italy and anything other than a five-point win against Viadana is hard to imagine.

For an English side to go through, Leicester would need a bonus-point win at the Ospreys tomorrow, or Northampton a bonus point against Munster tonight or London Irish scoring four tries against Leinster. I’m sure at least one will, but Europe has certainly tilted on its axis and from here in Paris, where Wasps played Racing Metro last night, it is easy to understand at least part of the reason: cash.

The French seem to have piles of the stuff while a lot of the English clubs are on comparatively short rations. Look at the French league – the four Heineken favourites sit happily in the top eight among other big spenders such as Toulon, home of Jonny Wilkinson, and others, and Racing, whose rise into the top division of French rugby has gone hand in hand with the arrival of a benefactor who paved his entry into the sport by selling off the largest chain of estate agents in the country.

I would not want to speculate on the size of budget that Racing’s coach, Pierre Berbizier, has to spend, but guys such as Sébastien Chabal and François Steyn don’t come cheap. Add a few more such as Lionel Nallet, Santiago Dellapè and Andrew Mehrtens and you are talking serious money – the kind of sums that could make a Guinness Premiership coach pretty envious.

After all the Top 14 doesn’t have a salary cap at the moment and when one is put into place next year the level will be set at £7.1m. That’s opposed to a £4m cap in the Premiership and, while we have to pay the national insurance stamps out of our money, the French are still wondering whether their budgets include “image rights”. If they don’t, then you could push the ceiling much, much higher to a level that should turn guys like me a deep shade of green. Does it? Well, on reflection, no.

There is no doubting that money talks in rugby, as it does in all sports. However, hearing the financial news from other parts of the forest – such as Portsmouth, West Ham and even Manchester United – is something of a reality check and makes me think that rugby may just have got it right. There are Guinness clubs who could – and would if allowed – spend a lot more than £4m, probably creating better sides as a consequence, but looking across the whole of our league the figures just about add up. It would be nice to have a string of sugar daddies digging deep, as they once did, but today’s reality is more to do with self-sufficiency and attempting to balance the books.

In the short term it may mean that stars, English and well as from the southern hemisphere, continue to choose France, but for our sport to stay financially healthy we have to learn that if we want to spend it, we must first earn it. And here we must thank the French, and one Frenchman in particular, for helping to show us the way.

Long before Harlequins and Saracens were booking Twickenham and Wembley for one-off matches and fantastic days out, Max Guazzini, showman, media magnate and owner of Stade Français, was filling his national stadium for league and European games. He priced the seats low and added acts from the circus and Moulin Rouge, so that the Stade de France was always full, or close to it. So a small salute to Max. If French rugby is basking in sunlight at the moment, then at least part of that success is down to him making it improbably chic and fashionable.

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• Premier League club issue proceedings in the high court
• They seek ‘to protect the commercial best interests of the club’

Hull City are taking legal action against their former chairman Paul Duffen, with the case due in the high court today. Duffen left the KC Stadium in late October when he was replaced by Adam Pearson.

Hull yesterday issued the following statement: “Hull City Football Club has now issued legal proceedings against Paul Duffen in the high court. This action has been taken to protect the commercial best interests of the football club against the actions undertaken by Paul Duffen while in office at Hull City.”

Duffen left suddenly in the wake of stark warnings that the club was facing a potential financial crisis and Russell Bartlett, Hull’s owner, immediately hired Pearson as chairman.

Duffen last night said the club started legal proceedings in response to his own claim. “This [the club’s action] is in response to legal action initiated by me in early December with regard to monies that are owed to me under the agreed terms of my resignation in October,” Duffen was quoted as saying in the Daily Express. “The matter is now in the hands of the courts and I’m happy for that to run its course.

“I took over at Hull when they were 21st in the Championship and I helped lead them to the Premier League. I’m so proud to be associated with them in the most successful period in their history.”

Pearson was Hull’s previous owner before being bought out by a consortium featuring Bartlett and Duffen in 2007. Once the £12m takeover was completed Duffen became the chairman and public face of Hull. After presiding over promotion to the Premier League – the first time Hull had reached English football’s top tier – he promised substantial investment in Phil Brown’s squad and proved true to his word when the talented but injury prone midfielder Jimmy Bullard became the club’s record signing, joining for £5m from Fulham last January.

By October, though, Hull were being cautioned that their uncertain financial position threatened the club’s “ability to continue as a going concern”. The club’s accounts, filed five months late to Companies House, revealed that in the event of relegation they would need to generate a £23m surplus just to meet their existing liabilities.

The grim forecast from the club’s accountants, Deloitte, emphasised the need for an imminent financial overhaul to safeguard Hull’s future. In the accounts for the year ending 2008, which were due on 31 May but only filed in October, the club made a £9,764,850 loss during a period that culminated in winning promotion to the Premier League.

Most telling, though, was Deloitte’s prediction that Hull would need to raise an additional £16m should they retain their Premier League status this season and a further £7m again if the club slip back into the Championship.

Duffen, a father of five with a love of fast cars who is a former chief executive of Catalyst Media Group plc and earlier worked in sales and marketing for Procter and Gamble, swiftly stepped down, saying at the time: “I must take responsibility for a disappointing 2009.”

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