Quips, joy and despair – 63 years of Peterborough United's Barry Fry!

​”They’re a bit late,” 78 year-old Fry, the current Posh director of football, told the PT. “It’s been 63 years.”

THE PLAYER

Fry was a good enough player to score for England schoolboys as a 15 year-old in a 5-3 win over Scotland in front of 94,000 at Wembley.

He turned down Chelsea, Arsenal and West Ham United in favour of joining Manchester United as an apprentice, but never made a first-team appearance at Old Trafford.

He did room with one George Best though.

"I was asked to watch out for this young lad,” Fry recalled, “But he only lasted two or three days before he ran back home to his parents. He was a very shy boy.

"Thankfully the club talked him back and George turned out to be a genius on the field. A skinny kid, but he rode tackles like no-one else. He was a wizard at dribbling, with the heart of a lion. He was the best player I've ever seen."

Fry’s own career was rather different. In fact his entire senior career involved fewer than two dozen appearances for Bolton, Luton and Leyton Orient before he drifted into non-League football and started in management.

THE MANAGER

Fry started out at Dunstable, a struggling Southern League club and things didn't go well at first.

"I needed a gimmick,” Fry said. “Crowds were low and results were bad, but at this point George Best had fallen out with United manager Tommy Docherty so I took a punt and went up to see my old roommate in a Manchester United nightclub called Slack Alice.

"George agreed to come and play a couple of games for us.

"He didn't do it for money. He had a nightclub and a boutique which were lucrative businesses at the time. He just did it as a favour.

"When he first turned up at United I used to buy complimentary tickets off him which enabled him to send his wages to his mum and dad, and he said he would forever be grateful for that.

"Nobody had heard of Dunstable, but because of the publicity, I was able to bring in players and we went on to win promotion.”

Fry is best known for his genial wise-cracking character, but he had managerial skills which delivered success at Barnet as he took the North London club into the Football League in 1991, an achievement he ranks as one of his best.

“For five years at Barnet they couldn’t pay me or the players half the time," Fry revealed. “I’d be with the chairman, Stan Flashman, on a Friday, tell him the team I’d picked for the Saturday and he’d go, ‘I don’t like your team, Barry, you’re sacked’ and off I’d go.

"I’d be back in on Monday. Stan was a lunatic, but I loved him. They were good times, if a bit turbulent.

"Just keeping a team in the Conference and then going back there and finishing second three times before winning it with a part-time team gave me as much satisfaction as anything.”

Fry also led Southend United to from the bottom to the top of the old Division One in an eight-month spell in the early 1990s before leaving for Birmingham City.

He guided the Blues to the Division Two title in the 1994-95 season and to victory in the FL Trophy Final in front of 80,000 at Wembley.

Birmingham owner David Sullivan had said: “We wanted a Chubby Brown-type character or a Johnny Vegas. We needed to get noticed. We had to pick someone who could actually do the job as well and therefore Barry Fry was perfect.”

Fry added: “I loved it at Birmingham. The support on and off the field was incredible. Their fans were as mad as me!”

It didn’t last though and he was looking for work in May 1996 when he received a call from his great mate Chris Turner, who was struggling as Posh owner at the time.

Fry took on the role of owner/manager and soon regretted it. The club was in financial turmoil and he resorted to desperate measures to keep them afloat.

Properties were re-mortgaged, players he’d signed with great fanfares, when he hadn’t realised the extent of the club’s issues, were hurriedly sold and relegation arrived, and it was all caught on camera in an ITV documentary.

City business man Peter Boizot rode to the rescue initially before Posh were saved again almost a decade later by current chief Darragh MacAnthony in October 2006.

By then Fry had overseen a promotion and a relegation as manager before quitting his post after a club-record 10-year spell in charge.

"The chairman saved the club. When I owned it, it was killing me. The pressure of finding £150,000 wages every month and realising everyone downstairs is relying on you to pay their mortgage or their rent was too much for me. I had four years of it and how I survived I don't know.

"How the hell I lasted 31 years in management I'm not quite sure, but I'm a very lucky man.”

THE CHARACTER

Dunstable were still selling ‘Bestie Burgers’ and 'Barry Fries’ well after Fry’s departure.

The book launch for Barry Fry’s autobiography ‘Big Fry’ in July, 2000 went ahead without any books because a legal issue caused a late rewrite.

The Peterborough Independent Supporters Association (PISA) was initially formed to oust Fry. A ‘red card’ protest against him at a game was defused when Fry started waving one as well!

Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney played for Manchester United at Posh in a testimonial for Fry in June, 2005. Fry donated the £200k raised to the club.

THE AWARD

The FA’s long-service award will be presented to Fry before Saturday’s friendly with Birmingham City at the Weston Homes Stadium.

Fry said: “It’s a lovely thing for the FA to do and I’m very honoured.

"There have been plenty of ups and downs, but I’ve loved virtually every minute of my career. It’s fitting that I will pick up the award after a game with Birmingham.”