One-way ticket42
Millwall Football Club was based in an area of south-east London
best described as unfashionable. The most common words used
to describe the area were grim, dangerous and life-threatening.
Descriptions of Millwall supporters were even less flattering.
So imagine the excitement when the club opened a new stadium
closer to the centre of London and announced plans for a new
issue of equity capital. The club was pushing for promotion to
the lucrative Premier League and bought lots of good players,
including two Russian internationals.
I bought a line of shares at 2p each, which quickly rose to 4p.
I’d doubled my money in a matter of days. I reckoned that even
if Biblical plagues befell the club I would be in the money. How
wrong I was to be proved.
My share purchase coincided with a long string of defeats. One of
the Russian players was dismissed for alcoholism, after gleefully
admitting that he was on ‘a honeymoon which lasted for six
months’. The club dropped from promotion hopefuls to relegation
certainties. No games were shown on TV and ticket prices fell.
Sponsors and advertisers cut back dramatically, but the club was
contractually obliged to keep paying big salaries to its players.
Millwall entered administration.
The shares plummeted to 0.0181p. I didn’t sell them, though,
because the cost of a stamp and an envelope for the share
certificate was more than the worth of my total holding.
s
Day 1, 8.00pm – Nancy, France
Outside, oodlights suddenly shone through the sleet. Nancy
station was crawling with police.
‘I told you so,’ said Conrad. He’d predicted that we’d be held
up and was smugly happy to be proved right. It didn’t seem to
bother him that he’d be as late as the other passengers on the
train. ‘Where’s your rich friend got to?’
I shrugged. And that’s when I heard the scream.