Exclusive:Dejphon Chansiri 'chopped my legs off' at Sheffield Wednesday - and didn't bother to do it himself
Former Star Owls supremo Dom Howson has a new book out - Carlos Had a Dream - which charts the helter skelter first two years of the Dejphon Chansiri era and the oh-so-nearly nature of Carlos Carvalhal’s tenure as Sheffield Wednesday boss.
The inside track on one of Dejphon Chansiri’s first major decisions as Sheffield Wednesday chairman has been told in detail for the first time in a new book.
Stuart Gray was ousted as Owls boss in the weeks after Chansiri bought the club in 2015, despite having received widespread acclaim for his handling of the club in a time of tight financial restraints. Gray was a popular figure at S6 among players, staff and fans alike and his exit paced the way for the arrival of Portuguese unknown Carlos Carvalhal.
What followed was play-off near-misses, heavy spending and a break-neck start to a chairmanship that ended in spiralling decline. With never-achieved-before detail and insight from all the key figures, Dom Howson tells the story of that time. In an excerpt offered exclusively to The Star ahead of the release of ‘Carlos Had a Dream’, Gray speaks for the first time in detail on his Wednesday departure - and how it was handled by the deeply controversial Thai.
The excerpt reads as follows:
Gray remembers the moment with absolute clarity. He was in Portland, Oregon, having just stepped off a long-haul flight with his wife to visit their son in the States. As they collected their bags, his phone buzzed. The name on the screen – that of chief executive Paul Aldridge – told him everything before he even answered. “I knew straight away,” he said. “I’m in America, the season’s over, and Paul’s ringing me. Then he tells me the bad news – that Chansiri had decided to chop my legs off.”
It was not just the decision that cut deep, but the way it was delivered. Gray had built his career on fronting difficult conversations. If a player wasn’t in the team, he told him face-to-face. If someone wasn’t getting a new contract, he looked them in the eye. “I would always do it myself,” he said. “I wouldn’t get someone else to do my dirty work.”
Instead, thousands of miles from Sheffield, he was dismissed over the phone.
No meeting. No explanation. No chance to speak to the staff or the players he’d worked with every day. “I was angry,” he admitted. “If you’re going to sack me in the close season, have the bollocks to do it at the end of the season, face-to-face. Don’t let me go away planning pre-season, planning recruitment, planning everything... only to ring me when I’m on the other side of the world.”
What hurt most was the goodbye he never got to give. “There were some wonderful people at Wednesday – staff, players, everyone,” he said. “That was taken away from me. There is a right way and a wrong way to sack someone, and that was the wrong way. It left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“I felt I was getting the best out of the group I had. We weren’t far away from the play-offs after we won at Nottingham Forest and I really thought we were ready to kick on. There were lads out of contract who didn’t know what was happening, and I didn’t get the support the new manager came in to enjoy. If I’d had that backing and it still hadn’t worked, I’d have held my hands up.”
Chansiri had funded the loan arrivals of Lewis Baker, Lloyd Isgrove and Will Keane for the second part of the 2014/15 season while Portuguese midfielder Filipe Melo and Romanian forward Sergiu Buș were brought in from overseas.
Between them, the pair would only manage six league starts in their Wednesday careers. Gray had continued to speak to potential signings – winger Ross Wallace among them – even as Chansiri grew increasingly agitated about how he was using the squad.
“Chansiri started getting upset because players were coming in and he thought I was being disrespectful to him by not playing them,” Gray said. “If they were better than what I already had, they’d have been in the team. I’m not stupid. I had to be honest with him.
“I said: ‘Chairman, the reason they’re not playing is because they’re not as good as the players you’ve inherited. I work with them every day – I know what they can do. I respect that you’ve brought these players in, but they’re not better. If you want to bring players in, make sure they’re better than the ones already in the building.’”
Gray’s belief was that Chansiri was being badly advised, and the ambitious two-year Premier League target didn’t come as a surprise. “It’s like anything,” he said. “Milan sells him the dream, and he’s going to come out and tell the fans: ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ But there’s enough experience in football to know it doesn’t work like that. Chansiri was not a football person. He initially said the right things but didn’t know how to deliver the right things. I don’t think he tapped into my knowledge or experience at all. Other people were advising him and not the ones who had been in the game for years.
“With respect, he’s a successful businessman, but suddenly he’s dabbling in football and people are ringing him saying, ‘I can help you with this, I can help you with that.’ What he didn’t realise was he already had people there who could help him. Paul Aldridge had been with Milan for years and had all that knowledge and experience. And he had me, with my experience and my contacts. But he didn’t want to tap into it.”
Chansiri’s decision to sack Gray split the fanbase. Gray was popular in the dressing room and earned widespread respect for the job he’d done at Wednesday, on a modest budget. “I was very bitter and disappointed to lose my job because everybody was rowing in the right direction,” he said. “With a bit of investment in the pitch, the training ground and bringing in better players to improve the first team squad, there was an opportunity there to get Wednesday pushing for the play-offs and the Premier League.
“I felt the support of the fans and I was sad I didn’t get to say goodbye to them. They turned up in their numbers every single week to support the team. Wednesday is a unique football club and I’m still keen for them to do well now. Their result is always the first I look for.”