Greg Dyke: 'I said to Fergie, tell the board before they bring in Sven'

From the Beeb to the Bees, he has enjoyed a following. Nick Townsend talks to the man entrusted with the faith of a fans' club

The scenes are still indelibly printed on the memory: of a day when Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell claimed victory and the head of the BBC's director- general, Greg Dyke, as well as those of chairman Gavyn Davies and reporter Andrew Gilligan, were placed on a salver for their delectation; of a day when 6,000 staff walked out of BBC offices, protesting spontaneously at Dyke's enforced resignation following the craven irresolution within the corporation which ensued after the Hutton Inquiry.

Two years on, Dyke has another 6,000 prepared to follow him to a promised land in his role as the chairman of Brentford Football Club, appointed by their new owners, Bees United, the supporters' trust. It is a different context entirely, but just what is it about Dyke that provokes so many to become his disciples? "Yeah, I know. It's weird, isn't it? I don't get it at home," he says with a guffaw, something he does frequently and with infectious effect. "You know, I can imagine that day, everybody who runs any sort of organisation looked at the people around them and said, 'Now, would they do that for me?'."

He adds: "My old boss at London Weekend used to say he'd invest in anything I came up with. 'It's not your talent,' he'd say. 'It's just that you're the luckiest bastard I know'.

"Look at me now. I turn up at a football club as chairman, and immediately we knock Sunder-land out of the FA Cup, and win another match 5-0 [against Walsall]. I don't think they quite see me as a messiah, but I think they quite like the idea that I'm there. As my son, Joe, says to me, 'Let's see how long that lasts - if we don't get promotion'."

It could be contended that there is something of the Pied Piper about him, though instead of luring away the rats of Hamelin he created immor- tality for just one. Name of Roland, the saviour of the breakfast TV franchise TV-am. That imagination and drive is still profoundly in evidence.

You don't so much interview Dyke, 58, as I discovered when we meet in Zoltan's Delicatessen, round the corner from his home near Twickenham, as prompt new ideas. And football is a fertile source. "The game's pretty bad at marketing itself, isn't it? Basically football clubs sit there and wait for people to turn up. If you're Manchester United, that's easy. I remember at Old Trafford once saying to the catering manager, 'The food here isn't very good, is it?' The fellow looked at me and said, 'you don't get it, do you? If they complain about the catering, we take the box away'."

Dyke rocks with laughter, but the point is eloquently made. "I do think, here at Brentford, you have to make it a better experience for the fans. The food, the seating, everything. I've just had an idea. Let's get a celebrity chef to suggest some improvements on the food we offer. Yes, that's it: create the Brentford Food Hall. Hey, we could even make a TV programme out of it..."

But before that, the priorities are promotion and the more immediate concern of his League One club overcoming Charlton Athletic in next Saturday's FA Cup fifth-round tie. "It's about winning runs, and confidence. That's why I think we've got a good chance against Charlton. My bet is we'll have a draw away and win at home - then be drawn away at Manchester United."

He goes misty-eyed at the prospect of the club he has supported since a boy in the Fifties meeting the former European champions. He was on the United plc board as a non-executive director during a period which included the 1999 Treble.

"When you think about United and Brentford there is an irony," he says. "United became a public company, and part of the supposed benefit was that fans could own some shares. Now it's owned by a bunch of Americans who don't give a toss about Manchester or British football. They know nothing about it, and put it in hock. Brentford is now owned by the fans, and actually I've come to the conclusion that that's the best thing for a football club."

Dyke, who had to sell his shares and resign from the United board when he became BBC director-general, adds: "United's is a sad story. It had no debt and built that whole magnificent ground from current cashflow. Now it's got £600m of debt. They [the Glazers] were the wrong people to buy the club. It was a terrible decision."

However, he retains much affection for United's manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. "He rang me up when I was at the BBC, he was due to leave that summer [2002], and they'd offered the job to Sven [Goran Eriksson]. He said, 'I'm not sure I want to go'. I told him he'd better tell the board. He said: 'I was only going for my wife's sake, but then she asked me what I was going to do all day'. I assume he'll go at 65. But if anyone is entitled to say when they go, it's Alex Ferguson."

In Dyke's new role, financial discipline will be a prerequisite. "The challenge is: this year we're going to lose £600,000. How do we make sure it's not going be £600,000 next year? Because Brentford hasn't got £600,000 to lose. There's no sugar daddy. It'll be interesting to see how the supporters take to it. The history of football is all about fans shouting up at the directors' box, demanding they get their wallets out. At Brentford, it's not going to happen. What you've got to do is have financial res-ponsibility. We've either got to get more money in or reduce the costs. We're trying to do both."

Beneath Dyke's bonhomie and love of anecdotes is a hard-edged businessman whose success as a television executive appears slightly at odds with his natural philosophy, as he describes his instincts, of "a Sixties Leftie". Yet both sit comfortably in the Dyke paradigm of life.

Just as he had to confront the problem that people were not watching the ailing TV-am, he now has to persuade more people to regard Griffin Park as their second home. "Tuesday is Valentine's Day, but we're playing Southend. I thought, 'Let's give away some roses to the first 200 women coming into the ground'. If you can get another thousand a game in, you change the economics of the club." He pauses. "But it still doesn't stop you, in the end, selling DJ Campbell."

The hero of the fourth round moved to Birmingham for £500,000 (possibly rising to £1m). "Nobody wants him to go, do they? But you can't stop him, and nor should you," says Dyke. "Martin [Allen, the manager] said, 'How can I go back to my dressing room and say I've turned down an offer from a Premier League club for one of them? You'd lose the dressing room like that'. And he's right. Because that's the dream for the rest of them. In the same way, we'd hate Martin to leave, but you can't stop ambition."

The Campbell windfall will probably go towards improving the ground, to increase capacity. "It would be quite good if we could get into the Championship, and at the same time move to another ground," says the chairman, who insists there is scope for increasing attendances.

"We've got a large hinterland, and what we need to do is convince people round here that they should bring their kids down to Brentford. It's funny - the banter, I mean - it's passionate, and it's reasonably priced. A bloke and his kid can get in for 20 quid. That's not massive, is it?"

Certainly not compared with Chelsea, a club he regards as "an aberration". He adds: "It's a bizarre thing, isn't it, when a bloke [Chelsea's Russian owner, Roman Abramovich] can afford to lose £140 million? I have to laugh. When we sat and watched the Berlin Wall come down, did we really think that was going to happen?" As yet, Dyke has failed to engage his partner, Sue, in the mysterious wonders of supporting the Bees. But there is some hope.

"She hates football. Wouldn't know a corner from a goal-kick. Strangely enough, Sue did come to the Sunderland game. She had a bet on that it would be 0-0 at half-time, and that Brentford would win 2-1. She won 90 quid. I've told her she's got to come to Charlton to bring us luck."

Despite his new responsibility, the events of January 2004 remain with Dyke. "You have to move on, don't you? But has it disappeared? No, it's still there." He points to his forehead. "My dislike of Tony Blair is as great as ever. Did he mislead the British public? Yes. Did they sex up the dossier? Yes. The evidence is now clear-cut. And he's still in a job. How, God only knows. Thankfully, he won't be there much longer."

Dyke adds: "History has shown we were right. It was horrible that day they [the BBC] kicked me out, but suddenly to find 6,000 people out on the street, supporting you, it was a very emotional time."

It is not an experience that most bosses would anticipate. And certainly not in football. You sense that the enlightened Dyke may just be an exception.

LIFE & TIMES

NAME: Gregory Dyke.

BORN: 20 May 1947, Hounslow.

EARLY DOORS: Hayes Grammar, University of York (BA Politics).

CAREER: LWT 1977-83; TV-am editor-in-chief '83-84, introducing Roland Rat; TVS director of programmes '84-87; LWT DoP '87-91, managing director '89-90, chief executive '91-94; GMTV chairman '93-94; Pearson Television chairman/CEO '95-99; Channel 5 chairman '97-99; 2000-04 BBC director-general, resigned after Hutton Inquiry.

FOOTBALL TIES: non-executive director of Manchester United '97-99; lifelong Brentford fan; became Brentford's non-executive chairman 20 January 2006 after takeover by supporters' trust.