RAY Ingleby's love affair with Burnley Football Club started out strictly platonic - based purely on business sense.

Ingleby had recently sold some shares in his American company, Caribiner, and was looking to invest in a public listed company.

With football booming and a number of clubs having joined the stock market, the idea of killing two birds with one stone was aired between Ingleby and his North-West based accountant David Parry.

"One of us said, why not try and buy a football club?" Ingleby revealed. "We looked at all the clubs in the North-West that were in the First or Second Division and for numerous reasons we decided to get involved in Burnley.

"Those reasons were a fanatical fan-base, an amazing tradition and history, a large catchment area and they were not very financially stable."

Having targetted Burnley, Ingleby and Parry set the wheels in motion.

"We approached the club in June, 1997, and eventually they agreed to a hearing," Ingleby explained. "I put a proposal to them but unfortunately my overtures were declined.

"They believed they had better alternatives than Ray Ingleby, including Peter Shackleton and perhaps others."

Ingleby's final offer was for £3million to gain complete control of the club.

"The £3million could have been all mine but there were going to be other people involved. I was representing a group of people and I was leading it. They were all local businessmen, except for one from London," he said.

Ingleby wouldn't go away though as he was keen to own the club, take it up into the First Division and then float on the stock market.

"The more they said 'no', the more I wanted to get involved," he said. "Firstly, my character says what I can't have I want. Second, once my name came out I started getting e-mails and phone calls from Burnley fans. That became the biggest reason to spend time, energy and the inclination to get control. They were begging me to get involved and I was reacting to the fans' wishes."

The result was that in April, 1998, Ingleby, who had rejected approaches to take over another North-West club, tried to force a deal through by buying shares privately.

"After a while I got so frustrated that I couldn't get involved I had David Parry start calling the then-shareholders offering to buy their shares. At the time I accumulated about 35 per cent of the club at a cost of £700,000."

Things turned personal with Teasdale and Ingleby falling out, although Teasdale publicly kept his counsel.

That wasn't the case with Ingleby as he generated massive support from the fans desperate to see change and an injection of capital.

"Regrettably the issues I had with the board were played out in the Press and the radio," said Ingleby, who has since buried the hatchet and now sits on the same board as Teasdale, Clive Holt and Bob Blakeborough.

Stalemate was reached when Ingleby had bought up all of the available shares and couldn't get a further major shareholder into his camp. Yet he never accepted defeat and believed that he would still win the day until events were taken out of his hands by the arrival on the scene of Barry Kilby.

Whether an Ingleby-led buy-out would have worked at Turf Moor will never be known.

However, Ingleby is honest enough to admit that the club could not have done better under his leadership than that of Kilby.

"I do believe it really turned out best for the club," said the club's new vice-chairman. "I am a passionate Burnley fan now and will remain so until my dying day."

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