On This Day (20 Dec 1993) Nissan turns down opportunity to buy Sunderland AFC

Today at 01:00 AM

The car giants were offered the club – but football wasn't on their agenda.

Bob Murray's autobiography paints his own picture of his time in charge at Sunderland, and the rewritten history says he stepped down as chairman in November 1993 to focus on getting a new stadium sorted.

At the time, that wasn't the impression anyone got.

Murray seemed to have reached the end of the line as chairman – battle weary after courtroom fights with Barry Batey dominated much of the late 80s and early 90s, and growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress that was being made as he attempted to build a new stadium in Washington.

Murray had done a decent job as chairman, but was often criticised for not investing in the playing staff and backing Denis Smith enough.

Having decided to give Malcolm Crosby the job as manager full time days before the Cup Final, he sacked him after just six months. At the same time, he effectively sacked himself too – stepping down as chairman, with John Featherstone appointed as lead man.

The opposition to the proposed £70m stadium and sports complex near Nissan was significant and becoming increasingly difficult, straining relationships with the car giant, with whom the club had tried to forge relationships since their arrival the best part of a decade earlier.

And, on this day more than three decades ago, Murray played what he might of thought of as his trump card. Or he might have been throwing his hand in. Either way, he offered to sell his 60% stake in Sunderland to Nissan for just £2m – plus a commitment to make up the £4m shortfall in funding for the new ground – to smooth the path towards the 'Wembley of the North'.

A total of £6m for the majority shareholding in the club was a good deal at the time. and seemed to illustrate Murray's single-minded determination to get the job done. Or maybe he was calling Nissan's bluff. He said:

If it means the difference between getting the centre or not, I am willing to sell my shares to Nissan.

It is vital for Sunderland that this centre goes ahead. If it doesn't, I fear Sunderland will become a mere suburb of Newcastle.

The latest hurdle in the project lay at the feet of the Department of Transport, which assessed the impact of traffic on the A19, with Nissan claiming that the increase in matchday traffic would cause them major problems.

Days earlier, Nissan had rejected a proposal to share the site and join in the development, and in response to Murray's offer to buy the club, the car maker's Director of Corporate Affairs, Daniel Ward, had this to say:

Whether Bob Murray's offer was serious or not isn't an issue.

We are car makers, we aren't about to go into the leisure business, and with the current state of the European car market, there's no possibility whatsoever of us buying a football club.

You will be aware of the cutbacks we've had to make at the plant. Our management needs to devote its attention and financial resources to our business because 1994 will be a challenging year.

Nissan did hold a small shareholding of the club, which Ward said was being used against them.

We bought the smallest number of shares we possibly could, simply as a gesture because, at the time, we had just taken on sponsorship of the disabled enclosure at Roker Park.

We were asked to show support for the club, but that shareholding has since been used as a stick against us.

The Nissan project seemed an uphill battle from day one, and moving the club to Washington could have been a pretty disastrous move. It all pretty much worked out in the end – but you can't help but wonder what the last 30 years would have been like if we'd been playing on the A19, and had been under Nissan's ownership.

Stick or twist?