The Remaster: 100 Owners - Louis Edwards (Manchester United)

Was the Manchester United chairman killed by a television documentary?

It has, over the last couple of decades, become standard for some Manchester United supporters to sing songs regarding the death of vasrious members of the Glazer family. The owners of the club inspire such extreme emotions amongst the clubs fan-base that it is possible to think that they were the first group of individuals to have been involved in this club for motives other than merely wanting to act as custodians to football club for its own betterment but this is, of course, untrue. If we are to look back at the club’s history, it is the involvement of another family which truly set Manchester United on the course to the position in which it finds itself today: the Edwards family.

The story of Louis Edwards and Manchester United is a story that begins and ends with death, and takes in en route luck, bullying, decline and the worst sort of public exposure. Edwards, however, was a fan of the club from childhood, so how did he end up beginning a succession that would end with one of the world’s great sporting institutions paying for its own take-over by speculators from the other side of the Atlantic ocean?