Premiership: Birch keen to make amends for 'failure'

Chelsea’s new managing director, former Liverpool reserve-team player turned insolvency expert Trevor Birch, has ‘‘unfinished business’’ in the game to complete when he takes over the post.

Birch, who was Bill Shankly’s last signing at Liverpool and cleaned Kevin Keegan’s boots during five years in the Anfield reserves, considers his playing career to have been a relative ‘‘failure’’.

He therefore sees his new appointment, being unveiled last night as Colin Hutchinson’s successor at Stamford Bridge, as the perfect opportunity to remedy that fact.

Birch learned about the game ‘‘on the shop floor’’ but also has considerable business experience, having trained as a chartered accountant after his seven-year playing career came to an end.

‘‘I specialised in dealing with under-performing companies, designing strategies and implementing them,’’ he revealed of his business career.

Football was nevertheless his ‘‘first love’’ and he is determined to make up for lost time when he joins the club on April 2, working alongside Hutchinson for six weeks before then taking over the job on his own.

‘‘I feel as though I’ve got unfinished business. I didn’t achieve what I wanted to do in football and I don’t intend to make the same mistakes again,’’ Birch said.

‘‘I’m anxious to get started. I will be hoping to suck as much information out of Colin as I can during our time together as he has done a great job and is well respected in the game.

‘‘What Chelsea have developed here is unbelievable.

‘‘It has changed in the past 20 years from nothing to a world-class stadium and team. I hope to be able to help to achieve something akin to that over the next 20 years.’’

Hutchinson, who has been in direct charge of transfers, announced in December that he would be leaving Stamford Bridge at the end of this season after 15 years to take a lengthy break with his family before returning to football in another capacity.

Birch, 43, arrives from a different background and speculation will therefore be rife that chairman Ken Bates is set to have more direct control on the football side of the club from now on.

Birch, who left school at 16 to sign apprentice forms with Liverpool in 1974, spent five ‘‘great’’ years there in the reserves, travelling out with the first-team squad to watch the European Cup final in Rome in 1977.

‘‘I was trying to break up a forward line featuring Kevin Keegan, John Toshack and Steve Heighway while David Fairclough was the super-sub just for good measure,’’ he told Chelsea TV.

‘‘So it was an almost impossible job even before they then signed Kenny Dalglish.

‘‘Some of the younger players at Chelsea might be horrified to learn I cleaned the boots at Liverpool and swept the dressing-room, as well as cleaning out Bob Paisley’s bath.

‘‘I then continued to do that as a professional player. It’s as if I’ve grown up on the shop floor.’’

After leaving Liverpool, he joined Shrewsbury in 1979 for a club record €81,864 fee, winning the Third Division title and playing in the Second Division for a year before joining Chester, where he replaced Ian Rush.

‘‘There is always a defining moment in your playing career and I realised I was in the wrong career,’’ he joked.

Birch, therefore, hung up his boots and went to Liverpool Polytechnic to train to become an accountant, adding: ‘‘I had to rebuild my life really after what I would term as having failed as a footballer.

‘‘This is therefore a wonderful opportunity to combine both careers. In a career of two halves, now I’m into extra-time.’’