David Gold - Autobiography
Autobiography
David Gold is a remarkable man with an even more improbable story.
Pure Gold is one of the most amazing rags to riches stories ever told because this one begins on the very bottom rung of the ladder and finishes at the very top for this self-made multi-millionaire.
The beguiling tale starts with genuinely abject poverty and extreme ill health in the back streets of the East End of London in the austerity of the war years, and concludes with an extensive business empire, private helicopters and jets, and a magnificent mansion in the heart of the Surrey countryside.
David Gold has risen above all the challenges life has thrown at him -including anti-semitism - to become one of the richest men in Britain.
Most importantly to Gold, he also won a significant personal battle over his despised father, who refused him the chance of becoming a professional footballer with his beloved West Ham, when he became proud chairman of Birmingham City Football Club.
As a small, skinny, undernourished fifteen-year-old David Gold had dreams of playing for his local football club. West Ham United. To his huge distress his father Godfrey blocked his way but the entrepreneurial businessman is now the charismatic chairman of Birmingham City football club. Along with younger brother Ralph he owns Gold Group International, one of the most profitable private businesses in the United Kingdom. It is the parent company of retailer Ann Summers, lingerie chain Knickerbox, executive jet charter company Gold Air International, and the brothers share ownership with David Sullivan in Sport Newspapers. In May 2005 he bought the oldest Surviving FA Cup trophy for almost half a million pounds at auction to prevent it going to Germany.
As a small, skinny, undernourished fifteen-year-old David Gold had dreams of playing for his local football club
Bob Harris is David Gold's co-author and fellow Birmingham City fan. Born in Birmingham, he is a well known and much travelled sports writer covering the last nine Olympic Games and a host of international events for a variety of newspapers. Now living in Chislehurst in Kent, he is the author of several best-selling sports books involving such legends as Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Vivian Richards, Sir Bobby Robson, Dennis Lillee, Graeme Souness, Kevin Keegan, Graham Kelly, John Charles, Stuart Peace, Denis Law, Steve Coppell, Bruce Grobbelaar and, most recently, Terry Butcher.
"Dear Mr Gold
I have just finished reading your autobiography and I couldn't let the occasion pass without giving you my feedback... I wanted to tell you that your book was a great read which I enjoyed enormously. I read a lot of autobiographies (Faldo, montgomery, Botham, Shilton, Mansell and Barry Fry to name some) and I have to say that I enjoyed yours more than all the others."
Kevin Boulton
Cheshire