It wasn’t Michelle in The Well, it was poor Fiona. My wife used to end up looking after her and on one occasion after a set to with some Spurs fans at a night game before half time we couldn’t see him and my wife had hold of Fiona. And where was Dave? In the social club, pint in hand. My wife never had a high opinion of Dave, think women sometimes are more perceptive than us, and that reinforced her view.
Heard only one side!!! It’s documented her and her mum etc were in and out of women’s refuges!! I don’t want to hear his side that’s enough for me
Think his Hull City supporter credentials trump the rest tbh. What a legend would rather be at the game than the birth of his child. Today’s namby pamby millennials would probably be calling for his head though.
I remembering him starting married life in a two up two down, down a terrace off Albert Avenue and ending up housing his family in a four bedroomed semi detached in the leafy suburbs of West Hull, all paid for and not many kids I knew in those days got a brand new car given when they passed their driving test. But I was describing the Dave Dewberry I knew as a Hull City fan, not as a father.
They all look the same at that age. I thought it was Michelle, seems like yesterday, not forty odd years ago, maybe more.
He used to have small business or was manager of one supplying valves in his later years I think he did quite well , was it Flowstar ? Had a scrap with him when he was pissed up on a bus when it picked him up at Duke ferriby , baby just born , he was celebrating but decided being laughed at didn’t suit him . He was a pain in the arse but as far as pro City he was top of the tree. Like someone said we needed more like him in those days .
The Spurs game was before my eldest was born at start of 1980. Michelle was born end of 1979. Remember Dave inviting me in to see her when she first came home. Fiona, bless her, was about 18 months older.? It was funny, everyone in our little group had kids before us and took the mick but they had girls then we had 2 boys in 18 months. Edit, just thinking Fiona must have been a couple of years older because he named her Fiona John Kay ( a name she later used dropping the name Dewberry) in honour of our manager at the time. Needless to say he was sacked very soon after.
10,000 neglecting their parental responsibilities, abusing their kids, knocking their wives about & singing “Tigers Tigers rah rah rah” Would you give them all jobs?
Dave Dewberrys Hull City supporting credentials were 100% in all the time I knew him through my support of the club. He had some great ideas, raised a lot of money for the club, formed the Action Group from which the TSA sprung up. Through the Action Group he got ordinary fans into the Board meetings who could actually cast votes on club decisions. No other fans group have managed that since. He put the club in the headlines when we were bottom of the FL ladder and he himself sought out Don Robinson and went to his house to persuade him to buy into the club. He got close to buying a stake himself by uncovering the worth of the non voting shares and persuading local businessman Paul Dixon, who later sponsored Grimsby Town, Ian Blakey, who later became a director and Don Robinson who later became chairman. Equal shares worth £10k each, all three were in, the fourth share was to be himself and as many Action Group members who could chip in to make up the other £10k. The club moved the goal posts when they realised Dewberry had the backing. To answer your 'neglecting his parental responsibility'? I for one knew nothing what happened behind his front door at that time and I don't think many people did until Michelle's book came out some years later. As Dave disappeared from the area a long time ago, he isn't around to put his side of the story. I don't know it and neither do you. But my comments stand. At the height of DD's Hull City supporting time he had more ideas and raised more cash for the club then the commercial department were doing.
I am still laughing at the thought of Brains or anyone else with him chanting Tigers Tigers Rah Rah Rah like some buffoon does.
You better explain who Brains is because those casting judgement wouldn't know the bloke in question if he was sat next to them on one of Simon Grays buses.
According to you he was neglecting his parental responsibilities before kids were even born. “Can Dave Dewberry please report to a steward immediately, your wife has gone into labour' He waited until full time And after “Also remember Michelle as a toddler running up and down the terracing in the Well with Dave when it was his turn to baby sit” “Hisfamily was his affair andwehave only heard one side” What are your thoughts on Jimmy Savile? He raised loads for charity, millions. Have you heard his side of the allegations against him, or can you only judge him on his charity work? It is ok to say “He was a City fan, did bits & pieces for the club but turns out he was an absolute **** to his wife & children which negates any good he did for the club at the time. There was talk of him getting a role at the club, with hindsight, I’m actually glad it didn’t happen because his heinous behaviour may well have tarnished the club’s reputation.” With ****s like him in the crowd I’m not surprised there wasn’t 10,000 proper supporters alongside the few self proclaimed “can't do wrong” superfans.
Michelle blames her dad for her sister's death.. she turned against him; EXCLUSIVE APPRENTICE STAR'S FAMILY RIFT HEARTBREAK Father used to beat her until blood was pouring Then he disappeared as marriage fell apart No one has seen him for six years. Link/Page Citation Byline: By DEBORAH SHERWOOD Senior Writer IT could be anyone's happy wedding snap... but look a little more closely and this picture of Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry's family reveals a story of heartbreak and tragedy. Michelle, then 17, is in the middle of the picture with arms folded protectively in front of her, looking away from her dad on the left. Dad David has a strange grimace on his face, his arms behind his back and he stares straight ahead as if to isolate himself from the group. Mum Glynis is as far away from him as she can be. Nowadays Michelle, 26, is the glamorous blonde businesswoman who beat thousands of hopefuls to land a pounds 100,000 job with tycoon Sir Alan Sugar in his smash-hit reality show The Apprentice. Then she was a confused teenager still hurting from the tragic death of her older sister Fiona a year earlier. Although Michelle said on the TV show that her dad had been an inspiration, the truth is far more complex. Last night she revealed she had suffered years of violent beatings and mental abuse at the hands of her drunken father. She said he hit her with a hockey stick when she was 18 after she hadn't made his tea. "I ran down the road to a phone box in my bare feet, blood pouring down my face and my hair coming out in clumps. "I called the police and never went back. He almost broke me but it only made me more determined to survive." She said he head-butted her mum and tried to throttle her until Michelle managed to prise his hands off. She also believes his violence drove her elder sister Fiona from home and led her to a life of drugs and tragic early death. "I blame him for her death and I know mum does too. We weren't even allowed to cry at the funeral." David Dewberry "disappeared" six years ago - abandoning his high-flying career and his family and leaving no address. Even his older brother Phil does not know where he is - and has had just three phone calls from him in the last six years. The time before he left was full of trauma and tragedy. In 1996, a year before the picture was taken at Phil's wedding, Fiona, 19, fell to her death after a life damaged by drugs and degrading work as an escort girl. Then Michelle's mum, Glynis, needed a brain operation. Soon after that, in March 2000 David, managing director at Flowstar Ltd, a valve import and export business based in Hull, left a letter in his office simply saying he would not be coming back. A colleague says he turned up that day to find that David had not opened up the office as usual. He said: "We don't know where he went or what happened to him." Brother Phil, 57, said: "Each time he rings he has said he's OK. He has made sure I can't put a trace on the number and call him back. I heard from friends he could be in Spain - or Scotland because he liked Glasgow Rangers and had some contacts there, or maybe even America. He rang about a year ago. The previous time was Christmas 2004. The man has five children and doesn't see them. I think that is strange." Phil's understanding is that David, now 53, vanished to avoid losing half of his money to his wife in a divorce settlement. The 26-year marriage appears to have been failing under the strain of Fiona's death. Phil says David believed nurse Glynis, 52, had engaged an expensive barrister and was terrified of losing his hard-earned cash. "He thought he'd have to pay a lot of legal bills and said there was no point working hard - he might as well be on the dole. He was paranoid she would get everything he worked for. He asked me to look after the cash - a lot of money, then I think he had a change of plan. He didn't give me the money and events went into free-fall." David's ex-Flowstar colleague revealed: "When he was here he was really mean. He wouldn't buy envelopes and would put stickers on used ones so he could use them again. He even put cardboard in his shoes when they got worn. "He'd say 'look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves' and would brag about how he could live on pounds 1 a day and get by on just a meat pie, two potatoes, three carrots and two sprouts." According to Michelle's Uncle Phil, relations between her and her dad had been strained since sister Fiona's death. "Fiona and David were very similar and had a clash of personalities," explained Phil, a father-of-two from Hull. "Fiona didn't get on with her dad and left home when she was about 17. And then she died falling from a tower block in Hull, it was awful. Michelle and Fiona were very close when they were at home together. "It was all very difficult, Michelle thought if Fiona hadn't left home she would have still been alive. She says the death of Fiona inspired her. It did change her and it pushed her to succeed." There was an open verdict at Fiona's inquest, in which it was revealed that she may have been taking amphetamines - and had been working as an escort girl. Phil said: "The death caused a lot of friction, Glynis blamed David, it wasn't good." As the couple grew more and more apart, Michelle, say friends, began to resent her father. Matters reached a head when Glynis had to go into hospital for a brain operation about six years ago. One friend said: "Michelle blamed her father for not going to see her mother, but David can't bear hospitals." But when asked the secret of her success last week, Michelle answered: "My dad was a bit of a grafter, so maybe I got it from him." Phil thinks that despite what has happened, Michelle is remembering the work ethic her father encouraged. "Michelle looked up to her dad. She was her father's 'apprentice' when she was just a teenager and worked at his firm because he wanted her to follow in his footsteps. "He earned a lot of money. He bought her a brand new car for her 17th birthday - most youngsters would get something second-hand. David wanted her to do well and he wanted to show her how." Former colleagues at Flowstar believe David was earning hundreds of thousands of pounds. He bought a four-bedroom house in Hull outright for pounds 80,000, which is still the family home and is now worth pounds 260,000. Until The Apprentice, he was best known for spearheading a campaign in the 1980s to save his beloved Hull City Football Club. He set up the Hull City Action Group and his younger brother Carl, 42, a Hull busker, said: "He was thinking about getting a consortium together to raise pounds 1million to take over the team. We called him Brains because he always had ideas." In the late 60s and 70s, David was a teenage skinhead who followed Hull City. For a while he was a member of the Monte Carlo Mob, named after the youth club where they used to gather. He had a talent for rewriting pop songs into soccer chants. A fan magazine recalls how he would have thousands of copies printed out before a game, to hand out to City fans. Carl insists David was never involved in hooliganism. "He spent one night in the police cells at York when he got caught up in some kind of minor trouble," Carl said. "He was never charged." In another clue to Michelle's determination to succeed, Carl added: "Dave was strict with his kids. He wanted them to get on. They'd go to karate and judo classes and if he thought they hadn't done well he'd make them walk home. They were only small and it was a couple of miles." Phil has followed Michelle's success on The Apprentice and sent his congratulations. He said: "I wonder if her dad knows about Michelle's success and great new job. Maybe he will get in touch. David wanted Michelle to do well, I hope he does know that she has." [email protected] CAPTION(S): Winner.. but Michelle's success has come after years of heartache' Together but apart.... David, Michelle and mum Glynis at a 1997 wedding, a year after sister Fiona fell to her death' PICTURE EXCLUSIVE Mystery calls... Michelle's uncle Phil' Vanished.. dad David COPYRIGHT 2006 MGN LTD No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder. Copyright 2006 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. Please bookmark with social media, your votes are noticed and appreciated:
Can we make a Dave Dewberry thread and move the posts? Came in here to read about tomorrow's game and met with all that.
Your' scraping the barrel here Ben and I thought you were better than that. The quotes; The tannoy announcement about his wife going into labour during a game.......true he didn't leave the second the announcement was made, this was during a midweek match in the early 70's. Dave didn't drive, the maternity home was at the other side of the city, buses left from outside of the ground after the final whistle. As for taking a young Michelle to football with him and let her run about the terraces? what is wrong is wrong with that? At least he was spending time with his young daughter and the terraces were only four or five steps deep with enough room to hold a barn dance. I had three young daughters at that time and never once took them to football with me, does that make me a bad dad because I was neglecting them? Cannot for the life of me think what Jimmy Saville has to do with it? Maybe you can explain? For the record, did you ever meet him? Dave not Saville, who by the way was involved with City during Terry Neill's time, but of course no-one knew Savilles other side then. Don't remember the clubs reputation being tarnished by Saville being allowed to roam backstage at Boothferry Park at the time? It fact it was seen as a bit of a scoop by the local media and club itself.
Savile? Just asking whether you’d condemn him because of the allegations made against him despite only hearing one side of the story and, if so, why you appear very reluctant not to condemn your friend’s behaviour. In fact you’re appearing happy to excuse it because he carried a coffin. I started bringing my lad when he was around 4. I never left him so I could get into a bit of bother & head to the bar hoping another supporter’s wife would look after him. Basically what I’m asking is why you can’t condemn his behaviour as inappropriate & why you appear happy to excuse it solely because you think he was good for the Club.
Let it go Ben. I've already said I read Michelle's book and I was shocked by some of the stuff in it. I read the book last year, I haven't seen or heard from Dave for over 20 years, I knew the younger Dave and I can see a lot of him in Michelle's character. She has done remarkably well for herself and is a real talent. I was once offered money by a journalist to dish the dirt on her father about the time Michelle won the Apprentice, they are in the business of selling newspapers and they wanted me to label him as a football hooligan etc, I told them to **** off. Others took the money. Saville is on another level and not a fair comparison at all. He was a devious, manipulative, ****.
