Source: TheGuardian
Sound of Dario Gradi’s silence in Barry Bennell affair is deafening | Daniel Taylor
‘Mr Crewe’ was suspended from football two years ago and all sorts of new detail and claims have emerged. All that can really be said is there are more questions than answersMore in hope than expectation, I contacted Dario Gradi a few days ago to ascertain whether there was any inclination on his part to speak out now we are coming up for the two-year mark since the Football Association informed him he was suspended from all football-related activities. Two years, after all, is a long time for anyone to be banished from their work. Was it time to fight back? If he felt unfairly maligned, did he want to explain why? And because the subject matter was never going to make it an easy conversation, would he confront all the issues that – whether he liked it or not – made him such a prominent figure in the Barry Bennell scandal?There are, after all, so many unanswered questions for the man whose 35-year association with Crewe Alexandra incorporates more than 1,200 games as manager, plus spells as managing director and, latterly, technical director. Did he, I asked, want to challenge the information that has been passed to the FA’s independent inquiry that he was once so protective of Bennell, even writing a character reference before his colleague’s first criminal trial, because in the opinion of one key witness, “my feeling is that Barry Bennell had something on Dario”? Was this the time, two years in, to address the other damaging revelations that have cropped up since Andy Woodward’s interview in the Guardian began what the FA’s chairman, Greg Clarke, has described as the biggest crisis in the history of the sport? Related: Barry Bennell: the predatory Pied Piper who made stars and shattered lives Gradi had modified his own house to accommodate boys. Indeed, he needed a people carrier to ferry them around Related: Crewe ignored police advice in late 1980s to ‘move on’ Barry Bennell Continue reading......read full article
