AN internet hoaxer pronounced Sir Bob Murray dead last year. No one was more surprised than the former Sunderland Football Club chairman who tells Business Editor Andy Richardson about his life and the things that he still wants to achieve. 

EVERY great success story has its back-from-the-dead moments. 
When someone altered Sir Bob Murray's Wikipedia entry to show that he had died last year the ex-Sunderland chairman decided to take matters into his own hands and start building a new website that would tell his life story in his own words. Preview pages of the site can be seen at www.sirbobmurray.com  

Bob's life has been defined by watershed events, but he recalls one that stands above them all.
It's not the time that he was given a few hours to ponder a take-it-or-leave-it offer to buy Sunderland Football Club. Nor was it the day that his kitchen and bathroom company Spring Ram became a stock market sensation. It wasn't even when he was knighted, or given the Freedom of the City of Sunderland.
What Bob describes as "the year that changed my life" began when Consett Iron Company refused to give him a job. His subsequent spell out of work transformed a softly spoken pitman's son into a hugely determined character who would become one of the region's most respected business leaders. 
Being born in Consett, County Durham during the baby boom year 1946 ensured that when Bob applied to join his dad Sydney at the town's biggest employer he was vying with double the usual number of school leavers for a coveted position.
The iron and steelworks, known to locals simply as "The Company" which reflected its dominant position on the industrial landscape of North West Durham, had a glut of applicants in 1961. Bob, who'd left school that summer with just one O-level in maths, was among those who were turned away.    
"The insecurity of being unemployed in those days was awful. It wasn't a case of picking up unemployment benefit. We'd go picking rosehips to sell around the streets. I was living with my mam and dad in their council house. It was a hard year that left a deep impression on me.
"Once I got a job I was determined never to let that happen to me ever again. I can empathise with anyone whos been unemployed. It can be a dreadful thing, but you should never give up."
His career started at Ransome and Marles ball bearing factory in Annfield Plain followed by a move to Consett Iron Company as an office boy delivering mail. He progressed into the accounts department as a clerk. An early sign of Bob's leadership potential and of his belief in social justice came when he was appointed as a shop steward for the British Iron and Steel and Kindred Trades Association. Decades later he established the Foundation of Light, the biggest football charity in the UK, to help tackle social exclusion across the North-East.
"I dont think I'm exceptional. I'm just hard-working. And I'd like to think that I have quite a bit of integrity. I am very straight when it comes to business dealings. That has meant that I've been able to get great people to give up good jobs to come and work for me." 
Bob's aim was to become an accountant and the bitter memories of his year on the dole meant that nothing was going to deter him.
"Concentrating all my spare time on studying meant that I missed out my youth."
Night classes taken at Consett Technical College resulted in O-levels, an A-level in accountancy and an ONC in Business Studies before Bob took an accountancy course at Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University).
By the age of 22 he'd been appointed assistant financial accountant at the head office of chemicals company Albright and Wilson in Harrogate, North Yorkshire while continuing his studies at Leeds Metropolitan University (then Polytechnic) where he qualified aged 26 as a chartered certified accountant in 1972. 40 years later he accepted the honour of becoming the University's chancellor.
After a successful spell at George A Moore, the kitchen manufacturers in Wetherby, he was headhunted by Ladyship Industrial Holdings and accepted the position of general manager of Gower Furniture in Halifax, becoming holding company director of the Ladyship Group in 1975.
When the owner moved overseas Ladyship was sold for £5.2m in 1978. After the sale Bob co-founded Spring Ram, initially based in an old textile mill in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire.
"There was no roof on it and snow was pouring in. When my mother saw it she started crying and asked: "Son do you know what you're doing?"
Elsie Murray's fears proved to be unfounded. The company, which targeted the emerging home improvement market, was massively successful. Floated in April 1983, by the close of the first day's trading Spring Ram's value had rocketed by £6m.
It was at this point that Bob's interest in Sunderland AFC became more than that of a passionate fan. 
"I am very proud to come from Consett, but my dad was a Sunderland man. He'd worked down Silksworth Colliery from the age of 14 and moved from Houghton le Spring to get a job above ground at the steel works.
"He took me to my first match when I was 8 years old. We played Wolverhampton Wanderers and even though the game ended 0-0 I thought that we had won because the noise and atmosphere was just incredible. It would have broken my dad's heart to think his little boy would one day knock down Roker Park."  
After offering to help the club, which by the 1980s was fractured by a bitter boardroom dispute, the then chairman Tom Cowie invited Bob to join the board in 1984 on the proviso he bought 5 per cent of his shares and signed a personal bank guarantee for £50,000 to show his commitment. Bob was later given the unenviable task of sacking his boyhood hero Len Ashurst from the post of Sunderland manager.
"Cowie's last throw of the dice was to appoint Lawrie McMenemy. Like the Titanic he should never have left Southampton. McMenemy was useless and cost the club a fortune. 'Ive never a met a man in my life who loved money as much as him. He had five BMWs from a dealership in Stockton. His family were on the payroll. Eventually I paid him off myself just to get rid of him.
"Through Cowie I saw how not to run a club. For example, a deal had been agreed for (midfielder) Nick Pickering to go and play for Howard Kendall at Everton - a great move for the lad. Cowie blocked it and instead agreed a deal with Coventry City because he knew their chairman. Nick doesn't know about that.
"After one game Cowie told McMenemy never to pick (left back) Alan Kennedy again. That is not something that a chairman should ever get involved in no matter how the team is performing."
Bob bought the club from Cowie for £460,00 but that was only a fraction of the investment he was to make.
"The club was three times over its overdraft with the Midland Bank. They were also Middlesbrough's bank and Boro got put into receivership. We were going to be next. The bank had held off from doing that with Sunderland because Cowie's car financing business was done through them.
"After I bought the club I was on a high as I travelled with the team to a pre season friendly with Darlington. Little did I know that the next morning the Midland would threaten to pull the plug on us."
Bob personally guaranteed the club's overdraft and injected a seven figure sum to repay the excess borrowings. Sunderland avoided Boro's fate. 
"I was happy to do it." The fans didn't always appreciate his efforts.
"In one match (striker) Don Goodman missed a penalty and the crowd started chanting - Murray Out. In 22 years you're bound to have times when you're not flavour of the month. But Sunderland supporters are without question the best in Britain."
As chairman Bob soon realised that Roker Park could not sustain the club in the top flight. Many, including the local council, opposed his plan for a new stadium. With hindsight the move to the former Monkwearmouth Colliery site was inspired.
Sunderland floated on the London Stock Exchange to help fund the construction of what became The Stadium of Light
"I took a big dilution in my stake from 80 per cent of the club down to about 50 per cent. I did the same with Sky when they paid £12m for 5 per cent of the company to become our media partners. In both cases it meant that Sunderland Football Club got the money. When Newcastle did their deal with NTL the money went into the pockets of shareholders.
"I always wanted us to be an ethical club. We never got in trouble with the FA or got bad headlines."
Bob's expertise in major construction projects and reputation within football led to his appointment to the Wembley board in 2002 to ensure the new national stadium was contracted successfully. In November 2008, the FA appointed him as project director for the National Football centre, St George's Park which opened earlier this month.
"What makes me proud of my time with Sunderland? The legacy of the Stadium, the Academy and the concerts hosted there every summer. And we do amazing things at the Foundation of Light like getting grandmas and granddaughters with literacy problems to work together side-by-side. Things like that are so important. I love this region and I want people in the North-East to get a better start in life than I had."

Sir Bob Murray comments on Newcastle United's new sponsorship deal.
Q: If you were still chairman of Sunderland would you sign a sponsorship deal with Wonga?
A: "No its not right. How would it be right? What is the case for the defence? I dont think in a region like ours we should have a name like that on a shirt. People in the North-East continue to have financial hardships. I think its appalling that they use the sponsor's name as an excuse to put the stadium name back. That says everything."