administrator and retained Ridsdale to run the footballing side of the business. The club were relegated from League One at the end of the season. In the summer of 2011 Ridsdale continued to act as chairman, assisting Guilfoyle in finding potential buyers, before buying the club himself for the nominal fee of £1 with the intentions of keeping the club afloat until a more permanent owner could be found. Ridsdale fired Peter Reid as manager just one month into the season, replacing him with Carl Fletcher as a caretaker player-manager. With club staff nearing their tenth month without pay, James Brent arranged deals with the PFA and Plymouth City Council to help clear debts, and took over the club from Ridsdale and the administrators in October 2011. Preston North End Peter Ridsdale became the Preston North End chairman on 6 December 2011. Within eight days of his appointment, Peter Ridsdale sacked the then Preston manager Phil Brown after only one win in eleven. He then left this role and became an advisor to the owner, Mr T Hemmings in 2012. United We Fall In November 2007 Ridsdale released the book United We Fall: Boardroom Truths About the Beautiful Game making claims about incidents which had contributed to the downfall of Leeds United in the mid-2000s. David O'Leary called Ridsdale's claims "deranged" and suggested that he was 'two faced' with his comments compared to how the pair's relationship had continued since both had left Leeds. O'Leary later responded to the claims regarding him by stating that he had taken part in discussions with Ridsdale and had signed a conditional statement, but O'Leary said that nothing legally-binding was put in place. Other business dealings Ridsdale was Managing Director of Tulchan Holdings, which successfully acquired Sock Shop from the receiver in 1996. Disqualification Ridsdale's sports consultancy firm WH Sports Group Limited, which provided advice to football clubs from 2003, failed in 2009 with debts of more than £475,000. Ridsdale was found to have diverted payments by football clubs totalling £347,000, due to the company, into his personal bank account. In October 2012, he was disqualified as a company director until April 2020 after an inquiry by the Insolvency Service. His wife Sophie Ridsdale was likewise banned from acting as a director of any company until 2016. Responding to the ban, Ridsdale claimed that he was currently only acting as Chairman of Football at