David Sullivan, 59, grew up in a working-class family home in Cardiff in the 1950s. Today he has a fortune of £600 million, a property empire, the largest chain of sex shops in the UK and a football club. Not bad for an entrepreneur who was earning £20 a week in 1971 and supplementing his income by selling saucy snaps through the post.

"I always had a burning desire to be fabulously rich because I came from a fabulously poor background," he told The Times last year. "Every single night as a child before I went to bed I would pray for three things. I wanted to be the captain of Cardiff City and Wales, I wanted to be a world champion boxer and I wanted to be a millionaire.”

It was that attitude that took him to St Andrew's 15 years ago, when he saw Birmingham City advertised for sale in the Financial Times. The club had fallen on hard times and were bottom of the second tier in English football, but after being frustrated in his attempts to buy West Ham United and turning his nose up at Cardiff, Watford, Bradford City, Leeds United and Tottenham Hotspur -"I could have had Spurs for Pounds 3 million, but they were Pounds 25 million in debt" -he and his partners, David and Ralph Gold, handed over £1.2 million and got down to work.

"We hadn't won for about 20 games and the ground was in a terrible, derelict state," Sullivan said. "Every day there were bailiffs knocking on the door, but what was pleasing was that everything was so badly run that we could only improve it."

After making his first fortune in the adult entertainment industry and owning the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport newspapers, Sullivan is used to rubbing some people up the wrong way, but he is proud of his roots. "I am not embarrassed by what I have done," he said. "I am not one of those people who tells the neighbours I'm in the print business. I'm in the adult entertainment industry and I have met some lovely girls and made a lot of money. I have given an awful lot of people a lot of pleasure and I have never hurt anyone."

IN HIS OWN WORDS

On his millions: “I was a millionaire at 25. If you pick the right business, a rising business, any fool and his dog can make money.”

On The Daily Sport: "It's the first paper I read every day because I'm a lad at heart."

On players' wages: “There is no other sport in the world where you can be the 500th best in your country and still make such an incredible living.”