The idea of becoming a football club chairman has so obsessed every Tom, Dick and Mr Harry of the retail and commercial world in recent years that one suspects most businessmen's favourite pink newspaper is neither the Financial Times nor Gay News but their local Pink 'Un.

The theatre impresario Bill Kenwright is again casting a covetous eye, in his case through rose-tinted opera glasses, at a football club, launching a consortium bid of more than £50 million to take over Everton, where he is deputy chairman. Given football's new kudos as sexy and entertaining, it was only a matter of time before a luvvy auditioned for the role of leading man.

Sir Richard Attenborough was once a Chelsea director, but with no intention of trying to wield the power that goes with the title in the cinema. Kenwright, a former Coronation Street actor who peddles dreams in the theatre, now wishes to fulfil the ultimate football supporter's dream.

It might make for great stuff in the West End, accompanied by a Lloyd Webber musical score. But Wimbledon's owner Sam Hammam is concerned that Kenwright, a neighbour and close friend, might be confusing fact and fiction. He has already advised him that, if he goes in with a closed mind and an open chequebook, he will be getting things the wrong way round.

Hammam says: "Bill is a lover. He falls in love with things in a big way. He falls in love with a script and turns that fantasy into a reality on the stage. But football is a different thing and it can be a cruel lover. You shouldn't spend money in football because you are in love and I have told him that, if he goes into this, it should be with his feet on the ground.

"Bill is logical when it comes to the theatre but, when he talks about Everton, it is as though he is on drugs. He loves Everton but football is not fun any more. When I came into Wimbledon 21 years ago they had just joined the league and it was all about football and fun. Now I spend most of my day dealing with business and legal matters."

The stereotype of the millowning chairman, seen only on match days and then just to preen himself in public, is long gone. These days the boardroom door is open to anyone who wants to make a fast buck or has already done so. But, with plc directors to answer to, it has become a full-time job.

Alan Sugar, having made his fortune from cheap, easy-to-assemble computers, bought Tottenham seemingly believing the same principles could be just as successful in football. Now, with his son Daniel playing an increasingly important role in the day-to-day running of the club, Spurs has become the family business.

The late Matthew Harding, the epitome of new money, having made his pile in the shadowy world of re-insurance, might well have succeeded in buying his way into the position of Chelsea chairman had it not been for the fact that, while no player is bigger than the club, Ken Bates is.

Francis Lee, the former Manchester City and England player, could not resist gambling his money on a Maine Road takeover and an attempt to make himself everlastingly famous by restoring the glory days. When he failed he suffered the same vicious personal abuse which forced out his predecessor Peter Swales.

Martin Edwards inherited Manchester United, the Orient Express of family train sets, from his father Louis and says: "I have had 20 years of abuse since taking over." Most recently he has been abused for agreeing to sell the club to Sky for £625 million.

The bottom line in football these days is the bottom line, which is why the directors who wield the financial clout, forcing managers to sell players to balance the books, as in the cases of Everton and West Ham recently, have become such targets for the fans.

Only the obscenely rich, like Blackburn's Jack Walker and Wolves' Sir Jack Hayward, can afford to indulge the dreams of rich, old men. And the latter's £42 million investment has not even secured a Premiership place. Kenwright (53), in risking his fortune to pursue a middle-aged man's dream, could quickly find himself losing the plot as badly as the current owner Peter Johnson. Given the nature of his day job, he ought to know better.