Prenton Park, home of Tranmere Rovers.

Among the superrich, a high-profile sports team is a must-have accessory. Lucrative English soccer clubs are a prime target for Russian oligarchs, Qatari princes and American entertainment empires. But back when the first foreign owner bought his way into English football, 37 years ago, he didn't just bring his checkbook. He brought his boots.

In recent years, only three or four of the 20 clubs in the English Premier League are backed by British owners. The rest are the property of megarich backers from the US, Asia and the Middle East. Legendary clubs like Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United, family-owned for generations, are now just another asset in portfolios of NFL, NBA and even hugely controversial proposals for a "Super League" in early 2021, while Newcastle United has been accused of laundering the reputation of a violent and oppressive Saudi Arabian regime.

This international spending spree started when Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea FC in 2003, but the largely forgotten first step toward today's globalized era occurred way back in 1984. Football clubs were traditionally owned by local businessmen until California lawyer Bruce Osterman bought Tranmere Rovers, a proud but impoverished team in the unemployment-lashed north of England. It was the beginning of a new era -- but you wouldn't have known it at the time.

"The game as a whole was at its nadir," remembers Mark Palios, a former footballer turned businessman who played for Tranmere in those dark days of the 1980s. "Gates were low, there was hooliganism, there was a complete lack of investment. It was a sick industry."

What followed is more than a quirky footnote in sporting history -- it's a story of conflict between passion and business that any fan of any team in any country will recognize. Palios played an unexpected secret role in the ensuing drama, only to face a horribly familiar crisis threatening the club three decades later.

Mark Palios played for Tranmere in the 1970s and 1980s, taking an unexpected role in the drama behind the scenes -- before returning to the club 30 years later.

We all live in a deadly submarine

Former Tranmere player Ken Bracewell was coaching a professional team in San Francisco in the early 1980s when he was approached by attorney and keen amateur goalkeeper Bruce Osterman. The glamour had faded from The National American Soccer League's 1970s heyday, so Bracewell was surprised when Osterman wanted more than a chat about soccer teams -- he wanted to buy one.

Why would a Californian lawyer want to invest in an impoverished sports team on the far side of the Atlantic? 

"I was young and it seemed like a good idea," says Osterman, now in his late 70s. "I had some extra money as I'd done well in my law practice," he remembers in his unhurried California drawl over the phone from his home near San Francisco. "Tranmere was in real trouble so it was a number to purchase the team that I could afford."

Tranmere chairman Bruce Osterman filmed at Prenton Park for a TV documentary.

Tranmere's stadium Prenton Park is only a brief ferry ride away from footballing titans Liverpool and Everton, but in 1984 it might as well have been on a different planet. Barely clinging to professional status at the wrong end of the English leagues, with no money and plummeting attendances, Tranmere had special permission to hold matches on Friday evenings instead of Saturday afternoons so locals wouldn't disappear to watch the team's more glamorous neighbors.

"Tranmere will never compete with Liverpool and Everton," one of the club's managers later said. "They're big liners like the Queen Mary, but I see Tranmere as a deadly submarine."

In 1984 Tranmere was about to emulate a submarine in the worst possible way: by going under.

Osterman took advantage of the strife and a disastrously weak pound to buy the club, installing Ken Bracewell in charge. "I relied on Kenny for the day-to-day things," Osterman recalls, "because frankly what the hell did I know?"

Bruce Osterman (crouching third from left, wearing glasses), lines up with a team of sports journalists playing a friendly at Prenton Park in August 1986. Eagle-eyed fans might recognize the chap on the far left: popular TV and radio pundit Ray Stubbs, who played and worked at Tranmere.

Today's game is full of players, managers and owners from other countries. In the 1980s it was more insular. English clubs were banned from European competition throughout the second half of the 1980s, foreign players like Tottenham's Argentine duo Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa were still a novelty, and there wouldn't be a foreign manager until Jozef Vengloš arrived from Czechoslovakia to join Aston Villa in 1990.

Having staved off the club's short-term woes, Bruce Osterman showed up at Tranmere for a few weeks at a time, a few times a year. There was occasionally a language barrier with the distinctive Merseyside accent. "I used to go to sportsman's dinners for people who had shares in the club, and I was usually the brunt of the after-dinner comedian," Osterman remembers. "I know he was speaking English but I couldn't understand a word!" Osterman's family came too, although his wife found herself excluded from men-only areas such as the boardroom and team coach. "She tolerated my doing this, but it wasn't a pleasant time for her," Osterman admits.

Journalists were delighted by the sight of the bespectacled 43-year-old chairman