It was a dodgy episode, that fateful, unsavoury evening when Ged Doherty met Paul Young in Fulham. Very dubious indeed.

Ged, having just been bowled over with a performance by Paul's outfit The Q-Tips, decided to pull a big 'Allow me to impress you' number. Hauling them away from the Golden Lion pub, where he'd been invited to watch them play, and having decided he had to manage them, Ged generously promised free meals all round while they talked business.

Stalking into a suspect Greek joint round the corner, they all piled into greasy kebabs and rubber hamburgers before Ged strode wealthily up to the counter and produced his trusty credit card. "Sorry, sir," said Demetrios, "no credit card. Cash only, please."

Crest fallen and mightily embarrassed, Ged winced shamefully as he told the news: "Uh, do you think you could pay?", he asked nobody in particular. Paul picked up the bill. Now, would you take this man Doherty to be your lawful, trustworthy manager?

Born in Glasgow and raised in Manchester, Ged has certainly had his moments. ABC, The Human League, The Thompson Twins, Heaven 17... all once pestered him to manage them. Of course, he refused.

Then again, Ged wasn't alone in being asked for his services; any number of musical types swaggering around Sheffield in the late-ish '70s were made similar requests.

Ged arrived in the city to languish through a teacher-training course and a degree in history at Sheffield Poly, but it wasn't too long before he fell absently foul of the college's strict lecture attendance regime.

Bored and disillusioned with his studies, to his rescue came the Students' Union elections in which Ged ran for, and won, the salaried post of social secretary. Responsible for organising films, shows and concerts, Ged was now in his element — and Punk the song of the day...

"I was the first person ever to promote a Punk gig in Sheffield," he recalls. "It was The Damned with The Adverts as support. I remember getting a snotty letter from the Students' Union about it. They'd seen The Damned's album cover — which had them all covered in sick and mess — and threatened that, should there be any mess at all in the hall after their show, then concerts would be banned forever at the college."

During his eight months in the job, Ged booked all and sundry — everyone from AC/DC, Sham 69 and George Melly to the Boomtown Rats, Split Enz and Penetration. A paltry £500 secured the services of the entire Stiff Records package, made up of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Ian Dury, Larry Wallis, Wreckless Eric and Dave Edmunds.

Ged left the college to go and work for a newly-opened nightspot in Sheffield, the Limit Club.

"It was run by these two Northern guys," says Ged, "who were brand new at the time. They were paying way over the top for their acts, so I called up and said 'Why don't you let me book them for you — I guarantee I'll get them for at least half of what you're paying now.' "

It was no idle brag, and groups like Siouxsie and The Banshees were soon playing The Limit for £150 a night. Tired of the club, Ged moved on after only three months. He'd been offered a few jobs as a booking agent, and finally moved down to London to accept one with Outlaw. Among those working with him were Paul King, who now manages Tears For Fears, and John Reid, who went on to very successfully run The Venue in Victoria. Ged's job was to look over Street Band, featuring Paul Young, at the John Bull pub in Chiswick. Suitably impressed, Ged heartily recommended the band and Outlaw signed them.

Six months on and Ged left to work for another booking agency, Asgard, which then dealt with a wide range of acts including Van Morrison, Ry Cooder, Buzzcocks and The Undertones. Ged introduced Asgard to The Jags and Sniff 'n' The Tears, bands he'd met through friends.

"After I'd been there a few months, Sniff had a big hit with Driver's Seat," Ged explains. "By that time I'd had enough of being an agent — because everybody hates agents. You spend all day putting together a tour for a band that doesn't want to go on the road, but is told by their manager or record company that it's a good idea.

"You then spend more time selling that band to a promoter who doesn't want to know because he's sure he won't sell any tickets. But you've got to get everything together — and you'll tell him anything to get the shows. So you make all this effort and then, two days before the tour is due to start, somebody realises the band can't afford it and cancels.

"It used to happen all the time. But I got really pissed off with being an agent and being the arsehole or the armpit of the music business. But, at the same time, it gave me such a fantastic grounding because I was dealing with managers, record companies, promoters, bands, publishing companies, music papers — everybody, right across the board."

Ged's next move was to shrewdly talk Sniff's manager — he also handled Foreigner — into setting him up in an office, with money, and the job of coordinating the band's European affairs. "I asked him 'How can you take care of everything when you're sitting 5,000 miles away in New York?' But the job wasn't really management, it was more about being a wet nurse."

Shortly after, Ged heard that Street Band, despite their novelty top 20 hit Toast, had split up and fired their manager.

"I called Paul immediately," says Ged, "and told him I'd really love to manage him. I dropped all the names, you know. Foreigner... Paul said he'd just put this new group together, a nine-piece soul band, and asked me to come along and see them, we could talk afterwards."

Then, of course, there would be the great dining disaster. But, undaunted by Ged's penniless showing, Paul agreed he should manage them. The band needed a name first, and soon settled for the Q-Tips.

Ged also began booking the band and, within two weeks, he had the lads working six nights out of seven.

"After three months, suddenly everything went mad," says Ged. "We were selling out everywhere and we got offered a record deal by virtually every single label. We all just sat there not believing it.

"The band had only been set up as a joke — and as a vehicle for Paul to get his voice back into shape, mainly — and none of them took it seriously. That was the main attraction. But then we thought, let's take a deal."

"Being a manager is like being a juggler"

In early '79, they settled for Chrysalis records — a naff choice Ged now concedes.

"It was a hip label at the time, what with The Specials and the Two Tone thing, and, whereas Rak had offered us the best deal, we thought we'd end up being another Showaddywaddy if we went there. As it turned out, that's exactly what Chrysalis had in mind for us.

"We learned that the company, despite all its good will and love of the band, just didn't know what to do with us. And, unfortunately, the people at the top — who'd originally signed the band — very quickly lost faith after a couple of singles didn't happen. We recorded a bad album, due to our inexperience in the studio, which also did nothing to help."

Meanwhile, however, Q-Tips were continuing to pack them in at concerts; over a two-year period, the band played 600 shows — a further three weeks or so were spent working on the album.

"But we got to a situation where we were strangling ourselves," Ged explains. "We got to the stage where we could easily fill halls of a certain capacity, say 1,500, but we needed something to help us make that leap to the next level, to 3,000-seat jobs. We needed £1,500 a show and we were running out of places that could pay us that.

"You have to make that jump otherwise you're doomed to go down. It's what happen to a lot of bands; they reach a certain level and then peter off unless they make that leap. And that leap is always a hit single or a series of them.

"Besides, I'd never been a manager, really. I was blagging my way, bluffing my way through it all. But I'd done a good job so far — it was just that I had no experience of marketing, of image or projection for the whole band. All of that, to me, was a learning process and all I ever saw the Q-Tips as was a vehicle for Paul."

In that kind of climate, it was inevitable the Q-Tips split. The band was £30,000 in debt, mainly to the taxman and the VAT man, and they owned Ged £15,000 in commission and money he'd invested in the group.

For much of the Q-Tips' career, Ged had also been managing Huang Chung, which had been formed out of another group — 57 Men, originally featuring Glenn Gregory and Leroy Gorman (Adam and The Ants and Bow Wow Wow) — put together by Nick Feldman, a fellow ex-agent who used to sell Ged bands in his college days.

Ged would pump his earnings from Huang Chung, now, of course, Wang Chung, into trying to break Q-Tips. Following their decision to quit, Ged finally succeeded in convincing Paul to go solo, something he'd resisted for a year.

"It was around the end of '81 — and I was living in a flat in Neasden with my girlfriend Amanda, who's now my wife. We had no money to pay the rent, the phone was cut off and the gas and electricity were due to be disconnected. I owed, personally, around £6,000, in debts to people. I hadn't paid any tax or VAT... I was gutted, absolutely.

"I came to the conclusion that I had to get a job, and one which would still allow me to concentrate on Paul, or manage Huang Chung. I decided to stick with Paul. I said to Huang Chung: 'Guys, I'm broke. I've got to get a job, which means I can't manage you. I recommend you get another manager.' We then worked out something whereby a friend of Nick's would be co-manager, but I said no.

"I relinquished all my contracts and left the guy to it. I didn't want anything, I didn't want to hold the band back. So I let them go."

Soon after, Ged enjoyed a pure slice of good fortune when John Reid rang him up, said he was leaving The Venue — and would he like his job?

"It was perfect," says Ged. "Having been an agent, I still knew everybody — and I could still manage Paul. Gradually, in the ten months I was there, I paid off all my debts and signed Paul to CBS.

As is history, the resulting No Parlez album from Mr Young shifted a phenomenal four million worldwide. But, before it hit the racks, Paul still had to endure the horrors of singing backing vocals and playing guitar on tour with Tight Fit.

"I was still at the Venue and Paul did that job — just so everybody could stay alive," Ged offers defensively. Today, so it seems, Ged enjoys a unique relationship with his artist's record company; they get on.

"The way I work with CBS is that I'm in there most days," he explains. "There's two ways, from what I can tell, that people manage. Some do all their managing through the label's managing director, he calls a head of department who calls someone else, and things get done that way. That's the fear motivation, if you like.

"I take the other approach, which is that everybody who's been involved with Paul since we signed here is, to me, part of the team that broke Paul Young — that's from our press officer and product manager to our TV promotions guy and the bloke who runs our international department. They are the people who've been with us since the beginning.

"I work with them as I, if I worked at a record company, would like somebody to work with me. Which is, 'Let me be involved and let me suggest things.' I have the same relationship with the managing director as with the person who makes the tea. And I would hope that one of my qualities as a manager — though I know it sounds corny — is being human."

Through it all, Ged has kept things sweet with Paul. "If Paul was an arsehole, I wouldn't be managing him," he declares. "Our relationship is based on friendship more than anything; we're the best of friends, we go on holiday together as mates. For us, that relationship works. I'm told it's very rare, and that most managers and artists are strictly business orientated. I do this because I enjoy doing it. The fact that now, hopefully, we'll both make a lot of money if we sustain this success makes it even more enjoyable!"

For the record, Ged Doherty is a mere 26 — an age which belies his experience — and he's so switched on he's already planning Paul Young's fourth album. To him, a long and durable career is about being selective and not giving too much away.

"Being a manager is like being a juggler," he laughs, "you've got all these different balls; the tour, the single, the album, TV shows — and you're constantly juggling things hoping that you don't drop anything and it all goes wrong. You're hoping you can keep all the balls in the air — which is keeping everything going."