Richard Ashcroft and then attended Winstanley College, where he met Nick McCabe. His teachers referred to him as "the cancer of the class", though one member of staff recalled him being "incredibly intelligent". Ashcroft was an avid football player, playing junior football for Wigan Athletic. For some time Ashcroft wanted to be a professional football player, idolising George Best, but as he grew older he lost interest in this, turning to music instead. Ashcroft formed The Verve (originally just Verve) in 1990 with McCabe, Jones, and Salisbury. The band signed to Hut Records and became well known for their appetite for both
Michael Ashcroft netting Ashcroft over £200 million. In 1997, ADT was sold by a reverse takeover to US conglomerate Tyco International for $6.7 billion, allowing Tyco to become tax-efficient. Ashcroft disposed of large amounts of the Tyco stock which he had acquired as a result of the sale of ADT, explaining that he needed the capital to diversify into other things and that he never retained a substantial stake in any enterprise which he did not control. Ashcroft nevertheless continued as a non-executive director of Tyco, a role he still held in 2002 when Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski was arrested in New