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Alan Pattullo chats to former Hibs Chairman David Duff
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00:00Hello, I'm Alan Patollo, football writer at the Scotsman newspaper. I'm here with David Duff.
00:08Hello.
00:09I'm the first-while chairman of the Hibernia Football Club in the 19th and early 19th and June.
00:18That period, David, covers the febrile summer when Wallace Mercia, owner of the Parks, tried to buy
00:28the Hibs in one of the most controversial episodes in Scottish football history, still holds its
00:35charge 35 years later, which is one reason why David has written this extraordinary book,
00:45Sunset on the Hibs, subtitled The Plot to Destroy Ibernia.
00:51And, yeah, it deserves that dramatic tagline, David, because it's a remarkable, remarkable
00:58story with you very much from the centre.
01:02We'll get on to that episode in a little while, in a few minutes, but first of all, David,
01:09explain how you even became chairman of Hibs.
01:12So, first of all, it's my story, and so that's very relevant, because it's how I saw things,
01:17and I want to make that clear that other people can have other opinions, but it's my story.
01:22And I've always been a Hibs supporter.
01:24I was a supporter of the Carlton Club, and used to sell bingo tickets to get on the bus
01:29to the Awakening family.
01:31You know, I was at Trinity.
01:33I used to play rugby in the morning and go for the morning afternoon.
01:36I think people are still doing that to the very day.
01:39And one day, I was in the stand with some friends and my brother-in-law, and it was pretty
01:44dire stuff, and we just kind of raised the question, I wonder if we could buy this
01:49and make Hibs great again.
01:51And everything came from there.
01:53It was quite a cast list of personalities and characters that some people might be familiar
02:00with, even now.
02:02David Rowland, I think.
02:03So, when I decided I wanted to buy Hibs, I had a very defined idea, right or wrong,
02:09that we couldn't really get the football income from bums on seats, as it were, like
02:16Celtic and Rangers can because of the head and bushes, no grounds, but by that size.
02:20So, at that time, the entrepreneurial thing was that we put other income into the club.
02:27David Rowland was a client of my firm who had diverse properties, commercial properties.
02:34You were a lawyer at this time.
02:35It included, for example, the Meadowbank building, which was the Inland Revenue.
02:43So, really good tenants that were going to pay their rent.
02:47Hopefully, the government paid their rent.
02:49And so, the idea was, and my idea that I took to him was, let me buy this football club,
02:54and let's make the football club, a family business for both of us, where we can build
03:00on Scottish properties that don't take a lot of time.
03:05And we can finance a great football club on the back of that.
03:09So, that was the start.
03:10David Rowland, at the time, obviously became what he became.
03:14He became a conservative party.
03:17What role did he...?
03:18So, that's much later on.
03:20Much later.
03:21But people might remember him.
03:22Yeah.
03:23What was David Rowland's, what was he then...?
03:25So, he was a man of some mystery, but he had an enormous business background.
03:30Yeah.
03:31Lived abroad, but had his London house.
03:33Lived abroad, probably for tax reasons, I would guess.
03:36Yeah.
03:37But what happened was, I knew often, because I knew his first wife, Sheila, who was another
03:44West London solicitor, and who would eventually become a new director, I think the first female
03:51director in Scottish football, and she became the director of it.
03:54Yeah.
03:55Interesting.
03:56Fascinating time.
03:57I think you described yourself as a socialist Tory, I think it was.
04:02Yeah.
04:03Well, if I don't, that's probably right.
04:06That's right.
04:07You're right.
04:08I think we've all got a social conscience that maybe Imperial doesn't have.
04:13Yeah.
04:14And I would say now I'm very much to the left of the center.
04:17Yeah.
04:18But then, I was part of the sort of Thatcher Yuppie.
04:21Didn't really support Thatcher, but supported her kind of, let's make money.
04:26Yeah.
04:27You know, and as a young man, made a lot of money in property, and was able then to, you
04:32know, at a very early age, to realize a dream of then, not just having my own football
04:38club, but having the football club that I loved and supported.
04:41You became chairman of Hibbs.
04:42This is, this is all in the, this is all in the book.
04:45It's a, it's a complicated little story, but it's a fascinating story.
04:48David, you became chairman.
04:49Yeah.
04:50You installed your brother-in-law, Jim.
04:51Yes.
04:52Gray.
04:53Yes.
04:54As, um, uh, Chief Executive.
04:56Yeah.
04:57And, uh, I think, and like you say, in the blow-up for that summer of 1990, the adult,
05:02um, you, uh, created headlines as well by, um, on the stock exchange.
05:08So that, so that was the general plan.
05:10The plan was to buy these properties on a share issue with, you know, perhaps the traditional
05:15shareholders and plans.
05:17So that the rents would belong to Hibbs.
05:20So that we would have that as pure income, not money that we have to pay back.
05:24Yeah.
05:25So that was the plan.
05:26And had it worked, it would have blown apart.
05:29Look, I'm not going to take credit for saying that I'm the only person that could do that
05:34in those days, because I took a book out of an urban scholar, who I think was, you know,
05:39a, um, a pathfinder.
05:40He was at Tottenham when I spoke to him a few times.
05:44And he, he had been the first person to float a football club in this country.
05:49So I was the second person in Scotland, but the second in Britain.
05:52And the plan, what happened was, and is this something you accept?
05:57Did this leave Hibbs exposed somewhat to what happened later in 1990?
06:03It left Hibbs vulnerable to an approach from somebody like Wallace Merton.
06:07So it has to, it has to be said that when you become a public company, you're, you have
06:12lots of shareholders.
06:13And if they sell your shares, then you're open to, uh, um, uh, being taken over by.
06:20I would have not at any time.
06:23Would I imagine that the parts of the loading would have wanted to, um, take up the Hibbs.
06:27Um, but the, the error was very probably, so two things happened.
06:33First of all, just before we floated, there was black Tuesday.
06:36And the stock exchange that we could not then do a share issue.
06:40So we had to revamp the thing so that, and bring in more institutional shareholders.
06:44And by that, I mean, banks and, uh, you know, and insurance companies who would buy blocks
06:49of shares for that.
06:50And, but still the plan was there.
06:52And then the second disastrous thing from my point of view was that David Roland had a
06:57terrible business turnaround.
06:59And one of his companies got put into bankruptcy, uh, for, um, uh, not paying brewery bills.
07:06And he had to pay all his bills to get those back.
07:09And they would become Avon Inns.
07:11I never really wanted Avon Inns.
07:13I wanted the property in Scotland.
07:15If I look back, I should probably say I should have really fought harder than I did.
07:22Um, but I naively trusted my partner and that was a mistake.
07:27And, you know, it wasn't any mistake I made, but I still say the vision was an incredible
07:32vision that nearly worked.
07:34And we were a bit unlucky along the line, but I hold my hands up.
07:38I did leave the club susceptible to an outside bit.
07:42And the last thing in the world we always expected would be from hearts.
07:46Well, I, I think I'm right in saying, David, well, how a Scottish football club came to own
07:51a chain of inns and bars in the west of England is, uh, intriguing, again, in the state.
07:58Um, but, uh, one of the upshots eventually, David Roland invites you down to London or summons
08:03you to London and says something along the lines of David, you will, you will, you will
08:07leave rather.
08:08So, so, so, so, so I think, I think you need to wind back a bit because my relationship
08:13with David Roland started to sour a little bit before then because I wouldn't stop improving
08:18the team.
08:19Yeah.
08:20And he put an embargo on me to buy players and I bought, um, Mark McGraw.
08:24Mark McGraw.
08:25Was it Morton there?
08:26Morton.
08:27Yeah.
08:28And of course his dad had been a big hit.
08:29So, you know, and he was incredibly, um, sought out at the time.
08:35And Mark himself was very unlucky because he, he, he, he could have been a great player,
08:40but he sustained injuries.
08:41But I took the pump on him and I bought him and Roland went through the roof.
08:46And he said, you know, I'm just not obeying him.
08:49But my, uh, I was much younger then, but, uh, you know, like the, the conflict between businessmen
08:56and fan was, uh, the fan would always win.
08:59I'm afraid, you know, I was in that to make things a great club.
09:02And that's what I wanted to do.
09:04Yeah.
09:05So, and look, I'm not going to pretend that old suit.
09:08I'm going to write some of the decisions I made put the club at risk.
09:12I apologize.
09:13And even now for that, I wish I'd had more vision and more insight.
09:17But at the end of the day, my motivation was always to have a great head-earning club.
09:22Well, thank you.
09:23And so David, um, David Roland invites you to London and, um, says,
09:32he's the man I have.
09:35I know he thought it was such a great job.
09:37You know, I'm sitting in his flat and Wallace isn't there.
09:41It's just him and Jeremy James.
09:42And in comes Wallace.
09:44You know, there's some kind in our life when we think that this is too surreal to be real.
09:49It's one of those moments, but both Alan Monroe and Jim Gray were downstairs.
09:55His flat was, um, opposite the Hilton.
09:58They were, they were in the Hilton.
10:00And basically, uh, what I was told is I should go straight back to Edinburgh
10:05and go onto the press conference the next day and basically hand over the Hibbs keys
10:12and the prayers and everything that Hibbs was to Wallace Mercer.
10:17And he's really underestimated how difficult that would be for him for me to do that.
10:23And, and so, you know, I, I played his back and went, oh, that sounds great.
10:27Cause there was a lot of money coming my way.
10:29Oh, I'm going to be a rich man.
10:30And it's all presented that way.
10:33And I went downstairs and told the boys what happened and said, like,
10:36we go back to Edinburgh into the boardroom and it's a war cabinet.
10:42If he really expected me to be on the stage the next morning at the press conference,
10:48that was very naive.
10:49He didn't understand what had meant for me.
10:52You held firm.
10:53Um, might talk later about whether he wobbled at all.
10:57You can ask me that, but I'll tell you now.
10:59I didn't.
11:00Yeah.
11:01Um, Tom Farmer now has the reputation very much of a savior.
11:05Um, and, and, uh, in terms of what you did that summer.
11:06If, if, if, if, if my book comes out as being highly criticism, criticizing any person, I'll
11:18be disappointed.
11:19And, you know, I've tried to tell the story as it was.
11:21And I don't think Hibbies, whoever they are, should underestimate the fact that he did guarantee
11:25the bank loan.
11:26And to me, that was the best thing that Tom ever did because it gave the time to redistribute
11:39what was going on.
11:40But I will say this, and only this is the best thing that Tom ever did because it gave
11:45the time to redistribute what was going on.
11:48But I will say this and only this, I was, um, working really hard at the time to bring,
12:01uh, a big planning, um, a big planning advantage to the straight in the state, which would have
12:09seen him make tens of millions of pounds over the years that were about to come.
12:15And that's all documented and it would have put a stadium up there, which I know isn't
12:20there.
12:21I think I deal with it.
12:22And the only thing I'm saying is that others continued with that plan.
12:28Um, and they did nothing wrong, but they, they were, they acted as businessmen, not
12:34group of plans to connect with it that way.
12:36And my only disappointment is that over the years that it comes in, I don't feel Hibs have
12:43benefited from their property assets and potential that they might have done had it been dealt
12:50with in a different way.
12:51But I don't want to be overcritical.
12:53Nothing happened here that was legal or wrong.
12:56It's just whether, are you a football fan or are you a businessman?
12:59Tom Farmer told me at the beginning he wasn't a football fan.
13:02I, and I, and I think he did his best for Hibs, but he never really felt what it's like to
13:10go on a Saturday afternoon and watch your team and all that that means and all that tribalism
13:16is and all that, you know, sinners and saints, policemen and criminals all sitting together,
13:21singing the same song and wanting the same guy.
13:24I don't think he ever felt that and I'm very sad that he'd probably been, I may be wrong,
13:29but I, I think he probably didn't.
13:31He acted as a business as a fan.
13:32I am not going to sit on an interview and close by Tom Farmer.
13:35Tom Farmer was one of the people who saved Hibs, but he wasn't the only one.
13:40Thank you, David.
13:41And I just say, read more about it in this book and read more about it on scotsman.com.
13:46.
14:07.
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