THE MAN WHO SOLD HAMPDEN

Queen’s president recalls heated stand-off with SFA and breakthrough lifeline for stadium deal THE SFA last month concluded a £5million deal with Queen’s Park to preserve Hampden as the home of Scottish football. As the national team prepare to face Portu

EYEING up the damp on the walls, the SFA took a sharp intake of breath and offered to take Hampden off the hands of Queen’s Park for a pound. Almost as if they were doing them a favour.

Scotland’s oldest senior club were faced with a choice.

They either viewed that as an act of gross disrespect and prepare for a fight.

Or they saw it as the first blank round in a risky, high-stakes game of Russian Roulette.

Hardliners amongst the membership veered towards the first course. Club president Gerry Crawley preferred the latter.

Offering the inside track on the painful, lengthy process which ended in Scotland’s governing body eventually agreeing to pay £5million for ownership of Scotland’s national stadium, Crawley (right) concedes the process was fraught with anger and tension from the start.

‘There was certainly a view amongst the membership at large and some of my colleagues that there was a disrespect shown towards Queen’s Park,’ he tells

Sportsmail now. ‘That wasn’t necessarily my own personal opinion. My experience from a hard commercial world is that sometimes you are disrespected.

‘It’s up to you to fight for the outcome you want. The story came out that the SFA started with an incredibly low offer of a pound for Hampden and that can be seen either as disrespectful, or the start of a negotiating stance.’

Queen’s Park had carried out surveys and set a valuation of £6m for the stadium. Inevitably the SFA came back with a more realistic offer of £2m. A stand-off ensued. ‘I was always careful to remind my Queen’s Park colleagues it was never “them and us,”’ says Crawley. ‘We are part of the SFA, remember. ‘But some of my colleagues held the view that what was happening wasn’t right. There were some lively discussions.’ He admits now to bouts of short temper. There were times during testing weeks of negotiations when he had to remind himself why he took the job on in the first place.

A former Celtic groundstaff player alongside Charlie Nicholas, Danny Crainie and Mark Reid, he was released from Parkhead at the age of 18. Queen’s Park offered salvation.

‘I had a really difficult time in life at that point,’ he admits now. ‘Then Eddie Hunter came along one Sunday afternoon, signed me for Queen’s Park and I went back to senior football.

‘I had three magnificent years with Queen’s. If I’m honest, I felt I owed the club.’

Now the vice-chairman of a corporate communications company, Crawley was approached by former president Alan Hutchison to take over in May. The danger of becoming the man who led Queen’s Park over a precipice was real.

If the SFA moved to Murrayfield, the very future of the club which provided the players for Scotland’s first national team was on the line.

Historic loans for the redevelopment of the South Stand would have to be repaid. Debenture holders would want their money back.

The final bill for liabilities was an unsustainable £16m.

To show willing, Queen’s Park lowered their asking price to £5m. Yet a £3m gap between the two sides left discussions on the verge of collapse until Lord Willie Haughey read of the stand-off in

Sportsmail and offered to bridge

Without the intervention of Lord Willie Haughey and Sir Tom Hunter, people would be staring at a crater