THE MAN WHO SAVED HAMPDEN
Lord Haughey couldn’t bear the thought of Glasgow not being home of Scottish football
HE liked the stadium so much he bought it. The businessman peers from the heights of the business he has built and says: ‘If I sit here and look out of this window, 90 per cent of what has been fundamental to my life is in front of me. Right in front of me.’
His arm sweeps across the window high in the Gorbals. ‘The church, the hallowed ground, my school and where I was born. Every single thing. My life is in front of me and Hampden is at my back,’ he adds.
The speaker is Lord Haughey. The ‘hallowed ground’ is Celtic Park. The subject for immediate discussion, though, is Hampden.
The chat later ranges to beating Boris Becker to win a poker tournament, babysitting the Lisbon Lions, finding inspiration from a Gorbals barber and the twist that led him from the football pitch to the boardroom.
But, first, Lord Haughey’s intervention — and money — saved Hampden for the Scottish Football Association and maintained international football in Glasgow. It cost him £1.25million.
‘Why? To be honest, as much as I was a local boy, the No 1 reason about giving the money to Hampden was nothing to do with that. It was about Glasgow being the home of Scottish football,’ he declares. ‘I was terrified with the thought of Scotland’s best moving to Edinburgh. That was it.’
‘If Hampden had been in Riddrie, I would have done the same thing. The history, the games that are known through the world, the great times I have had there — laughing, crying. I felt I had to step in.’
His decision was made quickly. He explains: ‘I had read an article in the Scottish Daily Mail. I wasn’t taking much to do with it. But I thought: “I don’t like the look of this. It is looking like it is heading towards Murrayfield”.’
‘The stumbling block was the differential between the valuation of the SFA and Queen’s Park.
I phoned a source and confirmed this. I told him I would be happy to fill the void. It was £2.5m. This hit the papers and Tom (Sir Tom Hunter) phoned me and said: “I would like to help, too. I will pay half”.’
He chuckles at the conspiracy theories that suggest there were ulterior motives.
‘Both of us, we never asked for anything,’ says Haughey. ‘It was about securing Hampden as the home of Scottish football.
‘It makes me feel fantastic. It is marvellous for the city. It would have been terrible if the history and the legacy of Hampden had disappeared.’
And where had he stood in that history?
‘My first time at Hampden was my dad taking me to the 1965 Scottish Cup final (when Celtic beat Dunfermline 3-2),’ he says.
He then pauses as a memory strikes. ‘No, I am going to give you an exclusive, that’s not true,’ he continues. ‘As a seven-year-old kid, I was staying with my granny in Castlemilk and my Uncle John, who wasn’t a big fitba’ fan, had been lumbered with me.
‘He asked me if I wanted to go to the football and I remember the excitement and the crowds. I was buzzing but I had just watched Rangers beat Celtic 3-0.’
He smiles at his innocence as he remembers this Scottish Cup final replay of 1963 but the other final, two years later, had a historic importance both personal and for the club he supports.
‘It was the only game my dad
took me to in his life,’ he says of the match where Celtic defeated Dunfermline — and signalled the start of an extraordinary trophy haul under Jock Stein.
Lord Haughey later became a member of the Celtic board and the chairman of the Lisbon Lions testimonial committee in 1992.
‘You have to pinch yourself sometimes,’ he admits. ‘As a kid, I watched them all play — then I was involved in that tribute year.
‘I was like Kindergarten Cop, taking them all over the world. Trying to manage them was impossible. God knows what they must have been like in their heyday.
‘Character made that team and they showed it on their travels with me.’
He smiles in remembrance but there were serious moments in his relationship with the Lions.
The most poignant was when Jimmy Johnstone came to his office and upended a carrier bag on the table, saying: ‘Right, here’s all my medals, I want 10 grand’.
Johnstone, who was in the throes of a problem with drink, was instead offered help. He went on to have a fulfilling life before dying from motor neurone disease in 2006, 14 years after that fateful meeting in the Gorbals.
‘It was a big, big thing for me simply to meet the Lions,’ says Haughey. ‘But it was a privilege to become a friend.’
HERE’S the twist. ‘I believed I could be a football player. I went for trials with various clubs but when I was 16, I tore the muscle in the top of my left leg and it was all over,’ he says.
‘I went to Holyrood (Secondary School) as a smart kid but I concentrated so much on football I was getting dumber and dumber.
‘When I had the injury, I went to the headmaster and said: “I know
I have been messing about but I am staying on”. He said: “No, you’re not. Get your dad to get you a job. You’re a waster”. He was right.’
Lord Haughey, the son of a painter and decorator, one-time child of a Gorbals tenement with an outside toilet, returned to Holyrood recently as a celebrated former pupil.
He adds: ‘One of the kids asked me: “Willie, you played for the school, you were a decent player. Are you disappointed that you didn’t make it as a player?”
‘I replied: “Not really, I don’t think I could live on the money they earn’’. That got a chuckle.’
The truth is deeply serious. Haughey is executive chairman of City Facilities Management Holdings, the company he started with his wife Susan in 1985. He employs 15,000 people and the turnover is in excess of £600m a year.
‘I’ll tell you who my inspiration was,’ he says, gesturing to the window. ‘I played out there on the pitches. In the summer, we were out there day and night, we would watch this wee man come to his work and leave every day. He had a barber’s shop and I saw him opening up, locking up. I thought: “That’s great, he’s his own boss, he can make his own hours”. That stuck with me. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I wanted to be my own boss.’
After his abrupt departure from Holyrood, he studied at Langside College and then Springburn Technical College where he gained his qualifications in refrigeration and air conditioning that became the basis of business that now inhabits a sprawling complex in the Gorbals.
‘I didn’t know this when I bought the site but we worked out later I was born where the car park is now,’ he says.
He once dabbled at becoming a recreational poker player. ‘From about 2007-2010, I played in tournaments and I won the championship in 2008 in Monte Carlo, beating Boris Becker in the final.’
But football is his only diversion now. ‘The game has always been a huge part of my life,’ he says. ‘When
I was young, all I wanted to be was a footballer and then, by chance, I got close to great footballers. I was lucky enough to be on the Celtic board. Outside of my family and business, football is all I have really had. It is my great passion.’
Asked if he was contemplating further investment in the game, he replies: ‘I’m happy and proud to be an ambassador with Celtic. I don’t have any other plans.’
A one-time sponsor of the Scottish Cup, he remains a keen observer of the game.
‘People will be talking about the last ten years in Scottish football in 100 years’ time,’ he says.
‘Look at the number of clubs who looked like they were heading for extinction. But I think now through all those tribulations Scottish football is in rude health.
‘Celtic are breaking transfer records, spending £9m and £7m on players. They are trying to up the ante. Maybe, for the first time in years, they have some competition and that is a good thing.’
He is a strong advocate of Peter Lawwell, chief executive, and the club. ‘It is about more than just winning cups, though they have been very successful in that,’ insists Haughey. ‘But just look at the stadium. It makes you feel proud and look at the way they have recognised icons of the past. It is very modern, but there is a sense of history.’
There is time for a final piece of personal Hampden history.
‘Best match? The European Cup semi against Leeds in 1970 stands out,’ he says. ‘I had a kid’s ticket and I had never been in a crowd like that. It was overflowing.
‘When Leeds scored, I fainted and was taken behind the goal. When Celtic scored the winner, the steward threw me into the Celtic end, which was far from where I started out.’
He comes back to the present, looks around the office and says: ‘If somebody had told me when we started that we would be employing thousands of people, I would have said: “No chance.’’.
‘Responsibility for 15,000 people and their families, their mortgages? I would not have wanted that grief. But it has grown and grown. Susan was and is the foundation for the business.’
The window in the conference room looks out on to a pitch. Lord Haughey looks out. He is now high up but somehow it feels as if his feet are still on the ground.