Roman shows Trump how to be a winner
Where the US president ran into a brick wall, Chelsea’s owner has played a clever game, writes Jim White
uring the build-up to D London 2012 Lord Coe liked to tell a story about the difference between staging the Olympics in Britain and in China.
He had, in the early stages of planning for the Olympic Park in Stratford, gone on an official visit to Beijing’s mayor. By way of small talk, he told his host he had come direct from a heated meeting in London with a group of allotment holders who were objecting that their plots were to be absorbed into the park.
A look of incomprehension spread over the mayor’s face. “Objecting?” he said. “I don’t understand. In China there is none of that sort of thing.” Well, in this part of the world there is a tradition of objecting to the building of grandiose new sporting facilities.
Work, you may remember, stalled for months on the new White Hart Lane, when a scrap-metal dealer refused to sell up his yard. At the new Aviva Stadium in Dublin, the whole plan had to be tweaked after objections from the owner of a nearby house, alarmed at the shadow it would have cast. That is why the roof has an odd kink in it, to let light pass into the neighbours.
Even the most powerful man in the world has not been able to get his way when it comes to a good oldfashioned bit of British Nimbyism. Back in 2008, Donald Trump announced he was going to build a new golf course just north of Aberdeen.
He spoke extravagantly of the benefits it would bring, he had the backing of the Scottish government, he insisted he was going to create “the very best golf course in the world”.
What he did not take into account was Michael Forbes, a local farmer. Forbes described himself at the time as “thrawn”, a
Even Donald Trump has not been able to get his way in the face of a bit of British Nimbyism
local word for stubborn. And thrawn he was, refusing to sell his land.
Initially Trump tried to charm him, even offering him a job. But his assumption every man has his price turned out to be misguided, Forbes refused to sell.
Then, Trump demonstrated his wholehearted affection for the little guy by bad mouthing Forbes at every turn. He called his property a slum, a pigsty, complaining the man himself smelt; it was, in short, the kind of grown-up stuff that passes as international diplomacy now he is in the White House.
When that failed, he took to plain bullying, banning Forbes from crossing his land, parking machinery to block his view, even making false complaints to the RSPCA about how Forbes treated his animals. None of it worked.
Ten years on, as the course has been built around him, Forbes has stuck where he is, painting the words “No More Trump Lies” on the side on of an outbuilding. Since Trump became president, Forbes has become lauded in the US, TV crews pile over the Atlantic to interview him, Vanity Fair magazine ran a huge feature on him.
And Roman Abramovich appears to have been watching Trump’s failure. When a neighbour of his in Chelsea issued an injunction in the attempt to stall his £1 billion rebuild of Stamford Bridge, pointing out that the new stands will block out much of the natural light, Abramovich did not seek publicly to humiliate the property owner.
Instead, the Chelsea owner bided his time, waiting for his local council to come in and issue a compulsory purchase order on the property, invalidating the injunction. They duly did so yesterday night, siding with the oligarch against the local guy. Not for the first time, it appears, a Russian has shown Trump how to get things done.