OLD SCHOOL
When the late Sir Hugh Fraser took over struggling Dumbarton Football Club 33 years ago he surrounded himself with successful businessmen with fresh ideas who were committed to their community and dyedin-the-wool supporters of the local football team.
The highest transfer fee the Sons of the Rock had ever paid out was to Falkirk FC, just £13,500 for club captain Mark Clougherty, so it was with incredulitythatthesupporters at Boghead Park learned that their club was in the market to sign the Dutch internationalist and European footballer of the year, Johann Cruyff.
The offer put to Cruyff by Sir Hugh and manager Sean Fallon, recruited from European Cup-winning Celtic, was of an astonishing £1,500 per match.
The idea was that Dumbarton FC, rescued from liquidation by “white knight” Sir Hugh, were prepared to gamble that Cruyff ’s signing would increase gates sufficiently to recoup the outlay.
If this did not happen then Sir Hugh and a small group of directors and “super fans” would meet the cost of paying Cruyff out of their own pockets.
Businessman Robert Dawson, who has died aged 73, was one such fan who agreed to make this financial commitment, although there was no requirement for him to do so when the negotiations collapsed after Cruyff was guaranteed a £1.5 million contract to play in the US.
Dawson’s support for his team was passionate and unceasing and he was later involved with his inseparable friend, builder Archie Hagen, in persuading big football names such as the former Celtic players, Lisbon Lion Bertie Auld, and Scottish internationalist Murdo Macleod, and Rangers stars Davie Wilson and Alex Totten, to take on the management role at Dumbarton.
He later became a director and eventually chairman of the club.
Robert Dawson was born at home in Croft Street, Bonhill, Vale of Leven, to Robert and Jean Dawson. He lived his early life there and attended Bonhill Primary School for whom he played football in the Russell Cup and won it. This cup was fiercely contested at Millburn Park by schools throughout West Dunbartonshire in an era when thousands of fans turned out to watch even schools football.
He moved up to Vale of Leven Academy where his leisure time was spent between playing football and joining in the activities of the First Bonhill Boys Brigade.
The Rev Ian Miller, who conductedrobert’sfuneralservice at Cardross Crematorium, told the packed congregation: “Perhaps it was there that Robert developed his strong Christian beliefs, principles and values.”
When he left the Academy, Robert went straight into the fruiterers’ business run by his parents on Main Street, Bonhill. The Dawson family were originally from Glasgow, where they traded in the old fruit market in Candleriggs.
He met his wife, Helena May, a farmer’s daughter from Gartocharn, at a dance organised by the Loch Lomond Young Farmers’ Club. They later married, set up house in Alexandria, and had three daughters, Jacqueline, Jane and Jill.
Robert was an excellent dancer,havingbeenamember of the Stewart School of Dancing in Alexandria, which took part in the Edinburgh Festival each year.
He passed his driving test and took charge of the deliveries of fruit and vegetables from a new shop at the Fountain Alexandria to the many guest houses and hotels in the Loch Lomondside area, some of which he was later to own himself.
It was from small beginnings that Mr Dawson entered the licensed trade in 1977 when he also became a community activist. He was elected to the local council and was responsible with fellow Labour councillors, Duncan Mills, Michael Haran, Jimmy Craig, Hector Mcculloch and Communists Willie Lamont and Duncan Mcgowan for the slum clearances and a large social housing programme in Bonhill, Renton, Jamestown and Alexandria, where a new town centre was established.
Robert was diversifying in business at this time and he bought the Burgh Bar in Dumbarton; the Lomond Park Hotel in Balloch and the Dillichip Hotel in Bonhill. He was later to extend his portfolio to ownership of other hotels and licensed premises, including the Water House Inn at Balloch.
He still found time for football though and, with Archie Hagen, persuaded Murdo Macleod who had recently returned from playing for Borussia Dortmund in Germany, to be Dumbarton’s manager.
Robert and Archie Hagen were well known in every football boardroom in Scotland and even in the Republic of Ireland where they once flew to Sligo in a private plane with Sir Hugh and Sean Fallon to see the local Rovers. Once, when Dumbarton were playing in Inverness, they missed the team bus and hired a plane to get them there and back. Both men travelled regularly to Europe to watch matches involving Scottish teams.
Robert Dawson’s community work extended to him becoming a founder member of The Lions Club which met weekly at the Dumbuck Hotel in Dumbarton to organise social and fund-raising events for charity.
With his wife, Helena, Robert and their daughters travelled widely in Europe, South America and the Far East, but he worked hard, sometimes round the clock.
Mr Miller said: “He was driven in many ways by his work. Robert had a huge work ethic and was a business person of the old school. He loved going up to the fruit market in the morning and bartering for the produce he would sell in the family shops. He was a generous man too and he did a great deal for charity in a quiet way, never broadcasting what he had done.”
The now retired minister of Bonhill Parish Church said Robert had helped to finance a book about the history of the parish – “It did not stop there. He was generous, very generous to Bonhill Church.
“I often referred to Robert as my twin brother for we were born on the same day. I would never tell him at what time I was born though, because neither of us wanted to be known as the wee brother. It was a privilege to have known him. He was one of the Vale of Leven’s honoured sons.”
Robert Dawson is survived by his wife, Helena, daughters Jacqueline, Jane and Jill, grandchildren Helena and Alexander, and sons-in-law of Grant and Eddy. BILL HEANEY The Scotsman welcomes obituaries and appreciations from contributors as well as suggestions of possible obituary subjects. Please contact: Gazette Editor n The Scotsman, Level 7, Orchard Brae House, 30 Queensferry Road, Edinburgh EH4 2HS; n gazette@scotsman.com
“Robert had a huge work ethic and was a business person of the old school. He was a generous man, too, and he did a great deal for charity”