Hibs’ Invisible Man emerges with bold blueprint for Leith
RON GORDON was proud to adopt the family credo as he purchased a controlling stake in Hibs but detects a little too much emphasis on the second verb as he surveys the wider Scottish football landscape.
When the American businessman set up his Bydand Sports company to buy the shareholdings of Sir Tom Farmer and Rod Petrie, he annexed the word fight. Some days, he wishes others would take a similarly less confrontational view.
Although a huge sports fan and proud of his Scottish roots, Gordon senses our game’s rivalries are too febrile, too disposed to rancour and enmity.
‘That is a shame,’ he remarks. ‘I have seen a little bit of that here and it doesn’t help the game at all.
‘It is counterproductive, a little bit too primal; too tribal, too violent and it is just not good for the game.
‘I like that people get passionate about their team and all that, but man, it is only a game.’
Where a significant section of Hibs fans see Hearts as the enemy, Gordon sees not only a rival but a potential business partner.
Already he has led delegations to speak with his counterpart across the city Ann Budge, specifically to discuss areas on which the club could collaborate commercially to mutual benefit.
In a wide-ranging address prior to the club’s annual general meeting last Wednesday evening, Gordon identified a range of targets for the next five years. Key to driving improvement will be an increase in the club’s commercial productivity.
Some of the work will involve injecting some zest into the club’s identity and brand and he will also seek partnerships on the other side of Edinburgh.
‘I would like to work with Hearts,’ he continued. ‘I have met three times with Ann and her team. We took a team from Hibs to talk about several areas where we could collaborate.
‘I know they are going through a difficult time, so maybe this is not their focus right now, but the fact we are in the same industry and can work together to improve this industry and experience is interesting.
‘I would like to explore this because if you put the two clubs together in terms of delivery of audience and digital engagement, that is a big number.
‘Together we would be Edinburgh football. We need to stay separate and have the rivalry but I’d love to see how we can use the two platforms to offer something bigger and better.’
Largely silent since taking control last July, Gordon jokingly referred to himself as ‘The Invisible Man’ in an interview with the club’s in-house media channel a few months later.
The remark may have seemed flippant to a support base keen to hear from their new leader but, in person, he comes across as anything but. Personable, measured and with an impressive grasp of the day-to-day workings of the club, he strikes a genuine and persuasive tone at odds with so many who have parachuted in to Scottish football with grand statements matched only by the scale of their eventual demise.
Gordon insists he stayed out of the limelight precisely because he was working on a detailed plan to elevate Hibs to a new level. Not one at which he envisages an imminent challenge for the Premiership title but one which allows the club to take on Hearts and Aberdeen in terms of financial muscle.
The club is currently debt-free, has cash reserves in the region of £5.5million and there is a strategy to double turnover and player budget within five years.
‘We’ve put a lot of effort into what we think is a comprehensive plan,’ explained Gordon. ‘To execute that is a process, it’s not going to happen straight away.
‘This is not a quick investment. Football investments are difficult. They are hard to make money from, so you need to be in it for the long term. The aim here is to create value.’
Born in Peru and resident in Miami, Gordon visits Edinburgh every six weeks but retains a daily hotline to Easter Road.
‘I get up in the morning and the call to Scotland is my first,’ he says. ‘The truth of the matter is that Hibs is taking my biggest focus.
‘I am the founder director of a bank which is 12 years old but it has a great management team, so I don’t need to be too involved unless we are doing something strategic or changing things.’
In terms of US sport, Gordon (below) favours hockey, basketball and soccer over American football — ‘it takes too long, it’s violent, I don’t really like it’ — and has tapped into his Stateside connections in order to get a feel for what might be required and transferable to Hibs.
‘I live in Miami now but I lived in Washington and I went to see DC United,’ he added. ‘My favourite team is the hockey team in Washington, the Capitals.
‘I actually met with the top senior people at the Caps a couple of weeks ago and they were so helpful, I was able to ask a hundred questions.
‘There are things we can learn from other sports in the way we sell tickets, the way we promote players. You have a conversation and you may get one nugget you can adapt.
‘We had people go down to Spurs’ new stadium. Granted, it’s a bigger scale, but there are great ideas you can execute at your scale. ‘Commercialism is an area I wish we were better at. I would like to see us be more creative, create more value. Right now, in my opinion, a lot of what we have to offer is a little bit too blah. We need to create excitement with our corporate partners.’
Already Gordon has overseen one piece of crisis management in which Paul Heckingbottom was sacked and replaced with Jack Ross. The appointment effectively ended the threat of relegation, a concept he is still trying to get his head around. ‘In the US, it would never ever cross anybody’s mind to have promotion and relegation,’ he says. ‘That would be absurd. No business guy would ever do that, invest in this knowing you could get relegated and end up playing in South Cupcake, Iowa!’
As previously touched on, there have been a series of foreign investors who have been burned by their flirtations with Scottish football, yet Gordon is certain he has picked the right club in the right environment.
‘I looked at several countries to invest in,’ he added. ‘I looked at two clubs in the US, two clubs in England, a club in Spain and then a couple of clubs up here.
‘At the end of the day this one just ticked so many good boxes.
‘My heritage is Scottish, I used to take my kids on trips to Aberdeenshire and loved it. We drank too much Scotch but apart from that it was fantastic.
‘So it just brought a lot of things together from a personal and family perspective. To find a club like this... wow. I feel very blessed.’