We won’t apologise for parking the big red bus because we’re different
SAYS HAMILTON CHAIRMAN LES GRAY
FOR HAMILTON Academical, trial by
Sportscene has almost become a weekly event. The charges are numerous. Empty stands and low crowds. An artificial pitch. And then there’s the Big Red Bus; the old double decker parked behind a goal in a corner of New Douglas Park.
‘The red bus, in particular, is held against us,’ chairman Les Gray tells Sportsmail. ‘That doesn’t bother me because we’re not moving it.’
Like much of what Hamilton do, the old bus is there for a reason. Converted into a Community Trust cafe, it’s a source of revenue. Panned into shot when players take a crack at goal on Sportscene, the bus adds a mildly unconventional streak to Scottish football. Not everyone appreciates a football club bringing a bus to the party; yet Accies offer no apology for doing things a little differently. ‘People want best v best in Scottish football,’ adds Gray. ‘And if it’s best v best in terms of football players, then Hamilton deserve to be at the party.
‘What do people want to do? To compare our red bus at the back of the pitch to other clubs? Compare our synthetic pitch? Compare our low crowds and low season base?
‘Because my answer to that is this: What does any of that have to do with what happens on the park?’
For Hamilton, every season begins the same way. In a rain forest of newspaper pull-outs predicting this is the season they go down. Last term, like the proverbial broken clock, the predictions were almost proven right.
Martin Canning’s side overcame Dundee United 1-0 on aggregate in the Play-off final in May to retain their top-tier status. Still the only club to have won promotion to the Premiership via the play-offs, Accies have been tolerated more than accepted. But still they hang in there; the nightclub stragglers who refuse to budge at last orders.
Many would rather see Dundee United or Dunfermline, with their bigger stadia and infrastructures, take their place. Yet Gray, a passionate exponent of youth football, is unrepentant. ‘Listen, if empty stands on
Sportscene are the problem they have with Hamilton then it’s not just us,’ he continues. ‘It’s a problem for a few clubs in the Scottish Premiership.
‘We don’t have a large fanbase, but we have a loyal fanbase.
‘We are a well-run football club and the reward we get for that is that we keep our place at the top table of the game.
‘I don’t think anyone should be allowed to take their place at the top table simply because they are a big club. I think that’s completely wrong. It’s sport after all. Competition and winning.
‘We deserve to be where we are because we win more points than the team below us every season. We should not be resented for that.
‘Thankfully we have brass necks. That stuff doesn’t bother us.’
On the pitch — where it all matters — Hamilton continue to confound their critics. Their stubborn start to the season is just one of the reasons they remain a tough club to talk down.
Fourth in the Scottish Premiership after four games, Canning’s side host Celtic tomorrow night after wins over Hibs and Dundee, then battling back from the dead to earn a 2-2 draw at Kilmarnock.
Recent praise may come with a side salad of grudge, yet Gray finally senses a changing tide in media opinion.
‘I’ve heard it on broadcast media, I’ve read it in the written media,’ he adds. ‘Protagonists
who used to have a go at us now do good articles about us.
‘Probably our good start to the season is one thing. Probably the way that we treat our manager and people is another.’
Last season, Dundee and Motherwell slid close to the relegation zone and panicked, sacking their managers. Between October 25 and January 31 last season, Hamilton went 12 league games without winning any of them. Yet Canning remains in a job.
‘We don’t pull the trigger and fire anyone when we’re not successful,’ says Gray.
‘As a board, we tell the manager what our strategy is and as long as he delivers our strategy to the best of his ability, he has not failed.
‘Martin will tell you there were times in the last couple of years when he lost a lot of games. Other clubs might have looked at that differently. We didn’t.
‘Our strategy is to develop young players, give young Scottish boys a chance, put them in the first team, and try to win every game where possible.’ Gray, a leading voice on the Project Brave working group, met owner Ronnie MacDonald when the two played for Knightswood Amateurs 40 years ago. A tight-knit management team featuring chief executive Colin McGowan and youth football chiefs Allan Maitland and George Cairns operate by a different set of principles to rival clubs. Uniquely, Premiership survival is not their be-all and end-all.
‘Some guys in football frown upon us a bit,’ admits Gray. ‘They think we are not “real football people”, which I find absurd.
‘You would have to ask them what they mean by that, because I actually don’t care.
‘The reality is that we are a bit different because a group of us came through amateur football, junior football, senior football and now find ourselves in the Premier League.
‘We are a bunch who get in the car together and basically drive to Inverness, Dingwall, Aberdeen and Dundee together as pals to watch football for the love of it. What could be better than that?
‘We want to give young Scottish players a chance. That’s our mantra. To get as many young players as possible into our first team.
‘As a group of directors, Ronnie, me and the other guys had to ask ourselves: “Did we want to sacrifice our principles of playing attractive football and playing young boys purely to be at the party?”
‘The answer was no. If we ended up at the party below — the Championship — that would be okay. Thankfully that hasn’t happened too often.
‘This is our seventh year out of the last 10 in the Premier League. There have been times when fans have accused us of wanting to be relegated so we could play more young players.
‘Nothing could be further from the truth.
‘There have been times when we’ve maybe thought we would be better in the Championship from the perspective of developing young players. But it’s not where we want to be.
‘The truth is that we could go to Forfar just as easily. We would go to Ayr United or Stranraer or Clyde just to watch football on a Saturday.’
For Gray and the board of Hamilton Accies, it all comes down in the end to a stark choice.
‘It’s either this or it’s Marks and Spencers shopping. What would you do?’
Martin has lost a lot of games at times. Other clubs might have looked at that. We didn’t