DECADE IN THE FIRING LINE
Doncaster is still standing despite the Rangers crisis, referee strikes and TV deals collapsing...
THE tenth anniversary of Neil Doncaster’s arrival at the SPFL will pass without fuss or fanfare. There will be no streamers or bunting. No champagne or caviar. No speeches or sandwiches.
He might watch some tennis or read a book. There might even be time for a flying visit to his Norfolk home to see the family. His youngest children Alexander and Honor were born in Scotland and lived here until his status as a human pinata provoked an alarming incident in the midst of the Rangers meltdown of 2012.
‘I ran into a very angry fan in the car park of a supermarket when I had my young boy with me,’ he tells
Sportsmail. ‘That was the moment when we made the decision that the rest of the family living elsewhere was for the best...’
We meet to discuss his decade in Scottish football on a sunny summer morning, the blinds of his office pulled down tightly to block out the world. The one thing Doncaster has learned from referee strikes, club insolvencies, strict liability debates, rows over fixture scheduling and structural changes is that life in Scotland is usually better that way.
He received a sound piece of advice on taking office on July 6, 2009 and continues to live by it now.
‘I was told to live a boring life outside of work. Don’t go out and about,’ adds Doncaster.
‘It’s difficult because you are recognised. But I work long hours here and focus on what needs to be done for the league.
‘Is there sacrifice? Yes, but I think there is an element of sacrifice in any leadership role.’
THE biggest sacrifice has been quality time with family. Amidst concerns for their safety, wife Petrina and the three children returned to England six years ago while the main breadwinner tried to plot a course through the anger and division which followed the liquidation of one of the nation’s biggest footballing institutions.
‘It’s important to have a very understanding wife in the middle of everything and mine is excellent,’ he says.
‘She is understanding of the extraordinary pressures of a job like this and the demands on our time.
‘Petrina came up with me in 2009 and Alex was born in 2011 and Honor was born here 2013. But everything going on then made it uncomfortable and we took the view that it was best to return back south.’
For many, the supermarket confrontation would have been the final straw. The cue to start touring London headhunters and
calling up old footballing contacts down south.
On one side, Doncaster was suspected of trying to grind Rangers into the dust. On the other, he stood accused of threatening ‘Armageddon’ if the newco were forced to start again at the bottom of the leagues.
Asked if he ever actually used that word, he replies: ‘I did say it, but it was in connection with the reality of clubs facing relegation from what was then the SPL.
‘They did face a financial Armageddon from relegation. That was the context I used it in.
‘It was used in connection with other matters by others.
‘I’m faced with this all the time and have to say: “Find me the quote...”.
‘The fact is that it’s just not there.’
To survive this stuff as long he has, Doncaster has had to develop the kind of thick skin usually found in an ice-age mammoth. He gives the impression sometimes that it’s water off a duck’s back.
‘I hate the phrase: “I don’t do walking away”.
‘But I’ve never got close to saying: “Enough is enough”. It’s not who I am. ‘It doesn’t really occur to me. ‘You are there to do a job and if you start worrying about the noise outside, it’s very difficult to continue.
‘Stay on target and do what you are there to do. Just do it.’
Wisely, he steers clear of social media and during his weekend forays down the M6, he encourages his three children to do the same.
‘I don’t see that there is any upside to it at all,’ he adds.
‘The two younger ones are too young and the older one is focused on her own life. I don’t think it would occur to her to google my name. When she does, she finds it quite funny.
‘You have to be comfortable with profile in any public-facing role. I always knew when I took a job like this, that was what it was going to be like.’
HE admits he didn’t realise just how fevered Scottish football could be. Growing up in Croydon, his grandfather took him to Selhurst Park in the seventies and eighties to watch the Crystal Palace teams of the Jimmy Cannon and Vince Hilaire era.
As chief executive of Norwich, he thought he had witnessed passion at first hand. He was in his Carrow Road office, watching on television through the cracks of the fingers, the night Delia
Smith famously appeared on the pitch at half-time of a 2-2 draw with Manchester City to grab the microphone and scream: ‘Let’s be ’avin ya!’ at the home support.
Yet the intensity and madness of Scottish football was on another level.
‘It was a huge culture shock,’ he says. ‘I had done my homework and learned a lot about Scottish football and I thought I was prepared for what Scottish football was all about.
‘The truth is that I wasn’t. It was a huge shift.
‘I had very clear warnings from those who had worked within Scottish football.
‘There were others who were still in Scottish football, saying to me: “Stay well clear”.
‘The term one of them used was: “Mission impossible”.
‘My first board meeting, after I turned up here, followed the
insolvency of Setanta. We ended up with a deal where the fees and the money the clubs got from the league was a fraction of what they were budgeting for.
‘On day one, I went to Hamilton to meet Ronnie MacDonald and the press happened to be there.
‘I was surrounded by journalists and interrogated. This was day one in the job — facing an interrogation on the insolvency of Setanta and what happened next. It was a baptism of fire.’
SPFL colleague Iain Blair pipes up that he warned him about all of this on day one. Laughing, Doncaster admits he had little or no idea what he was letting himself in for.
‘One of the obvious downsides is that it is difficult to have anything approaching a normal life, working in the environment. That goes with the territory.
‘I never foresaw being here ten years later. But then you never know what the future holds.
‘I don’t think anyone back in 2009 could have foreseen some of the things that have happened in Scottish football.
‘To name but a few, there was a strike by match officials, the insolvency of a number of bigger clubs, the insolvency of the main broadcasting partner Setanta in 2009 and, again, the insolvency of our main overseas broadcast partner MP & Silva in 2013.
‘Those are seismic events on their own. And we’ve had four or five.’
Through it all, Doncaster has marked himself out as the man to be standing beside the day the bomb drops.
To put it lightly, supporters can’t understand why. Scottish football’s blame culture dictates that someone has to pay for cock-ups and crises — and while Stewart Regan of the SFA paid the price for a poor relationship with the biggest clubs, the CEO of the SPFL has continued to find revenue streams for the clubs and let them get on with making the big decisions.
Crucially, he earns his £200,000 a year by sticking his head above the parapet when they go wrong.
‘We are there to do the things the clubs cannot do individually. There is a recognition — I hope — that the league is doing what it is there to do,’ he says.
NOT everyone thinks so when it comes to bigotry and unacceptable conduct. At the sponsorship announcement for the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer Challenge Cup, Doncaster claimed he was
‘proud’ of the efforts made by Scottish clubs to tackle sectarianism despite a season of embarrassing behaviour in the stands.
He has little more to add beyond the observation that the same passion which drives the moronic behaviour might also explain why SPFL revenues have risen from £21.5million to £31.5m since the league merger of 2013. Attendances have risen from 3.8m six years ago to 4.5m last season.
‘The fact is that we remain the best-supported league per head of the population in Europe with two per cent of the population going to a game each weekend,’ he says.
‘That’s triple the rate of people who go to a game in England. That is testament to the way in which the game is regarded here.
‘On one hand, it is very difficult to thrive under the intense glare of the media microscope and the incredible passion that exists within the game here.
‘On the other, the passion translates into a level of interest that is phenomenal.’
All in all, it’s been quite the decade. If there is a regret, it’s the sterilising impact a life in professional football has had on boyhood loyalties.
‘Unfortunately, when I joined Norwich as CEO, we had to beat Palace — and it fundamentally damaged my love of my team.
‘I came up here in 2009 and I went down to Blackpool to see them play Palace.
‘I expected when the teams came out that the hairs would raise on the back of my neck — and it didn’t happen.
‘It had gone. That, sadly, is one of the prices you pay for the role I have held for 20 years. No doubt about it.’
DONCASTER ON FAMILY SAFETY I ran into a very angry fan in the car park of a supermarket when I had my young boy with me DONCASTER ON ‘ARMAGEDDON’ I did say it, but it was in connection with the reality of clubs facing relegation from what was then the SPL