HEARTS BEATING
Budge’s Tynecastle renovation moves to the next stage
HEARTS may have lost a head coach but, set in a wider context, the departure of Robbie Neilson looks a mere speed bump on the club’s long road to a prosperous and stable future. After two-and-a-half years in the job, Neilson has headed for Milton Keynes Dons, bequeathing a legacy that saw him clinch a promotion and leave the team sitting healthily in second place in the SPFL Premiership table.
The head coach signed off with a resounding victory under the Tynecastle lights on Wednesday night yet, even as Hearts dismantled Rangers, it was impossible to escape the feeling that the demolition work taking place outside the stadium was of far greater significance.
Where once stood offices and a car park is now a building site populated by bulldozers and rubble as the ground is prepared for the construction of a new £12million main stand — a development that will safeguard the club’s spiritual home once and for all.
For more than a decade Hearts supporters have been fighting for this. For much of that time they were told it would not be possible.
On the eve of the Rangers game Sportsmail took a stadium tour with former player Gary Mackay and Garry Halliday, a board member of the Foundation of Hearts (FoH), whose fundraising helped rescue the club from the brink of extinction in 2014.
While the existing main stand remains operational, work has been undertaken to transform the undercroft of the Wheatfield Stand.
A new club shop and offices are already operational, while two UEFA-standard dressing rooms are also under construction as a contingency against delay to the new development opposite.
This new hive of activity flies squarely in the face of a document entitled Tynecastle: Not Fit For Purpose, which was published by a former regime in 2003.
Hamstrung by debt, former chief executive Chris Robinson proposed to sell the stadium to Cala Homes and move the club to Murrayfield as tenants of the Scottish Rugby Union.
The plan prompted the inception of the Save Our Hearts movement, to which Mackay became affiliated.
‘Sometimes, the decisions you make in your life, your opinion, are vindicated,’ says Mackay. ‘We went through the Not Fit For Purpose episode, being told the stadium couldn’t be developed. ‘I remember asking Chris Robinson whether there would be something we could do under the Wheatfield as it was just dead space.
‘At the time, I was thinking about a new gym, maybe a bar and restaurant facility the supporters could use. I was told directly it wasn’t possible.
‘But by opening up the football club to the supporters and a person of huge integrity, it has proved absolutely possible.’
The person to whom Mackay refers is, of course, Ann Budge.
The club’s current chairwoman, chief executive and owner joined forces with the FoH to take the club out of administration two-and-a-half years ago. Immediately it became apparent that Hearts had a firm, benevolent hand on the tiller.
Although her predecessor Vladimir Romanov started off brightly by staving off the threat of a Murrayfield flit and investing heavily in the playing squad, his reign descended into chaos, acrimony and, ultimately, insolvency.
Mercifully for this institution, the fans had mobilised in advance and were ready to act. Halliday had attended a few Save Our Hearts events down the years but became properly involved early in Romanov’s tenure after submitting a letter to a publication which had been launched to service the Hearts support.
‘When Romanov came riding into town, the feel-good factor was there but the sacking of George Burley was a sign of trouble round the corner,’ recalls Halliday, a bricklayer to trade and a cousin of the Rangers midfielder Andy.
‘I came up with an idea and wrote to Planet Hearts. It was back-of-a-fag-packet stuff but I argued that if so many thousand Hearts fans paid a fiver a week for a certain period of time, then they would clear the debt and Hearts could stay at Tynecastle.
‘It was round about then that I came into contact with Gary Mackay and he said he knew someone else with a similar idea in Brian Cormack.’
The idea germinated and flourished into a full-blown business plan which resulted in 8,000 supporters making monthly pledges that provide working capital amounting to an annual £1.5m for the club.
As chair of the FoH, Cormack now sits as a member of the club’s board but it was the introduction of Budge to the party that provided the real catalyst for change.
Halliday credits Mackay for pulling the key protagonists together.
‘First, Gary put us in touch with (ex-Hearts striker) Donald Ford,’ he recalls. ‘Growing up, my brother had a hamster called Donald Ford and that was all I could think of in our first meeting. Donald’s an accountant and he picked some holes in the idea before concluding that it might work.
‘Gary also helped us get Ann Budge to the table — we didn’t want her for her money at the time, it was her business expertise.
‘The club was in demise but we stayed in the background working. We wanted to make sure it would work before we went public.’
With local businessmen Alex Mackie and Jamie Bryant also on board, the Foundation plugged away — often to little avail.
‘We tried to meet Romanov a few times,’ recalls Halliday. ‘It never happened. Jamie, Brian and I sat waiting for him in the Balmoral Hotel one day but he wouldn’t come down. He sent Sergejus Fedotovas to ask how much money we had. We were told that unless we had a chequebook, we should go on our way. First he wanted £50m, then £60m, then £70m.
‘Did we get dispirited? Sometimes. But we just had to keep going. We always knew there was a chance. And obviously having Ann was brilliant.’
Although Romanov was dismissive of the FoH, once telling Sportsmail their opening gambit amounted to a ‘bad joke’, his stewardship came to a messy end in June 2013. Once he had been removed from the equation, the group struck up constructive dialogue with administrator Bryan Jackson.
With Budge prepared to put money up front to take the club forward, the fans began collecting the monthly pledges that would help fund the operation going forward.
‘We realised that if we got a chance then Ann would help us,’ continues Halliday. ‘On the flip side, we had to make sure we had the pledge levels to take the club forward and pay her back. We got up to 8,000 and then the figures worked. The hardest part was getting out of administration. I spoke
to Bryan Jackson recently and it’s scary to hear him speak of how close it really was.’
Yet with council planning permission now granted for a new structure that will increase the ground’s capacity to more than 20,000, Hearts are looking forward, with 2017 set to be another pivotal year.
Early in the new year, an 80-ton steel beam will be delivered and affixed to the support structures at the corners of the es at the corners of the Roseburn and Gorgie ends.
Work will then begin to construct the new structure and, in similar fashion to recent development work at Liverpool’s Anfield, it will rise up and over the existing stand.
It was Ann’s business expertise that we wanted at first, not her money
Jim Clydesdale, the architect behind the last tranche of development in the 1990s, has been involved in the design and the club hopes to have the new development fully operational early next season.
The thought of Tynecastle evolving towards completion will make Halliday, a third-generation supporter, emotional.
‘Back in 2003, the club had chased the dream and racked up debt — everybody realised that if we went to Murrayfield it was finished,’ he reflects.
‘I think we’d have slipped down the leagues, playing in front of 9-10,000 in that big stadium. We had some European games there and it really was awful.
‘The hoops the club has jumped through to get the planning permission to build this new stand, it’s incredible. Ann has put in a monumental effort. I’m not sure Chris Robinson knew he would need to try quite so hard. ‘To say this is a two fingers up at
Not Fit For Purpose? A lot of the Save Our Hearts guys would say that but I’m not so sure. Look at property prices back then — the club was being were offered £22-24m from Cala Homes. The main stand is costing money to maintain and it’s getting harder each year to acquire a safety certificate.
‘I’m just delighted we are staying at Tynecastle.’
As is Mackay. Although not formally attached to the club, he continues to attend matches and retains cordial relations with both Budge and the FoH.
‘Previous custodians of the club were only thinking about themselves but I always had hope,’ he declares.
‘The level of support was always there but it was about how that would be harnessed and by whom.
‘Ann has come in and she occupies a unique position, different to any figurehead in Britain. There is now mutual trust between the supporters and the club. To me, that is more important than anything that is happening on the park.’
Halliday’s sense of perspective and drive has helped the FoH drive forward with their plan. A member of the group’s marketing team, he is bursting with ideas to try to keep the funding going even after Budge eventually reclaims her investment and departs the scene.
Budge has already deferred repayment of her £2.5m loan in order to divert funds towards the construction of the stand and has extended her projected departure date. Halliday hopes the FoH will continue to operate long after she steps down.
‘Firstly, we need to maintain this pledge level to get the stand built and then pay Ann her money,’ he added. ‘The fans trust Ann 100 per cent. She is an astute businesswoman and we are lucky to have her.
‘The acid test for the Foundation will come when she departs. We have 8,000 fan pledges and we’ve only asked for what people can afford.
‘Look at what their money is doing — a memorial garden, a museum, the Big Hearts charity helping kids in the community. We’ve gone from Wonga to Save The Children on the strip.
‘We’re staying at Tynecastle and now we’re building a new main stand.
‘Why not keep that money coming in even after Ann has been paid? The fans might decide that’s enough but we are hoping it keeps going and it becomes a pledge for life.
‘The Foundation of Hearts built a vehicle. That’s all we did. It’s up to the fans how far they want to drive it.’