A terracing 'mad Jambo' who rose to be chairman

Rob Robertson
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14 Mar 1998

THIRTY-SEVEN years ago a young boy was given permission by the late, great Tommy Walker of Hearts, to sit on the trainer's bench at Tynecastle to watch his heroes play football.

It was a great moment for the nine-year-old who had battled against childhood disability and now had been given a ringside seat to watch the team he loved.

Although he went to the traditionally rugby-playing school of George Watson's in Edinburgh it was the round-ball game the youngster loved, and more importantly the team from Gorgie.

The club was so important to him he remembers crying his eyes out when his boyhood hero, Willie Wallace, was sold by Hearts to Celtic.

As he sat in the main stand at Tynecastle this week the boy in question, Leslie Deans, looked back over the intervening years which had seen him become a successful lawyer and also one of the men who have helped turn Hearts into a major footballing force, both on and off the pitch.

As he reminisced over these years Deans talked of how the self-confessed ''mad Jambo'' had graduated from the terracing, to the stand, to the executive club and then four years ago to the directors' box and the ultimate accolade, chairman of the club.

Deans is a buzzbomb of a man who, along with Chris Robinson - the club's chief executive - took over Hearts from the former owner, Wallace Mercer, in July, 1994.

Their time in charge has seen a steep escalation in the club's success both on and off the field.

On the field Deans puts that success down to what he describes as his best ever signing, the management team of Jim Jefferies and Billy Brown.

Off the field the Hearts board are putting the finishing touches to what Deans calls the ''millennium project'' a plan to build a new two-tier stand which when completed would give the stadium a capacity of around 25,000.

Behind it he also plans a mini-village type development with hotel and associated leisure facilities for the public.

Until four years ago, Deans had no ambitions to get into the football business.

Indeed, it was a lawyer friend, Fraser Jackson, who brought together Deans and Robertson, who did not know each other very well, in an office in Edinburgh one evening in October, 1993, to put together the plan to take over Hearts from Mercer.

Many times over the months of negotiations Deans was close to throwing in the towel, frustrated by the amount of time it was taking the deal to go through.

Even today he described the negotiations at the time as ''tortuous''.

Once the deal was finally agreed in July, 1994, Deans said he was not terribly encouraged by the state of the club he had bought.

Both he and Robinson put in place a five-year plan to turn the club around and improve the facilities.

That period comes to an end next year and although Deans will not admit it, he must be quietly satisfied with the current state of the club.

''Looking back, both Chris and myself had business experience and quite frankly football is a business,'' said Deans.

''If you apply good business principles, be it a football club, a catering company, a legal firm, a second-hand car showroom, the same sensible business disciplines will apply.

The lack of football inside knowledge was never seen as a drawback.

''Over the last three-and-a-bit years we have constructed the three new stands with a range of other improvements and finally put in undersoil heating, a very good floodlighting system and in the Gorgie stand a full corporate hospitality area.

We have spent in the region of #9m over the last three years on all of that and the missing piece in the jigsaw is the new two-tier stand which would have around 6000 seats per tier.

''We set ourselves a five-year target to lift this whole place, to plug the leaks, to build it up, to take the club to a different level and although I'm never totally satisfied I'm reasonably satisfied at present how things are progressing.'' Deans said that both he and Robinson had no plans to walk away from Hearts but admitted that in business everybody has their sell-by date and there would come a time when someone else may well ''bring something new to the party''.

On the playing front, Deans said it would be unfair for him to single out players in the current side he admires but he does wax lyrical of players from the past, like Donald Ford, Willie Wallace, Billy Higgins, Chris Shevlane and Jim Cruickshank.

Deans believes the catalyst at the club has been the management skills of Jefferies and Brown who have taken the club to a challenging position in both the league and Scottish Cup.

Turning his attention to the future of Scottish football, Deans believes the breakaway league will be of major significance and he boldly suggests that it will be the springboard to a Scottish club winning a European trophy within five years.

''A lot of people still do not realise the potential effect this breakaway league will have.

It is a major step forward for Scottish football at the highest level.

''Like everybody else I take no pleasure in seeing all of our teams out of Europe by the end of September.

The facts speak for themselves that our clubs have been under-performing in Europe for a number of years now.

''I believe the new league set-up is the launching pad for improved European performances and I would go as far as say that I could see a Scottish club winning a European trophy again within five years.

That is an indication of how much faith I place on this new Scottish Premiership.

''I believe the European success will happen because the infrastructure at the higher level of the game will be considerably strengthened and it is likely there will be considerable financial input into the game.

''You have a ridiculous situation at present where you have a club like Barnsley in the English Premiership, and no disrespect to Barnsley, who have made more money from television that the whole of the Scottish Premier league together.

''Under the new breakaway league the major clubs will have new financial input available which will allow them to develop young players and to continue to attract quality professionals from abroad to the major clubs in Scotland and I have no doubt that the benefits of the new set-up will flow through in the coming years.'' No doubt the little boy who sat on the trainer's bench all these years ago watching his team in action will be delighted if that happens.

Taken from the Herald