The qualities of Mercer

BOLD and brash - indeed bold as brass - the young property developer who sauntered into a moribund Tynecastle in 1981 was unfazed that he was not the players' choice. Then again, not much fazed Wallace Mercer, particularly what others thought, which was both his strength and his weakness. So while his demeanour may have grated in the dressing room, a conservative place by its very nature, it did not take the players long to appreciate he was just the kick up the Eighties the club so badly needed.

They had originally preferred local bookmaker and businessman Kenny Waugh as the new chairman rather than the upstart from Glasgow. But Mercer proved to be the right man in the right place at the right time, very much part of the Eighties zeitgeist, like someone he much admired, Margaret Thatcher. Indeed just as Britain then was shaped in Thatcher's image, so Hearts were by Mercer, as they have established themselves as the Third Man in Scottish football, the main power outwith the Old Firm.

But it is all too easy to forget how low Hearts had sunk, not just in Edinburgh, where they had been playing second fiddle to Hibs since the early Sixties, but in Scotland as a whole when Mercer took over.

The season before one attendance had slipped below 2,000. They had recently been relegated for the first time and would head back down again to the First Division. One of their greatest fans in the press, the late John Fairgrieve, even suggested they turn Tynecastle into a car park.

But the balance sheet would soon tell a different story as Mercer turned Hearts FC around. Within two years he had more than doubled the "customers", as he chose to refer to the fans, at Tynecastle from an average of 5,170 to 12,063. By season 1987-88 it had more than trebled to an average of 16,633.

There was a lot more to it though than the figures on the balance sheets. There was marketing. Mercer was a master at it. Shortly after taking over he was already referring to Hearts as "the number one club in the capital". This may have belied the actual form-book of the previous decade, but it would soon be the case as Mercer "talked the club up".

The public relations skills of Scottish football have always left a lot to be desired but 25 years ago they were feudal, with journalists barely tolerated and expected to know their place, serving the clubs' needs. However, Mercer embraced the media with fervour. He loved journalists and they loved him in return. He was hailed as the Great Waldo, or the P T Barnum of football. Here was a chairman who referred to "my friends in the press", wined and dined them and who could no more turn his nose away from a microphone as a dog could from a bone. Ever ready to provide a quote, the Hearts chairman was one of the first in Scotland to have a car phone. Radio shows were soon being bombarded with his sales schtick for Heart of Midlothian as Wallace hurtled along the M8. He was such a natural he even ended up with his own programme on Radio Forth.

And, of course, there was the football. Hearts returned to Europe in 1984 after a decade's absence and two years later, in the most memorable week in the club's history, they just missed out on the double. Like most successful entrepreneurs, Wallace was lucky, or rather he exploited his luck. Alex MacDonald was already at the club, as were talented youngsters such as John Robertson, Gary Mackay and David Bowman, but it was Mercer who made him manager. The former Rangers player brought in his Ibrox colleague Sandy Jardine and they bolstered the side with the likes of Craig Levein, John Colquhoun, Jimmy Bone and Sandy Clark.

Mercer also chose wisely in his lieutenants, with directors Pilmar Smith, James Clydesdale and club secretary Les Porteous. Smith's political nous, aligned to lifelong passion for the club, ensured credibility with the support, while Clydesdale's architectural acumen would turn Tynecastle into what some say is the stadium with the best atmosphere in Scotland. They were also usually, if not always, a restraining influence on the more abrasive, if not irrepressible side of Mercer.

David McLetchie, who was then Hearts' solicitor, liked to recall the time he accompanied Mercer to Geneva to appeal against UEFA's fine for abusing broadcasting rights in a European tie with Bayern Munich, He warned Wallace to keep his mouth shut at all costs and let him do the talking. Of course, once the meeting began Wallace could not contain himself and Hearts ended up with their fine doubled.

Menzies Campbell was also hired as Hearts' QC when appealing to Lothian Region over planning permission for a new stadium at Millerhill. Again Wallace could not contain himself, interrupting a long statement by a member of the planning committee, who was a well-known Hibs supporter.

"Who are you anyway?"

"Councillor David Begg."

"Never heard of you."

Needless to say Hearts' appeal did not succeed.

It was as a property developer rather than a football man that he got embroiled in his most tumultuous time at Hearts. Mercer could be a ruthless businessman and created more than his fair share of enemies, and this was never more evident than in his attempted takeover of Hibs in 1990. It was still being misreported in the press last week as a "merger". It was never that. It was a hostile bid by a cold-blooded capitalist who did not appreciate a football club is a community, not just another company. Mercer had over-reached himself, underestimating the reaction of Hibs support, but he was not the only one. What is all too often forgotten is he would have succeeded if David Duff, then Hibs chairman, had not stood his ground and refused to sell his shares.

The whole affair was a murky business even by the Byzantine standards of big money in Edinburgh, and Mercer would resent in latter years that he was seen as the sole villain in the piece as other big names, with their own interests, had lurked in the shadows.

As a corporate raider he had failed and his exuberance was more tempered thereafter. Yet still he lured Joe Jordan to Tynecastle and sacked Alex MacDonald. It was his final push to win a trophy with Hearts.

Critics point out that he failed to strengthen the squad enough in 1986 after they had come so close to doing the double. As the Souness revolution occurred at Ibrox, he was also accused of being too deferential to Rangers and David Murray.

Yet few would argue it was Mercer who built the platform from which Hearts under Chris Robinson would go on and win the Scottish Cup in 1998 and also from which Vladimir Romanov is today taking on the Old Firm.

No-one could deny he was good for Hearts and Scottish football, except the unforgiving Hibs fans.

In his final days as chairman Mercer saw Hearts establish an unbeaten run of 22 games against their rivals Hibs and when he stepped down he could reflect that Hearts were, indeed, the number one club in the capital. But ironically he never won a trophy with Hearts, while Hibs went on to lift the Skol Cup just a year after he had attempted to wipe them out.

Taken from the Scotsman