Rangers supporters branded him Public Enemy No 1 and his stadium.......

[ian1964 10,409]

...............and staff were threatened... but Raith Rovers chairman Hutton says: I'd do it all again

 

It's now 20 months since Turnbull Hutton stood up to be counted amid threats and warnings of the imminent 'slow lingering death' of the Scottish game.

 

But the only thing dying around Stark's Park in March 2014 is the chairman's latest attempt at comedy on his club's website.

 

With no victories for Raith Rovers in the Championship since mid-December, a tongue-in-cheek message from the 67-year-old to fans declaring 'Don't Panic' and signed by 'Captain Mainwaring aka Turnbull Hutton' has gone down like a lead balloon among the denizens of Kirkcaldy.

 

'Supporters of other clubs liked it but I've been accused by Rovers supporters of patronising them. I've even been accused of being on the sauce while writing it. I've not had a drink this year,' chuckles the Harvard University-educated former head of United Distillers.

 

His point to the malcontents is that Rovers are, these days, in pretty decent nick.

 

They reached the quarter-final of the Scottish Cup before crashing to St Johnstone and a Ramsdens Cup final against Rangers awaits at Easter Road next month.

 

Grant Murray's team might be just four points from the relegation play-offs, but they are also sitting six points from fourth place in Scotland's tightest league. And, vitally, off the park, Raith Rovers turned a profit last year.

 

After the fall of the SPL that Hutton so reviled, clubs like them are now earning four times as much as they did under the old set-up. It's certainly not the Armageddon chillingly forewarned by the SPL's Neil Doncaster two summers ago; an episode that saw Hutton endure a crash course in fan animosity that makes the current levels of disgruntlement at his Dad's Army stunt seem akin to a spot of love-bombing.

 

In July 2012, Hutton led the fightback against what he saw as attempts by the SFA and SPL to 'blackmail' the SFL into solving an SPL problem, using 'a campaign of misinformation and disinformation'.

 

SFL club reps like Hutton were told by SFA chief executive Stewart Regan that a 'slow lingering death' awaited the national game if newly-liquidated Rangers were sent all the way down to the Third Division.

 

Hutton's impromptu Monty Python-inspired speech on the steps of Hampden, when he branded the SPL a dead parrot, saw him emerge as an accidental hero to a wider Scottish football public unimpressed by the authorities' attempts to give the fallen Ibrox club a softer landing in the old First Division.

 

But the fallout also saw Hutton labelled Public Enemy No 1 by Rangers fans.

 

He still maintains his motivation was to stick up for his under-fire director, Eric Drysdale, who was on the SFA's supposedly-anonymous panel that, in April 2012, handed Rangers a one-year transfer embargo and banned Craig Whyte for life from any involvement in Scottish football after he ran the club on to the rocks of ruin.

 

Despite a particularly nasty backlash, however, the redoubtable Hutton says he would take the same stance if it happened again.

 

'There was all this talk about Armageddon and the slow death of Scottish football, but the best thing to come out of that whole episode was the death of the SPL,' he said.

 

'I didn't need or want that kind of profile. People forget that situation did not come about because of the Rangers financial situation. It was because of the involvement of Eric on that three-man panel.

 

'Ally McCoist's famous "who are these people?" speech kicked off a whole series of events that placed me to the fore. Eric was eventually outed, we had threats to our staff, supposedly viable threats to burn our stadium down.

 

'Eventually you think: "To hell with this!" How could I support the rule book being ripped up for Rangers? I came out on the steps of Hampden, had 25 reporters in my face and I told it like it bl**dy well was.

 

'But you stick your head above the parapet and suddenly you're all over the bl**dy internet and it spiralled out of control. I became "Turnbull The Tim", which I found quite amusing. But pro-Celtic - or anti-Rangers - had nothing to do with me taking the stand I did.

 

'I got some charming personal emails. One said: "I hope you die of cancer" and "The only slow lingering death I want to see is yours, Hutton".

 

'But there were far more supportive emails than nasty ones. I tried to answer them all but it got too much. I stuck them in a "love" file and a "hate" file on my computer and I've still got them to this day.

 

'Looking back, would I play it different if it started today? I don't think I could and I don't think I would.

 

'You've got to stand up for what you believe in. The consequences of speaking your mind are beyond your control but I'd do it all again. Everything that's happened since then suggests my view was the right one.'

 

In a month's time, Rangers - still mired in a financial maelstrom - are due to cross paths with Raith Rovers for the first time since that fateful summer. Hutton expects a backlash.

 

'Ally McCoist is the only one from Rangers we've spoken to,' he nodded. 'He came to see us playing Dumbarton. Eric Drysdale and I passed the time of day with him, and it was fine. But the other faces at Rangers keep changing and we've never played them since.

 

'There's still a hangover from when that whole episode was at its peak, with the likes of Sandy Jardine mouthing off about boycotts and stuff like: "We won't forget".

 

'I don't know if we are still on a boycott list but I'd imagine the Ramsdens Cup Final won't be a happy family day, filled with brotherly love.

 

'I've been involved with the tournament from its inception and there have been some wonderful finals over the years, like Dundee United vs Stenhousemuir and Alloa vd Inverness. They were all happy family days out but I've a feeling this year's won't be.'

 

This season also 'marks' the 10th anniversary of another dark episode in Hutton's colourful Stark's Park tenure. Not even his formidable 35-year business background could have prepared him for the crazy five-month tenure of Claude Anelka, brother of France's enfant terrible Nicolas.

 

Claude's previous job had been as a DJ in a Miami nightclub and he arrived with a fearsome sidekick named Styx amid promises of luring a stream of 'new Thierry Henrys' to Kirkcaldy.

 

'It was Monty Python stuff, frankly,' says Hutton, who joined the Rovers board in 2000 and found himself increasingly 'sucked in' to becoming a 'reluctant chairman'.

 

'I took a stroke in April 2004 and I was out of the frame for around eight weeks, which was unfortunate, because at the same time Claude Anelka surfaced. He promised £180,000 per season for the playing budget and, as a struggling First Division club, the board had to look at that.

 

'He was going to be director of football, with Antonio Calderon staying as manager - but Antonio couldn't work with him and he packed up and returned to Spain.

 

'Claude became boss and, unknown to me, held a press conference and gave a line about making Raith Scottish football's third force.

 

'Then Styx arrived with all of his belongings stuffed in the back of a Peugeot van; a pile of soul records, 10 to 12 pairs of trainers and a heap of unwashed jeans.

 

'We had supposed "young superstars" turning up who had never played 11-a-side before. There were Czechs, Muslims, French players, English guys and the odd Scot. You name it.

 

'Raith at the time had more rented housing in Kirkcaldy than the Scottish Special Housing Association. That came back to bite us when they all disappeared and we were left to pay the outstanding council tax and electricity arrears.

 

'Anelka did put the money in, but the additional costs far exceeded his investment. It was a pretty big fiasco and, when it came to a halt, we were left to pick up the pieces.

 

'There were meetings with our local MP (and future Prime Minister) Gordon Brown, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, as the Reclaim The Rovers campaign gathered pace.

 

'But some investment failed to materialise and that rescue deal was seriously under-funded. We've been battling that legacy ever since.

 

'Ironically, it's only in the last two years we've seen a turnaround, helped by league reconstruction. Before it was £60,000 to win the First Division, now it's £60,000 per place.'

 

Hutton has seen high times with Rovers, particularly when Jimmy Nicholl's team stunned Celtic to win the League Cup in 1994.

 

He was also in the Olympic Stadium with his son and daughter the following year for a 'once-in-a-lifetime experience' when Danny Lennon's goal saw the famous, if short-lived, scoreline: Bayern Munich 0 Raith Rovers 1.

 

Given the club's chequered financial history in the modern era, however, in typically blunt fashion Turnbull prioritises Championship survival over a potential first Scottish Cup triumph in Raith's 131-year history.

 

'If I had to make a call, I'd rather we stayed up,' he says. 'I don't want to be a Wigan and win the Cup and go down. I know some supporters would take a different view but balancing the books is paramount.

 

'Winning the Cup would be a fleeting moment of glory and then a short-lived trip to a Russian outpost. Cup success would also bring its own financial challenges in terms of stadium improvements for a one-off shot at European football.

 

'I'd be more excited about the St Johnstone game if we weren't on a disastrous run. St Johnstone's Tommy Wright and Callum Davidson came to see us against Hamilton last month and we were 4-0 down at half-time. I hope that lulled them into a false sense of security.'

 

With that, the chuckling Hutton heads off to an appointment with his dentist.

 

'His name is Graeme Smart and he supports Hibs, who we beat 3-2 at Easter Road in the last round. His brother Gordon is married to Kate, daughter of (Dunfermline legend) Jim Leishman. If Graeme goes above the usual pain threshold this time, I'll go for him …'

 

Whatever else has been said about this Burntislander, and there has been plenty, nobody would ever describe time spent in Turnbull Hutton's company as akin to pulling teeth.

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2576251/Rangers-supporters-branded-Public-Enemy-No-1-stadium-staff-threatened-Raith-Rovers-chairman-Hutton-says-Id-again.html#ixzz2vs7DmEeS

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[simplythebest 0]

The man is an a wank, hope we stuff him and his club

[andy steel 0]

Staggeringly irresponsible. What an absolute idiot.

[RANGERRAB 3,254]

He simply could not accept Rangers were the victim of a crime rather than the perpetrator of a crime. All of this will unfold when the police investigations and the Insolvency Service Investigations conclude. Then what will happen Mr Hutton ?

[Whosthedado 1,487]

Teamtalk done for the Ramsdems Final. Well done Turnbull

[Calgacus 8]

Were these "threats" ever proved?

[Zappa 0]

Were these "threats" ever proved?

 

I sincerely doubt it, but there's a great wee moto to live by that goes something like: "if you don't want to be treated like a cunt, don't act like a cunt".