LIKE MANY journalists I went to interview Eddie Thompson
shortly before the CIS Cup final in March. As a Dundee United fan it was a privilege, and as a football writer it was a fine thing to do personally as it completed the circle from when I'd first interviewed him a decade previous.
As always Eddie didn't give that much away about himself, but he did supply an anecdote which I thought summed him up. "I was ex-treasurer of the
Episcopal Church in Broughty Ferry," he said. "Back in 1982 we played Radnicki Nis, an Eastern Bloc team. We'd won at home and so I had a wee prayer the Sunday morning before the return leg. But we lost and I remember the next Sunday going and giving God a wee piece of my mind, saying, Jesus Christ, how could you let the bloody communists win?'"
After much more of that heartening chat I walked back through Dundee to the Groucho's Record Store to pick up my "One Eddie Thompson" T-shirt to wear at Hampden. The mor e time has passed, the more inspired I believe that slogan is. The plain fact is
that Eddie lived up to all his
promises to Dundee United and more.
This week Dundee United supporters and, touchingly, all football fans in Scotland, have recognised that. Yet, but for his fortitude and indefatigability in acquiring United, we could easily have lost one of the most
interesting men in the history of our game.
I first spoke to Eddie in July 1998 at the beginning of his and United for Change's (UfC) challenge to the Dundee United board. Eddie was typically forthright. He talked 10 to the dozen as to how he could help turn United's fortunes around and he pretty much tried to write my article, faxing me some typed up notes that he thought should be the basis of my piece.
As it was, Eddie was good enough interview copy on his own. His opening gambit was, "Don't ever say give up to me because it gets my adrenalin going, it's just the kind of person I am. If I become part of the board, then that's good for Dundee United because I won't let anybody down. Anyone who knows me will tell you that's not my style."
It turned out later that the most important words in that quote were "anyone who knows me". Eddie came at Dundee United with the furious energy that had served him so well in business and a
humanitarian spirit that generated much loyalty from those that knew him.
Yet, in the more suspicious world of football it took a while for many to truly warm to Eddie. Even UfC were initially confused, trying hard to rein him in during those early months as he went chasing
off after the ultimate prize of buying into United.
The club, of course, despised him and he soon became a victim of the black art of PR. The call basically went out to destroy his reputation, and in effect that of UfC. It went
on for three years as he was labelled everything from a "Walter Mitty" to "dishonest."(He was encouraged to sue over the latter, but never did.)
Jim McLean, the then Dundee United chairman, played the same tune about Thompson's overtures. In December 1998 he said, "I would love someone to come and put in serious money ... but there's no point in selling the club for peanuts."
Thompson's frequently
more-than-peanuts approaches were rebuffed and even when, in December 1999, he offered £1m for 7-10% of United he was accused of "trying to buy the club on the cheap". It was a hugely ironic statement from United. Thompson had offered £1000 per share, yet over the previous year McLean had been trying to purchase shares for anything from £50 to 50p.
All the while there were whispers that Thompson was a charlatan and even United fans were divided in their opinion of him. And as the story became more attritional and less sensational so the Scottish media were told that if they gave airtime to Thompson and UfC they would find access to United more difficult. It was a dirty war.
When I spoke to Eddie this year I asked him who he admired most in the world and he said, "If you were to say music, I'd say Paul
McCartney. If you were to say sport, I'd say Mohammed Ali. And if you were to say politics, then I'd say Sir Winston Churchill."
I pointed out that they were all fighters in a way, to which he replied, "You're right, even
McCartney's fighting to keep his dough!" Amazingly despite all the verbiage coming his way, Eddie fought to give his money away.
Amusingly, he admonished me when the first half of that interview focused on what had happened 10 years previously. "Why are you concentrating on that particular
period?" he said with an air of fatherly frustration.
I replied that it was important if you were a Dundee United fan because if he had given in and hadn't fought then there would, in all likelihood, be a much
paler tangerine imitation of a
football club.
"Fair enough. That is one of
my regrets," he confessed, "that it took us so long. A lot of time was wasted and it did test people's patience. There were times when people came and went but there were 12-20 of us who saw it all the way through and I'm proud of that."
Although there were plenty of things that gave Thompson "zero pleasure" after he eventually did succeed McLean as chairman in September 2002, there were plenty of things that filled him with pride. When Barcelona came to Tannadice
in July 2007 I caught Eddie on the stairs that night and he was grinning
like a man who had sold all his shares in Bank of Scotland when they were £10 plus.
"How good is this, Phil?" he said rhetorically. "The great Barcelona back here. We've got sufficient prowess that they'd come here. Not Killie or Motherwell or Aberdeen. They've come to see our fans."
And the supporters were what Eddie was all about. In that first interview I did with him I wrote, "For most United fans this man is almost too good to be true." But he wasn't. He was as good as his word in never letting us down and as good as it gets in terms of
being the one in charge of your football club. As one tribute at Tannadice wryly noted: "Heaven has just gained a new chairman."
Let's just hope God's not a Radnicki Nis fan or he just might be getting a piece of Eddie's mind.
Philip Dorward would like to donate his fee for this article to Ward 32, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, where Eddie Thompson went for his prostate cancer treatment.
***
Just as he showed fortitude in his professional life, Eddie Thompson never flinched in
the face of illness, recalls Bryan Cooney
EDDIE Thompson proceeded to compose himself as he sat down at the magnificent
boardroom table at Tanna-dice. Composure was essential; he was about to give probably the last in-depth interview of his life.
It was February 19 of this year and the Dundee United chairman
was taking part in BBC Radio
Scotland's award-winning Pain of the Game series. Our meeting had been cancelled twice already first, through a simple miscommunication, and then because he had been rushed to hospital for a blood transfusion.
There was graphic evidence of ill health on the face of someone I had interviewed when he was apparently
fit and well five years previously. Now, cancer had left its unmistakeable
calling card. Clearly, this man did not require satellite navigation to negotiate the back streets of pain and misery. He had been there many times and consequently knew every corner, every camber, every cobblestone. Intimately.
But on this occasion, shortly before a CIS Cup final which would feature his beloved United taking on Rangers, no-one or nothing was going to prevent him explaining
himself and his raison d'etre -
without once, it must be emphasised,
resorting to self pity.
Rarely have I encountered a more enthusiastic interviewee. He had heard Tommy Docherty unburdening himself on an earlier programme and evidently warmed to the format. So much so that he had even sent the producer and myself a comprehensive summary of his extraordinary life and times. Accuracy, to a man like Thompson, was of paramount importance.
And yet there was substantially
more than a frisson of unease within me as we sat in that wood-panelled room. Sure, I had interviewed an abundance of illustrious names down the years McEnroe,
Ballesteros, Botham, Ferguson, Maradona, Capello. These were men whose tolerance quotients regarding
fools might accurately have been described as being adjacent to zero.
In truth, however, the more obscure name of Thompson filled me with more apprehension than all of the above put together.
What do you say to a dying man, after all? Can you achieve a professional balance and suppress a very natural inclination towards over-the-top sympathy? Can you prevent your mind from re-associating
with the past and alighting on tragic events from your own family tree? But, even more significantly, how will you marshal your emotions when you suspect you may be following this man down the same accursed path? A fortnight earlier I had been diagnosed with prostate
cancer; with seven out of the nine biopsy samples declared positive.
Initial fears were that the condition
might have been neglected for too long, as had been the case with Thompson.
So, again, what does one
potentially seriously ill man say to another whose fate has been confirmed? Do you tell him you probably know how he feels? After all, that's the bottom line of the truth. I had already experienced the loneliness, hopelessness, mordant bouts of self-analysis and multiple
fears that suddenly gatecrash your
life, however uninvited.
In the end, the choice was taken from me; the producer, Dan Holland, made what he described as a "callous call" and indicated it would be best if I didn't inform Thompson of my condition, lest it became all too mawkish. In the end, he was proved right. I'd probably have embarrassed the hell out of myself had I unburdened myself to someone who put everyone and anything before himself.
So we spoke of his expensive stewardship of United and how so many of his managers, particularly Paul Hegarty, had been caught in the revolving door of his ambition. We spoke of his faith in manager Craig Levein; we touched on the hostility that had once come his way from Jim McLean, and the curious relationship he shared with that complex man.
But, most of all, we spoke about the fact that shortly he was about to take a journey to who knows where. Sure, there were many moments that, on my part, threatened to spiral out of control, but my rock proved to be Thompson. He was too resolute for tears. Too strong for introspection.
He referred me to an incident that had occurred that morning. He'd
gone to bed at midnight and couldn't
sleep "because of all the pills and stuff". "So guess what I was working
out between 2.30 and 5am? How many points we needed to get sixth place (in the SPL). I'm happy doing that. Sounds nuts, but there you go. If you can't sleep, what's the point of lying around?"
I put it to him that fear was one of the most effective opponents of rational thought and asked him if nothing frightened him. "I'm trying to think," he replied. "What's going to frighten me? We've got the football done, right? The only thing that could frighten me is if something could happen to my family. They must worry about me; that's a shame. I'm not worried about myself.
"I don't scare easily. I had a chat with a doctor, not from oncology,
who explained the things that could
happen. He told me that one morning you could just have a stroke, and he mentioned one or two other things you could lose your balance, or your voice. That would get me. I'm 100% Eddie Thompson.
If you want to cut a couple of legs off, I'll accept that. But if it's going to affect your brain and your balance and you can't write, that wouldn't be terribly clever."
When we reached the end of the interview, Thompson, his
enthusiasm burning like a beacon, exclaimed: "That was good!" Yes, it had been good; but, significantly, he'd proved the superstar of this show. Dan and I were merely bit players in the band, providing the odd bit of second and third violin.
There was not so much a lump in my throat as a boulder as I told him that the last time I'd met him, I'd found him a bit rude, ruthless, stubborn and probably a bit patronising. I added that time had proved me very wrong and apologised for my initial perceptions.
Thompson smiled. "Well, maybe you were right the first time. Hey, everybody has their own opinions. But I can say I'm leaving this club in the best state its ever been. That's my legacy to Dundee United."
Just over three weeks later, I underwent what they term a radical prostatectomy which involved the removal of a large and aggressive tumour. Fortunately, there were no signs it had infiltrated the bones or the lymph nodes. I have three-monthly check-ups and so far, so good. I got lucky, initially anyway.
Eddie Thompson, an extremely fine SPL chairman, was not nearly so lucky. The game will learn to lament that fact over and over again in the coming years.
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