Calum Melville has no regrets about eschewing Aberdeen as he bids to make Dundee a force in the land
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* Calum Melville believes his money is likely to count more at Dundee than it would at Aberdeen
Bryan Cooney
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Published on 21 Feb 2010
IT’S Monday afternoon and conÂsequently 30 hours before Aberdeen FC receive their annual visitation from the society of Scottish Cup party poopers.
Calum Melville’s animation is palpable.
Melville is going to the game at Pittodrie, occupying not so much his primary role as the sugar daddy of Dundee but his supplementary one as a lifelong supporter of “the Dandiesâ€. And there’s no disguising the passion in him. He reveals that when he was taken to the stadium for the first time, it appeared so vast he believed he was in the Maracana in Rio. “The memory burned in my head.â€
Also embedded in the psyche of the oil tycoon are his heroes Willie Miller and Gordon Strachan, and that 1980 day when Aberdeen first won the Premier League under Alex Ferguson. Melville, at 10 years of age, ran on to the Easter Road pitch and dug up a tuft of grass in order to celebrate a 5-0 victory over Hibs
“I then travelled [a lot] in my teens. You knew you would win at Ibrox, and not expect to lose at Parkhead, at least come away with a draw. There were some scary moments, of course; a few times our buses were stoned. But those were good days. I was a fanatic. I just thought that this [winning] was normal. Then Souness came and spoiled it all.â€
The kind of funds you’d need to deal with Aberdeen are completely different. Tenfold
Melville, a proud and vocal conscript of the Red Army, demonstrates that the old soldier in him isn’t dead. “If Aberdeen get through, I’d expect a full house because they have got by far the best away fans in the country … by a country mile. Absolutely fantastic. I would debate that with any Rangers and Celtic fans.
“It’s just not the numbers; it’s how vociferous they are. I think playing away from home for Aberdeen must be great, because they [the fans] just never stop. You know, I think it’ll be really tough for Dundee to turn them [the team] over again. I think they’re getting better. I don’t think he [Mark McGhee] is everyone’s cup of tea, but it appears he’s getting to grips with it …â€
In the event, of course, Dundee are not obliged to essay a turnover. The day after our conversation, Raith Rovers arrive in the Granite City and their performance suggests that Melville may be to sporting perspicacity what Lady Gaga is to coiffure conformity. McGhee’s grip on affairs is loosened once again by his capricious employees.
But let’s be fair to this newcomer to the Dens Park boardroom. Back in the Bridge of Don, where Melville and his elder brother Stuart head the oil offshore operation of Cosalt, he hasn’t the benefit of hindsight and cannot imagine that the forces of darkness are intent on another invasion or that Aberdeen’s season is about to erupt into fury, phlegm and fiasco.
I must admit hereabouts, however, there is an overwhelming temptation in me to log on to the confused.com website. The Aberdeen fan resident within me is experiencing outrage, very probably unfair and illogical outrage. But sod it: logic is scarcely applicable when you support a football club. Why is a man of such a powerfully one-dimensional persuasion bankrolling a team from another county? Shouldn’t he be injecting some of his wealth – the brothers are reported to be worth £100 million – into a patient in urgent need of fiscal stimulus, if not a spell attached to a life support machine?
He once admitted that involvement with a hometown team inevitably ends in problems with discomÂbobulated fans, but surely this cannot be the only excuse. So, much to his discomfort – normally he doesn’t encourage such discussion because he feels it then becomes a stick with which to beat chairman Stewart Milne and his cohorts around the head – I probe into one of Scottish football’s most anomalous situations.
If, hypothetically, Milne developed a brainstorm, forsook his apparent fixÂation with land development and walked away from Pittodrie, would Melville step into the breach? The answer comes back in a split second. Now, the fan, the dreamer has disappeared. You are looking into the rather wild eyes of a pragmatist. “Absolutely not! Unequivocally no. The kind of funds you’d need to deal with Aberdeen compared with Dundee are completely different. Tenfold …â€
So an investor would need to be Sir Ian Wood (an Aberdeen oil baron who is close to being a billionaire) to take the club to the promised land? “Not so much that, but you’d need to decide how much you were willing to put in. I think it would take between 10 and 20 times what it would take to get Dundee into a place in the SPL. But to get to where? To become the third force? For me, the appeal of Dundee was that you could take them into the SPL and hopefully get them into that mid-table every season. It’s a different scenario altogether.â€
There is a suggestion, emanating from certain quarters, that overtures were made to bring Melville to Pittodrie but that Milne didn’t want to know him. There is a long pause, which cynics might interpret as being significant. Then the 41-year-old snorts and delivers another unambiguous answer which, for some reason, he wants to remain off the record.
We’ll return shortly to this particular axis. Melville’s industry cannot be questioned. He and his brother joined their father 19 years ago and formed an offshore company, borrowing £30,000 from the Scottish Development Agency and working all the hours their bodies and minds could tolerate.
He sees himself as a very private person but, in contrast, while some factions of the Aberdeen business community don’t know him at all, others who do look upon him as a brash young man who became extremely lucky. They say he believes he is Donald Trump.
You put this to him and he just smiles, rather icily, it must be said. People are entitled to their opinion, he answers. But if he is brash, there is also material evidence of his success. A dark green Bentley dominates the car park. There are homes in Aberdeen and indeed the best avenue in Gleneagles. In fact, he lives but a mansion house away from the aforementioned Milne in that Perthshire paradise.
“I don’t think many people know me that well in Aberdeen, because I don’t tend to go out. Susan [his wife of 18 years] and I sometimes go to London for a weekend, take in a show and go for dinner. But we never go out in Aberdeen. We’ve got three children, two of them are birth children, as Susan likes to call them, and we like to spend a lot of time with them and the dogs. The little one, Louise, we adopted her from China. She’s six-and-a-half. She’s great, the brightest of our children. That says it all.â€
And what about the canines? Melville looks slightly abashed. “We got one eight months ago… a Bichon Frise. In essence, if it were a human, it would be a male hairdresser. It’s not particularly what I could call a man’s dog. Just to top it off, my wife bought a Maltese, which can literally sit in the palm of your hand. I don’t think it would even make it to be a male hairdresser. It would end up washing hair or something.â€
So, is this toy dog-lover Melville friendly with Milne? “Erm, we’re not … I don’t know him very well. I mean, he’s there in Gleneagles, there’s another home in the middle, and then there’s us, so yeah, we’re close to him down there, but I’ve only met him a few times. I wouldn’t say we’re not friendly, but I wouldn’t say we were friends, either. He seems a perfectly charming and decent guy.â€
And he’s full of admiration for him? “Yeah, I’m full of admiration for anyone who’s done such a phenomenal job with the Stewart Milne group. As for the football, I think he has done a great job at Pittodrie. I don’t think he needs any help. Listen, any fan who is realistic knows he’s doing a great job. And the ones who aren’t realistic, well, their opinions don’t really matter.â€
Well, I guess that puts me in my place. But while I nevertheless still take issue on the merits of Milne’s leadership, it’s almost impossible to criticise Melville’s at Dens Park. Not unless, of course, you happen to be called Jocky Scott, or the Scottish Football Association.
The ruling body recently had cause to reprimand Melville for allegedly telling a BBC Scotland radio reporter that he wished to sign Dundee United’s Scott Robertson. “It’s probably better that I don’t make any comment,†he says, before adding: “I would hardly call it getting your knuckles rapped. It was more like being ravished by a dead sheep!â€
That brand of irreverence is not replicated when Melville addresses the matter of his manager. It is rumoured that there was initial friction between he and the veteran Scott. If such a thing were true, it’s now been transferred (unlike Robertson) into the past, according to Melville.
“I’ve recommended about a hundred players to Jocky. Oh, God, aye, I sent him a text about a player yesterday, in fact, which he hasn’t responded to. Which probably tells you what he thinks of the player. Ach, particularly from my point of view, Jocky understands that I’m there to help, there to give as much support as I can. So he takes it the way it’s intended now.â€
The conclusion drawn is that he (Scott) didn’t always take it that way? “I think, like any new guy, he was wondering: ‘What does all this mean for me?’ But the fact is he and I get on like a house on fire. Which is good. I like his sense of humour; I like the way he conducts himself. He’s so knowledgeable and the players absolutely love him.â€
And the Dundee fans, for their very important part, seem to have warmed to the man from 66 miles and umpteen radar traps up the A90; the man who buys their dreams. His money has meant that hitherto impecunious Dundee have been at liberty to spend a quarter of a million pounds in bringing Gary Harkins and Leigh Griffiths to Tayside.
But if the supporters admire the power of the Melville pocket, what about the distaff side of his life? What does his wife think of the hand-outs? “She asked me: ‘Is it going to stop me buying designer handbags?’ The answer to that was ‘no’. So it was all good.â€
The man seated across the boardroom table from me was once expelled from two senior schools for what he describes as “playful high jinksâ€. “You know, they thought I wouldn‘t amount to a hill of beans,†he says.
Now he amounts to a mountain range of cash and obviously enjoys the benefits of being a football director. “It’s the simple things,†he says. “To be able to go and stand right at the side of the pitch two or three minutes before kick-off gives me a thrill. When you’re a fan, you just don’t get to do that. Also, interacting with the players, and listening to Jocky.â€
OK, he’s calling the fiscal shots, but does he know his place and does he really listen? “It always amuses me. We’ve come to a mutual understanding that I’m never going to be a tactical genius. For me, it’s interesting to give my opinion, and then he’ll explain why it’s rubbish. When he explains, you sort of understand.â€
The man who is an Aberdeen fan but a Dundee director escorts me from the premises, reminding me that I should contribute to the charity box at the door. He is a tireless and relentless worker for good causes. Three hundred thousand pounds has gone to the Elizabeth Montgomerie Foundation. And he’s attempting to raise £50,000 for CHAS (Children’s Hospice Association Scotland) by running the Chicago Marathon on October 10. He’s never run a marathon before and he’s out of condition, but he insists he will finish the course. “I’m hoping all the Dundee United fans will sponsor me in the view that I might collapse of a heart attack and die,†he smiles. “So it must be worth it in the vain hope that it happens.â€
The smile evaporates. “The strength and character of the children and their families is unbelievable. It’s easy to write a cheque. Any fool can do that. [Giving to charity] is not only the easiest thing in the world to do, it’s the right thing to do.â€
Now that is undoubtedly so. Only not, apparently, to a would-be charity called Aberdeen FC.
