“He just gets it,” Malcolm McPherson said about his first impression of Ron Gordon.
The two got on right away, mostly because they shared two bits of common ground - Hibs and golf. The latter, McPherson concedes, his American friend was “only marginally better at.” In terms of the former, his passion for Hibs, that’s a contest neither of the men would have yielded an admission. In fact, it’s their intense affection for the club that drew them together in the first place.
McPherson has a lot of history with Hibs; that’s why the club’s once chairman was well suited to act as a buffer between the new “American man that had just bought Hibs” and the club’s own rich heritage and history when he was most recently appointed as a non-executive director in 2020. McPherson connected with Gordon immediately, captivated by his infectious ‘can do’ positivity that can at times, admits McPherson, feel at odds with the grounded realism that is pervasive throughout Scottish culture.
On this Transatlantic-influenced perspective shift, McPherson credits Gordon with making him think differently, with helping him believe that anything is possible. Wary of tired cliches, abundant in football and business alike, the proof is in the pudding - “When you see what he achieved, it gives you hope for what you can do.” McPherson allied with the fire in the American’s belly, from his vision at Hibs and beyond. The two quickly became sounding boards for each other, combining McPherson’s homegrown experience with Gordon’s cultured insights and critiques:
“He’d ask me questions about new ideas, and I’d give my thoughts on what would work, what wouldn’t work, what the fans would like… He had so much to talk about, so much experience, he was a man of the world. He loved travel, he was a polyglot, he loved Italy, and had a real sense of culture. But, it was his positivity that caught me.”
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His global outlook felt revelatory to McPherson, who has since adopted many of the views his compatriot shared. Scottish football, for all of its guts, glory, thunder and lightning, is considered by many as a product backed into a corner when compared to other equivalently sized (or ever smaller and less well represented) European leagues and nations. On certain matters, Gordon was bullish. In lieu of a Deloitte report, he emphasised the need to optimise broadcasting revenues, increasing league exposure through branding and exploring innovative ways to develop the general structure of the Scottish football pyramid - from grassroots to the Premiership - to drive both commercial viability and create clearer pathways for youth development.
Gordon’s impact wasn’t just at Hibs, something that has been acutely recognised in the outpouring of recognition for his service to Scottish football - from various clubs and their fans alike - and his commitment to make lasting changes for the betterment of the game as a whole in the country. McPherson doesn’t want Gordon’s legacy to be in vain. If anything, he has taken to continuing his late friend and colleague’s mission with gusto in being appointed Hibernian’s new Non-Executive Chairman - a role, filled with challenges, that he relishes.
This role means that McPherson will primarily be tasked with effective management of the Board:
“Ron is an incredibly hard act to follow. He’s laid it out, though, through attitude and a vision. We will make it happen. Ben and I will work together. We need to communicate regularly. How it’ll operate in specific detail is too early to say, because the family needs to take time to work out how to take things forward, but the Club is entirely stable. We have an experienced Board, a top-class Chief Executive, great executives, great people all over the business, so we will take our time to keep going down his route.”
The key difference between executive and non-executive is the distance maintained from the day-to-day running of the Club. McPherson’s role is more that of an overseer, a step removed from the way that Gordon had been running the Club.
“I will be happy to do as much as is needed to help, where I can help, but it’s not the same job. Ron was so active in the areas he knew a lot about, and would get right into the detail of the big screens. I probably won’t do that as I wouldn’t be much help doing that. What I hope is that I and the other directors will keep the Club going the same way, with real ambition and drive.”
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