Sunset on Leith, the David Duff story

Forums New posts
Smurf said:
Thank fuck he didn't take the money and sell his shares. On that he was a man of his word.
Click to expand...
True but I feel he was only responding to a situation that he had created.

I wont be buying but fair play to those who want to get his take on events.
 
Brizo said:
True but I feel he was only responding to a situation that he had created.

I wont be buying but fair play to those who want to get his take on events.
Click to expand...
He 'created' it through absolute naivety not through intent to do the club any harm.
 
He’s on Longbangers next week apparently.

The whole mess was of his creation. Will it be a bit of an attempt to rewrite a dark period in Hibs history with this chancer as the hero?

I see Aidan Smith has a new book out. That looks more worthy of your well earned cash.

1758358164548.png
 
Smurf said:
He 'created' it through absolute naivety not through intent to do the club any harm.
Click to expand...

Wasn't that long ago I watched a video on it. Probably posted on here.
Seemed genuine enough, just way way out his depth and taken advantage of.

Stood his ground when it mattered. Or at least thats how it looked.
 
persevered said:
He’s on Longbangers next week apparently.

The whole mess was of his creation. Will it be a bit of an attempt to rewrite a dark period in Hibs history with this chancer as the hero?

I see Aidan Smith has a new book out. That looks more worthy of your well earned cash.

View attachment 19654
Click to expand...
Duff was outfoxed by sharks . When he took over we started signing big players Neil Orr , Goram , Archie. Duff and gray came out before games for a walk about . Place was buzzing. His heart was in the right place but Rowland was ten steps ahead .

The day that cant mercer announced the takeover bid . I met with duff and gray . He was never selling his shares .

Don’t forget STF was linked with mercer , Murray for property deals . STF tried to move us to straiton and sell ER for housing .

Until l die l will always sing the mercer song . It’s important the younger generation know what a cant he was .
 
He was an incompetent person, intended or not he almost fucked Hibs out of existence.

You could argue that Mercer’s intentions were good. To create one club to compete with the Ugly Sisters. Or you could argue he was a money hungry, Tory bastard who did not give a fuck about history or community.

I go with the latter.
 
Smurf said:
Thank fuck he didn't take the money and sell his shares. On that he was a man of his word.
Click to expand...
Man of his word !! A proven liar who spent time in jail in England later on for fraud.
He had to do the "right thing" ,or he would have had to head for Timbuktu or the Amazon rain forest to hide.

This is a cracking article from easttandhibs.com
Should be good to read for those who were too young or not born at the time.
Also for older fans to recall that dark period when were not sure as to what could happen to our club.

eaststandhibs.com

Don’t Mess with Leithers

In the late summer of 1987, Hibernian’s then owner Kenny Waugh decided to sell the football club to unknown lawyer David Duff for £875,000. Born in Edinburgh but based in England, Duff immediately …
eaststandhibs.com eaststandhibs.com
I was working in Northampton when Mercer dropped his bombshell.
Got back for the rally at ER 🚙

God Bless Kenny McLean senior and his group for their hard work on HOH at the time.
On that, if there isnt already ,there should be a memorial to Kenny 🙏
 
Last edited:
A friend of a friend has a website where he can download books.

If Duffs book appears I may be able to get an electronic copy.
 
Emerald Harp said:
Man of his word !! A proven liar who spent time in jail in England later on for fraud.
He had to do the "right thing" ,or he would have had to head for Timbuktu or the Amazon rain forest to hide.

This is a cracking article from easttandhibs.com
Should be good to read for those who were too young or not born at the time.
Also for older fans to recall that dark period when were not sure as to what could happen to our club.

eaststandhibs.com

Don’t Mess with Leithers

In the late summer of 1987, Hibernian’s then owner Kenny Waugh decided to sell the football club to unknown lawyer David Duff for £875,000. Born in Edinburgh but based in England, Duff immediately …
eaststandhibs.com eaststandhibs.com
I was working in Northampton when Mercer dropped his bombshell.
Got back for the rally at ER 🚙

God Bless Kenny McLean senior and his group for their hard work on HOH at the time.
On that, if there isnt already ,there should be a memorial to Kenny 🙏
Click to expand...
Superb
 
Hammi said:
Wasn't that long ago I watched a video on it. Probably posted on here.
Seemed genuine enough, just way way out his depth and taken advantage of.

Stood his ground when it mattered. Or at least thats how it looked.
Click to expand...
Had he agreed to sell his shares we'd not be here.
 
Smurf said:
Had he agreed to sell his shares we'd not be here.
Click to expand...
If it got to that point , l don’t think wallet would have went through with it . The intimidation tactics got to him . Bullet in the post , petrol bomb thrown at his house , business premises vandalised.

What’s overlooked in all this the scum has more debt that us . It was the Avon inns side of the plc business that was dragging the business down
 
Emerald Harp said:
Man of his word !! A proven liar who spent time in jail in England later on for fraud.
He had to do the "right thing" ,or he would have had to head for Timbuktu or the Amazon rain forest to hide.

This is a cracking article from easttandhibs.com
Should be good to read for those who were too young or not born at the time.
Also for older fans to recall that dark period when were not sure as to what could happen to our club.

eaststandhibs.com

Don’t Mess with Leithers

In the late summer of 1987, Hibernian’s then owner Kenny Waugh decided to sell the football club to unknown lawyer David Duff for £875,000. Born in Edinburgh but based in England, Duff immediately …
eaststandhibs.com eaststandhibs.com
I was working in Northampton when Mercer dropped his bombshell.
Got back for the rally at ER 🚙

God Bless Kenny McLean senior and his group for their hard work on HOH at the time.
On that, if there isnt already ,there should be a memorial to Kenny 🙏
Click to expand...
That's 100% my take on it as well.

A character whose penchant for "naivety" subsequently got him the tin pail for fraud and who in my opinion had to do the right thing for self-preservation reasons
 
Greenpower said:
If it got to that point , l don’t think wallet would have went through with it . The intimidation tactics got to him . Bullet in the post , petrol bomb thrown at his house , business premises vandalised.

What’s overlooked in all this the scum has more debt that us . It was the Avon inns side of the plc business that was dragging the business down
Click to expand...
The part I never understood is: what made the BoS stipulate that 76% as opposed to 51% of shares were required to make it “legally enforceable” “in this instance”. Does anyone know?
 
Getting initially involved with David Rowland and his company Inoco was Duff's downfall.
Duff never had a sole controlling interest in Hibs..he had part ownership, but Inoco (Rowlands company) had a massive stake along with various overseas entities.
Our share price collapsed after we were floated on the stock market and subsequently inherited Avon Inns.
All of which made Hibs very vulnerable to a hostile takeover bid which duly happened on 4th June 1990.

The arrangement was that Inoco through Rowland would loan Duff the capital to get involved with Hibs.
This would would then be paid back to Rowland along with a significant shareholding in the new company, Edinburgh Hibernian, which was the company created to own Hibs
after the share issue.

As I said, part of the Rowland deal was of course Avon Inns, which Inoco owned, and wanted rid of, as they were huge loss makers.
Duff naively agreed to this as he wanted in at Hibs, the club were then saddled with a loss making portfolio of property, and a rapidly falling share value as a consequence.
Enter Wallace Mercer.
Duff could easily have then sold his shares in the company to Mercer, but didn't, and that stopped Mercer in his tracks along with the sterling efforts of Hands off Hibs, Kenny McLean and his business friends, and of course Tom Farmer.

Duff was out of his depth from the start, but he didn't get involved with Hibs to ruin the club.
Far from it...he grew up a Hibs fan and regularly travelled to away matches in the early 70's with the Carlton Branch.
I also used to be a Carlton Branch member for years, and me and few others found his membership details.

Met him a few times, and his heart was always in the right place.
He got in over his head though.
 
Smurf said:
Had he agreed to sell his shares we'd not be here.
Click to expand...

Kenny you've seen the post on St Patrick’s Branch WhatsApp by fellow member Hibernian author Ian Colquhoun which goes....

"I've just finished reading it. I enjoyed it. The basics are, he came to Edinburgh and acquired a huge piece of land by buying us, all the local tycoons realised, there was some jiggery pokery because they didn't like an outsider coming in like that, but he refused to sell to Mercer that's all that matters.

Most interesting snippet is that in 1990 hearts were in worse financial shape than us, Mercer wanted to cannibalise us to save them.

Sir Tom's role at the very start in 1990 is told as more complex but he ended up being our 'dad' anyway for 30 years so that doesn't matter and doesn't detract from his legacy.

Villain of the piece a Tory called David Rowland who was on our board. Great read.

Moreover it doesn't contradict anything in my books so all good "

That's convinced me that this will be in my Hibs Books collection shortly.

BIG G
 
persevered said:
He’s on Longbangers next week apparently.

The whole mess was of his creation. Will it be a bit of an attempt to rewrite a dark period in Hibs history with this chancer as the hero?

I see Aidan Smith has a new book out. That looks more worthy of your well earned cash.

View attachment 19654
Click to expand...
Can't take him seriously after his Heartwank book. I stopped reading it after his description of attending a Hibs derby win at tiny and walking away unmoved. Prime wankness.
 
Hammi said:
This the book that couldn't be released while STF was alive?

Either full of lies or far too on point?
Click to expand...
It’s covered in the book, but essentially STF wanted all references to him removed.
 
Interesting thread - didn't clock it until after we'd finished recording - much of what he said echoes what has been said on this thread already - I've posted the link to the episode on our podcast thread. I was 13 at the time so memories of the details are sketchy. He came across well, as you'd expect - we asked folk with better knowledge of the time to give us tougher questions on the live chat to put to him and we did that - he never shirked any, he apoligised for what happened and took responsibility for it. It was an interesting chat.
Some great links shared on here, by the way - really enjoyed reading the Don't Mess With Leithers article.
 
One fascinating snippet in the book

Duff and Gray were subject of a hatchet job in the Evening News, how they’d frivolously spent money on club expenses accounts. Not entirely true, but the damage was done.

Which evening news hack was responsible? David Forsyth

Now why would he run that sort of story and who could possibly have given him the information
 
Only contentious thing I’ve read so far is

“Gordon Rae was sent off for two horrendous tackles” in the Archiegol derby

I don’t remember the tackles being that bad, to be honest.
 
Last edited:
Longbangers said:
Interesting thread - didn't clock it until after we'd finished recording - much of what he said echoes what has been said on this thread already - I've posted the link to the episode on our podcast thread. I was 13 at the time so memories of the details are sketchy. He came across well, as you'd expect - we asked folk with better knowledge of the time to give us tougher questions on the live chat to put to him and we did that - C. It was an interesting chat.
Some great links shared on here, by the way - really enjoyed reading the Don't Mess With Leithers
Click to expand...
AS soon as that door opened and Mercer came in !!!
Well Fox?Duff was ambushed by not one, but two rats🐀🐀
He says he was on his own with these two and his directors Alan Munro and Jim Gray(the hinger oan) were in another part of the hotel/ Why ?
His head would have been spinning knowing selling to Mercer(who was borrowing the buy money himself) would cause him serious grief
Did Kenny Waugh ask Fox?Duff where his buy money came from? That would have been an interesting question to ask
He kept reiterating "
I would never had sold the shares !!
Did he have no idea what was on the agenda at that meeting in London before he even left Edinburgh ?!
His look now suits him, the Pirate !!
Good piece from Ger back in the day in HCF

 
Last edited:
Emerald Harp said:
AS soon as that door opened and Mercer came in !!!
Well Fox?Duff was ambushed by not one, but two rats🐀🐀
He says he was on his own with these two and his directors Alan Munro and Jim Gray(the hinger oan) were in another part of the hotel/ Why ?
His head would have been spinning knowing selling to Mercer(who was borrowing the buy money himself) would cause him serious grief
Did Kenny Waugh ask Fox?Duff where his buy money came from? That would have been an interesting question to ask
He kept reiterating "
I would never had sold the shares !!
Did he have no idea what was on the agenda at that meeting in London before he even left Edinburgh ?!
His look now suits him, the Pirate !!
Good piece from Ger back in the day in HCF

Click to expand...
They had no idea why they were being summoned to Inoco's HQ in Soho, London that day....Sunday June 3rd 1990.
I agree that it would have been interesting to hear just what due diligence was done by Kenny Waugh before he agreed to sell his shares to Duff in August 1987.
Would also like to know if he still has any regular contact with Jim Gray.
 
Very interested to read this discussion, thanks. Many memories from that time, including getting interviewed by kirsty wark on def2 bbc 2 programme. Never seen it since.
My dad spoke at the rally. He felt duff and gray were well meaning but incredibly naive.
 
That was the impression I got. That a business shark (Rowland) gave them a pure using.
 
Con man outcons con man/ Duff met a wider guy than himself
Good job for us he did leave
Whatever he was really up to at Hibs his financial criminality got him the jail not so long after he left.
So that was a blessing for us / His greed caught out elsewhere
I know he was only on longbangers to talk about his time at Hibs,but imo he got an easy ride there.
I guess he was not there to answer the tough question or was restricted by others #
Anyway
What Hibs fans thought when got the jail 👇#
www.heraldscotland.com

Hibs' former chief jailed for two years for fraud

By ROBBIE DINWOODIE
www.heraldscotland.com www.heraldscotland.com
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
  • Menu
  • Home
  • Hibs Chat
  • New Posts
  • Just Back
  • Chatroom