McCann's the man for County's clan MacGregor : Saturday may signal

Sunday Herald, The, Jan 4, 2004 by Michael Grant

THE qualities Roy MacGregor displays as the progressive and ambitious chairman of Ross County do not distinguish him from many other capable businessmen involved in Scottish football, but in one regard he could claim to be unique. MacGregor was - and remains - a real, live, bona fide friend and occasional golfing partner of Fergus McCann. The former managing director of Celtic was about as easy to like as sandpaper, and usually a bit more abrasive, yet he and MacGregor got on like a house on fire.

McCann reconstructed Celtic and MacGregor continues to build Ross County. On Saturday the clubs will meet competitively for the first time in the third round of the Tennent's Scottish Cup at Parkhead. McCann hangs his bunnet on a peg in America these days but MacGregor hopes to make contact for a chat before the weekend and will arrive at Parkhead with a sense of awed admiration for what the Scots- Canadian achieved in five turbulent years at Celtic from 1994 to 1999.

Ross County would rather be facing the Celtic McCann inherited a decade ago, the Celtic which had only 6,500 season-ticket holders and could lose major cup ties to Raith Rovers and Falkirk. The only similarity between that era and Martin O'Neill's has been Scottish Cup eliminations against pesky Highland opposition - Caled-onian Thistle - twice in the last four seasons. But occasional upsets apart, the Celtic of 2004 is an unrecognisably improved juggernaught which began rumbling forward under McCann.

On an obviously smaller scale, MacGregor has tried to run County as McCann ran Celtic, by mobilising the club's natural support base. The pair met a decade ago when McCann's wife, Elspeth, was working as MacGregor's lawyer and their unlikely friendship blossomed. "I was interested in doing a deal with my firm and she was handling it," said MacGregor. "At the same time she was doing the deal to buy Celtic for him. I met him socially and we just clicked.

"He was a competitive wee devil. We were on a golfing holiday in Tenerife once and I challenged him over a round. At the second hole he had a hole-in-one. Until you got near to him you wouldn't have understood him, or realised how competitive his nature was."

"I found that below the tough exterior was a very sensitive guy who really cared," MacGregor recalled. "His public relations were not the best and he was very, very suspicious of the west of Scotland press, but if you got in below that he was quite sensitive and in a peculiar way he was quite close to the fans, although I'm not sure a lot of the them saw that. On the other hand, 10 years on, I think a lot are beginning to acknowledge what he did and what he left for them.

"He gave me a lot of good advice for Ross County. Because he was in the entertainment business, where the customer was king, he had a great vision for what he wanted out of his club. I remember being there on the day he took over and there were only 6,500 season ticket holders. Today there are, what, 45,000? That didn't happen by chance. They were always there but Fergus was able to go and mobilise them.

"I've tried to model Ross County on the relationship Celtic got with their supporters. What Fergus did at Celtic impressed me. You could go in the front door at Celtic Park and have a family meal in the restaurant and the players, or the chairman, could be sitting next to you. It touched me, that that level of access existed at a club of that size. That was the model we followed in Dingwall."

MacGregor, a self-made millionaire, has a voracious appetite for improving a club which has climbed the divisions under him since entering the Scottish League at the bottom rung in 1994. The club recently inaugurated its (pounds) 5 million Highland Football Academy - only the second indoor training complex in the country, after Murray Park - and invited Walter Smith to launch a (pounds) 1.3m community education programme.

With 5,000 people Dingwall has the smallest population of any British town with a senior league club and yet Ross County's average gate is 300 more than any other club outwith the SPL. Around 15,000 Highland school-children pass through their coaching system each year and supporters descend from all over the north - and from neighbouring Inverness, the enemy territory of Caledonian Thistle - to watch Alex Smith's side. Rangers secretary Campbell Ogilvie recently spent a couple of days at the club and chairman John McClelland returned the favour by subsequently hosting a Ross County contingent at Ibrox and Murray Park. "We are always open to ideas," said MacGregor. "We go looking for best practice at most clubs."

Celtic travelled to Dingwall for a friendly in 1997 which was arranged through MacGregor and McCann's friendship, but the County chairman is relishing the first competitive match between the clubs. "We had a wee party at the house last night, all the management team were there, we were singing The Fields Of Athenry! We were laughing that we may not go down there and beat them, but our 5,000-6,000 supporters will give them a run for their money in singing The Fields of Athenry.