Talk:TMA Communications
1 of 10 DOCUMENTS
Scotland on Sunday
January 28, 2001, Sunday
MEDIA BRIEFING: A MEEHAN LEAN PR FIGHTING MACHINE
SECTION: Business; Pg. 6
LENGTH: 396 words
WHEN Tony Meehan, probably Scotland's best-known PR man among the media, started his public re-lations firm in 1976, he had one client and wondered if he would be in business at the end of the year. He began his career as a DJ with the pirate station Radio Scotland, then did six years as an advertising copywriter, before founding Tony Meehan Associates in Glasgow. In those days, what is now TMA Communications was a pioneer. Now it is one of a burgeoning number of PR outfits operating in Scotland and ranging in size from the Caledonian offshoot of international giant Shandwick to a band of one -person outfits. Meehan jokes that his ambition is to "find a way to retire gracefully." Instead, he is diversifying from the longest-lasting independent PR firm in Scotland, marking the firm's silver anniversary this Thursday by creat-ing two complementary new companies . Omni 20-10 will be the agency's new events management and conference organising arm, while Public Affairs (Scotland) has been set up to provide links to Scotland's new parliament and to give individuals and organisations information on European and Westminster legislation as it affects Scotland. The early days are remembered as a time of "steam faxes, couriers and electric typewriters", as well as clients who saw PR as the cheap alternative to advertising and a cheap thrill when they got their name or picture in the newspapers. Meehan says: "PR is now recognised as a valuable business function, operating and supporting both corporate and marketing issues and programmes. Client understanding has improved tremendously. There's been a slow recognition of the value of PR in boardrooms across the country, a realisation that a good press will support the company's market position and share price." Meehan is serious about professional standards. He helped set and maintain them through his work with the big three industry bodies, the PRCA, IPRA and IPR. He was a member of the steering group which es-tablished an MSc course in PR at the University of Stirling and is visiting professor of consumer studies at Glasgow Caledonian University. Of the new crop of PR firms, he says: "It's too easy to start a PR company, though having said that, many people who do are well trained and do well. Others know nothing and simply give clients a bad experi-ence."
LOAD-DATE: January 29, 2001
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUB-TYPE: PAPER
Copyright 2001 The Scotsman Publications Ltd.
2 of 10 DOCUMENTS
The Herald (Glasgow)
March 10, 2000
Patriot with global interest
BYLINE: John Mckinlay
SECTION: Pg. 3
LENGTH: 1262 words
Tony Meehan considers himself a citizen of the world who also happens to be Scottish. Put another way, he believes in Scotland as part of a global community, but he detests xenophobia. Some Scots, he thinks, have been sold an emotional package wrapped up to represent a romantic his-tory of Scotland and the meaning of nationhood. He applauds outward-looking devolution but would be con-cerned about narrow-minded independence. It is this modern blend of patriotism and internationalism which explains the importance he attaches to linguistic abilities when he interviews job candidates for positions at his company, Tony Meehan Associates (TMA), a broad -based consultancy in the public relations and communications sector. He works for blue chip companies based at home and abroad, offering a wide range of services, from political and public affairs to consumer communication programmes, from training to media relations and crisis management. I believe the ability to speak other languages is absolutely crucial now. It is an advantage in business and it is something I consider when I am looking for new employees. It is a preferential." His company is currently expanding, and is seeking to recruit two senior managers and a graduate trainee. Meehan, aged 56, openly admits he does not himself speak other languages. They were not so important in the world he grew up in. Nowadays, however, he travels extensively both for his business and as a speaker on the international circuit, something which grew out of a unique achievement in 1995. He became the first and only UK winner of the Overall Golden World Award, presented by the International Public Relations Association. IPRA covers 70 countries and more than 1000 members. Meehan founded Glasgow-based TMA in January 1976 - now one of the top 10 companies of its kind in Scotland - after a restless career, first in the insurance industry, transferring to a pirate radio station off the Scottish coastline in the mid-1960s, then advertising, copy writing and finally public relations. He left school "too early" at 16 but went on to successfully undertake distance learning and professional examinations. He estimates there are between 5000 and 7000 people employed in public relations and communica-tions in Scotland, and believes the industry will continue to expand. What it needs are people of the right quality, hopefully with the ability to speak another language. In the developing global society, are languages important in whatever career you choose? Yes. The challenge is to get people not only to learn languages at school but to understand the potential value and use they can put them to 10 or 15 years down the road. My own children took two languages each and they are now starting to appreciate that they actually need them. The world is getting smaller, and inter-national communication is now a matter of course. Does your industry offer a good future? Yes. If you looked at the PR business 20 years ago, the main players would be on either their second or third career choice. I am the perfect example of that. Very few of us were graduates. Today it is very different. Invariably we find we are the first career choice for university graduates. That is why we developed the intern programmes we have run here for about 10 years. We invite graduates in, offer them an internship of six to 12 months and give them the opportunity to get into the business. If they are any good we keep them, and if not we let them go, although having been at TMA at all is a good thing to have on your CV. Because we are very selective, most of the graduates have recognised the opportunity, have used it, and many have gone on to other things. Many are in other countries, such as France, Australia and Ger-many. Do you take graduates on every year? If we find the right people. We don't take them on just for the sake of it. We don't have an intern at the present moment, although we are still looking. How good is the standard of people coming forward looking for jobs now? There is an appalling lack of basic education in the use of the English language. That applies even to university graduates, including those taking English as a first degree. They either cannot spell, or speak properly. "I done, I seen." A major improvement is required. People will not get past the first interview if we have any of that. Is this a frequent experience? Yes, and it is sad because some of the candidates I am talking about are actually extremely amiable and suitable people in every other way. But when the chief executive officer of a client company telephones, and someone either cannot take a message or speaks poorly, that reflects on us as an organisation. Have you passed these criticisms on to the universities? Yes, and they acknowledge the problem. They say that's the product they are being given by the schools. Are people well prepared when they arrive for interviews? It varies. The person who comes in and hasn't done any homework invariably shows up very poorly. It is not whether they are wearing their best clothes, but whether they have shown a little common sense by ac-quiring some information about the company. It doesn't take a great deal of intelligence to inform yourself either by going to the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, through the Internet, or even to telephone the company and explain that you would like to learn a little about it before the interview. Just ask them to send you some-thing. What qualities do you look for? The ability to communicate and get on with people, the simple things like being able to operate a com-puter and being well turned out. The personal habits of the person, the visual, are very important. Body pierc-ing isn't in our make-up bag, you know. Do you get that kind of thing? Oh yes. We have even had people coming to be interviewed, and they have dirty hair, which obviously indicates they don't care about themselves. We just want to see people making a little bit of an effort. They don't actually have to wear Gucci but they can at least be clean and tidy. Is a university education essential no matter what your career path these days? It is an ideal that many people aspire to. If you are going to be a brain surgeon it is essential, of course, but not necessarily in PR, although it is preferable. What is the key to a good interview? Knowing how to listen as opposed to how to talk. That's from the interviewer's point of view. Most times I have a gut feeling in the first five minutes as to whether that particular person is going to go beyond our first meeting. Which industries offer the best job prospects? Companies with a multinational dimension, irrespective of the business they are in. Financial services, communication, IT services and, in some respects, public services. Also some of the fundamental industries like tourism and food and drink. What irritates you? Laziness. And I think what irritates people about me is that I don't explain things properly. My mind is in-variably going 10 times faster than my mouth. What impresses you? When you ask someone to do a job, and they excel. They add their own value to the job, rather than changing it to meet their own needs. Any golden piece of advice? Hard work, personal integrity, commitment and honesty will always deliver results for you. John McKinlay discusses the power of communication skills with public relations expert Tony Meehan
LOAD-DATE: March 11, 2000
LANGUAGE: English
GRAPHIC: n World view: Tony Meehan believes that in the modern international environment it is vital to learn different languages.
PUB-TYPE: Paper
Copyright 2000 Scottish Media Newspapers Limited
3 of 10 DOCUMENTS
The Herald (Glasgow)
October 24, 1996
Sites for your eyes
SECTION: Pg. 10
LENGTH: 784 words
o BANK OF SCOTLAND One of the first banking Web sites in the UK. One year on since its inception, this extensive location is currently under review with the intention of introducing a greater interactive element. http:/www.bankofscotland.co.uk o THE HERALD The exteremely popular Electronic Herald recently celebrated its 1,000,000th visitor. Averaging around 30,000 hits each day, this Monday to Friday service takes Scotland's leading quality newpaper world wide. http:/www.cims.co.uk/herald o THE EVENING TIMES The Times On-line is a collection of the best of the week's news and sport from " the life and soul of Glasgow . This service has proved very popular with Glaswegian expatriates. http:/www.cims.co.uk/eveningtimes o GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL This new Web site will cover all aspects of the council's work, as well as providing a rough guide to the city and its history. o BRITISH TELECOM Forget those old company memos, BT's Intranet system has revolutionised the internal communications network. Ever expanding, this intranet project is potentially the biggest in Europe. o SCOTTISH ENTERPRISE Going live soon, this major commercial site will provide businesses with information on investment, train-ing, and the environment. A boon for business, this site is an excellent first point of contact for those seeking further information. o LIFE TECHNOLOGIES This site provides access to the company's product information and offers a secure on-line ordering service for lifescience researchers and biomedical manufacturers. A database of the company's 3500 products is in preparation. http:/www.lifetecheuro.co.uk o TELECOM SCIENCES CORPORATION The Web allows the telecommunications group to supply product and service information on the Net to dealers and customers alike. http:/www.telsci.co.uk o WEST OF SCOTLAND WATER This site carries material of interest to both commercial and domestic customers. Emergency informa-tion is made available in live time. Environmental facts on projects, and useful advice for consumers can also be accessed. http:/www.westscotlandwater.org.uk o SOFTWARE ECHO The quarterly journal for Scotland's software community, a bulletin board, and back issues of the publi-cation are available on the Net.. http:/www.cims/hotecho o SCOTTISH FINANCIAL ENTERPRISE An important site which brings together Scotland's leading financial institutions, the information available has proved to be a valuable gateway for Scottish business. http:/www.sfe.org.uk o TONY MEEHAN ASSOCIATES The site serves as an excellent introduction to the workings of this busy public relations company. Nota-ble features include an online survey for potential customers. http:/www.tmac.co.uk o GLENGOYNE Read the history of the famous distillery while using the merchandise ordering service by simply leaving a message on the enquiry page. Enter the monthly competition and you can win a bottle of Glengoyne10-year-old Internet malt. http:/www.glengoynedistillery.co.uk o EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTRE A very functional and highly interactive site, it contains a full listings service as well as up-to-the-minute information on the availability of seats for events. Visitors can also use the site to make enquiries and fill in their conference requirements. o A T MAYS This second-generation Web site will provide a systems integration, allowing real time up-dates on holi-day availability in a secure environment. The ultimate aim is on-line booking. Going live in the new year. o CABLETRON An intranet preentation which will enable visitors to Cabletron exhibition stands to interact with a live intranet containing information on Cabletron, its services and its products. A tutorial on intranet technology will also be available o SCOTTISH FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION This site, which is under construction, will include vital listings for all Scottish football fans, as well as taking the user on a trip through the museum of football. o CHARTERED ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFIED ACCOUNTANTS Coming soon, a Web-site which will keep members up to date with the work of the association, as well as providing useful information for students and prospective students of accountancy. o SCOTTISH TELEVISION Voice created, in conjunction with Scottish Television, the title sequence for the Teacher's Local Heroes series, and provided the new Scotland Today titles. Voice is also making a new series of titles for Sky Scot-tish. o BBC SCOTLAND Voice created the title sequence for the children's programme Bright Sparks.
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 1996
LANGUAGE: English
PUB-TYPE: Paper
Copyright 1996 Caledonian Newspapers Ltd.
4 of 10 DOCUMENTS
PR Week
August 9, 1996
Safeway poaches Bass man to froth up PR in Scotland
BYLINE: By DANNY ROGERS
LENGTH: 207 words
Safeway has hired Bass Brewers' head of Scottish PR, Cameron Walker, to add communications clout north of the border. Walker took up the new position of public affairs manager for Scotland earlier this week. Despite the ti-tle, he will be responsible for a broad range of corporate and consumer PR activity. Walker had spent ten months years as communications manager for Bass Brewers' Scottish operation Tennent Caledonian Breweries, where he handled corporate and brand issues. He was previously with Scot-tish and Newcastle Breweries. Safeway is the largest food retailer in Scotland with a 21 per cent market share. Teresa Wickham, Safeway's corporate affairs director, said Safeway is opening a lot of new stores but that there was no specific Scottish drive. She said: 'Cameron has a lot of good media contacts and Scottish journalists prefer to deal with someone in site rather than with our head office in Hayes.' Until now Safeway has used Glasgow agency Tony Meehan Associates to deal with Scottish PR. Wickham said this relationship will continue. Walker said: 'I was attracted by the challenge of an increasingly competitive food retail industry. There are many parallels with the drinks sector.'
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2000
LANGUAGE: English
PUB-TYPE: Magazine
Copyright 1996 Haymarket Publishing Services Ltd
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PR Week
May 3, 1996
Profile: The iron lady of Glasgow - It would take a brave heart to consider crossing swords with Flora Martin
BYLINE: By JOHN-PIERRE JOYCE
LENGTH: 686 words
When Citigate Communications revealed last week it had bought Flora Martin PR and was going to merge the company with Dunseath Citigate to form a new Scottish subsidiary, the announcement raised a few eyebrows. Not that the merits of the deal were doubted. With a healthy fee income, a long list of clients and a strong position in the Glasgow PR market, Flora Martin PR seemed the obvious target for a company like Citigate looking to consolidate its position in Scotland. But observers did wonder how Flora Martin herself would take to being a director within a larger group after having run the show on her own for so long. Friendly and charming though she is, Martin has, on her own admission, a strong personality'. She's a forthright and forcible woman and has her own views,' says one former colleague. People either love her or hate her. Martin's reputation for toughness has served her well in an 18-year PR career. Her working life began in 1969 as an executive officer at the MoD in Glasgow. But after nine years she began champing at the bit' for a new challenge and was introduced to Tony Meehan of PR consultancy Tony Meehan Associates. I didn't know anything about PR,' Martin confesses. I didn't know PR even existed. The profession didn't have the image then that it has now and I hadn't a clue what it was, but it sounded like good fun. Tony and I had a tacit agreement that if I was rotten or if I hated it then it would only be a three month appointment.' Three months stretched to six years, during which Martin got to grips with most aspects of the PR busi-ness. By 1984 she felt confident enough to move to a larger outfit and joined PR Consultants Scotland - now Shandwick Scotland - as a senior account executive. I needed to have my perspective broadened and I didn't have anything to benchmark myself against,' she recalls. Two and a half years later she returned as a director to Tony Meehan, whose agency had re-vamped itself as TMA Communications. Her tenure there lasted three years until differences over the firm's future direction led her to start her own consultancy. I know now how difficult it is to allow people to take a big role when it's your business and you've brought it from nothing, and I must have been quite difficult to work with at that time,' she admits. I was very ambitious and Tony and I decided we would part ways.' At Flora Martin PR she has built up a staff of nine, eight of whom are women. Although she rejects the all women agency' tag as irrelevant, Martin does think that women can bring advantages to the PR business. I think women are good at PR because they are good at juggling more than one job, and in consultancy that's important,' she says. In some ways women are often more team spirited than men. There are less egos involved.' She also thinks Scottish PR professionals could teach their English counterparts a thing or too about the PR business. It's a different market,' she says. They have a hard training up there and I think a lot of Scot-tish people that come to London are very successful because they've been in the school of hard knocks. We go all out to get the best programmes for the client without propping it up with things that I wouldn't really consider to be traditional PR disciplines. I think people expect a lot more for their money and we have to work a lot harder.' Martin certainly plays as hard as she works. She and her husband Sandy are familiar faces on the Glasgow social scene. Until recently the couple organised an annual golf tournament for friends called the BOG classic which, by all accounts, provided some memorable moments. I've got fabulous video footage of people trying to play golf which I've often threatened to send to Jeremy Beadle,' she laughs. And you get the feeling she probably would. HIGHLIGHTS 1978 Account execcutive, Tony Meehan Associates 1984 Senior account executive, PR Consultants, Scotland 1986 Director, TMA Communications 1989 Managing director, Flora Martin Public Relations 1996 Director, Citigate Scotland
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2000
LANGUAGE: English
PUB-TYPE: Magazine
Copyright 1996 Haymarket Publishing Services Ltd
6 of 10 DOCUMENTS
The Scotsman
April 25, 1996, Thursday
Dunseath pulls off public relations coup
BYLINE: John Ivison
SECTION: Pg. 22
LENGTH: 267 words
DUNSEATH Citigate, the Scottish subsidiary of the City public relations firm Citigate, has bought one of its west coast rivals, Flora Martin PR, in an undisclosed cash-and-shares deal. The operation will become known as Citigate Scotland, with offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aber-deen, and will be run by the managing director, Robin Dunseath. Citigate remains the only City PR firm to have made any impact north of the Border, despite rumours that other firms such as Lowe Bell Financial have been looking at launching into the lucrative Edinburgh market. The Citigate Scotland group is claiming combined fee income of £ 1.5 million, which would make it the second largest public relations company in Scotland, behind Shandwick Scotland (formerly PR Consultants Scotland) but marginally bigger than Barkers Scotland and Beattie Media. Flora Martin PR was established in 1989 by Flora Martin, who had previously worked at Tony Meehan Associates. The company's major clients include Pharmacia, Glenmorangie, Waverley Vintners and Maclay, Murray & Spens. The company claimed fee income of £ 300,000 from its six fee-earning staff members in the last annual survey of the PR industry in Scotland. Citigate Scotland will have a combined staff of 31. Dunseath Citigate was formed last November, when Dunseath Stephen, an Edinburgh public relations company set up in 1977 by Mr Dunseath and Myra Stephen, was bought by Citigate. The deal was seen as giving Citigate a foothold in Scotland, while allowing Dunseath to move into finan-cial PR and political lobbying.
LOAD-DATE: April 25, 1996
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUB-TYPE: PAPER
Copyright 1996 The Scotsman Publications Ltd.
7 of 10 DOCUMENTS
The Herald (Glasgow)
August 29, 1994
Paradise in Kelly's eyes
BYLINE: Harry Reid
SECTION: Pg. 11
LENGTH: 1814 words
PROFILE: Extracts from Michael Kelly's new book will be serialised in The Herald from Saturday. Here Harry Reid sets the scene. IN 1980 Michael Kelly became Glasgow's youngest Lord Provost for 200 years. The 39-year-old eco-nomics lecturer was charismatic, opinionated, confident and dynamic. He believed that Glasgow's civic lead-ers had been too defensive, too much in the mould of apologists. But the new man, and the new style, were greeted with suspicion. There was a lot of bitterness about his plan to make Nelson Mandela a Freeman of the City. Glasgow's embattled business community was wary. The media were cool: The Herald was sceptical, the Evening Times downright hostile. The tyro Lord Provost proved adept at winning publicity, but much of it seemed negative, spurious and insubstantial; sto-ries about the civic Rolls delivering the Sunday papers to his home, that kind of thing. But Kelly had done his homework, and had thought out his strategy. He had read about the nineteenth-century LPs in the days of Glasgow's greatness; he was determined to reforge links with the city's entrepre-neurs. He wooed the business community with what was, for a senior Labour politician, anticipatory zeal. (Many of Kelly's personal initiatives anticipated what the Labour Party was to attempt on a national scale years later.) He persuaded a group of businessmen to provide £80,000 for the cleaning of Glasgow's civic chambers, the building they had been wont to regard as the symbol of a spendthrift and quasi-Stalinist oligarchy. He was the first LP to address the Chamber of Commerce in more than 40 years, and a special council sub-committee, on which the chamber were represented, was created. And, most importantly, he involved businessmen in his selling of Glasgow. The message was no longer angry, defensive, even paranoiac; it became more complex and more positive. It ran thus: OK, Glasgow has colossal problems, we don't deny it. But it also has many strengths. We have to build on these strengths so that we can eliminate the problems. Where in the past spokesmen for Glasgow had reacted with indignation or fury to knocking copy, Kelly soothed and cajoled. And then he visited New York. What he encountered there seemed to endorse his strategy in a most spectacular way. "If you want to see a city with problems, just go there. Yet look at how they promote the place. It comes over, to all the world, as positive and vital." He returned to Glasgow determined to rebouble his efforts. He lobbied all sorts of people; what he wanted more than anything was a slogan. The quest for a slogan became his glorious obsession. John Struthers, one of the Glasgow's most distinguished advertising men, came through with the slogan Go With Glasgow. Kelly was not convinced. "I said to John: 'I need a slogan I can die for.' A week later he came back with Glasgow's Miles Better. He was tentative, but I thought it was superb." And the rest, as they say, is history, though Kelly says he had three sleepless weeks before the slogan, and the attendant campaign, was launched. Their subsequent success made him Britain's most celebrated civic leader in modern times. "It was an external, international campaign, yet I think its greatest benefit was the way it revived the belief Glaswegians had in their own city. It released a great reservoir of latent pride. We created a huge buzz in the city, and it was sustained for several years." And so when Kelly demitted office in 1984, he was a hero. The valedictory leaders in The Herald and Evening Times were ecstatic. Tributes flowed in from all over the world, which he had at his feet. But what was he to do now? "There was much speculation that I'd go into Westminster politics, but I didn't want to become a back-bench Labour MP. And I didn't want to go back to academic life, though Strathclyde University had always been very good to me. I was now convinced that I had a flair for marketing, so I set up my own PR com-pany." This was not greeted with uniform delight. Some observers thought that Kelly had exploited -- albeit with enormous energy and skill -- the office of Lord Provost. In other words, his undisputed success had been down to what he had made of the the office and not to any innate marketing genius. This view is expressed with some candour by Tony Meehan, Visiting Professor of Consumer Studies at Glasgow Caledonian Uni-versity and boss of Tony Meehan Associates, one of the city's senior PR firms. "Four years as Lord Provost of our great city does not make anyone a PR professional," says Meehan. "Michael Kelly did an excellent job, of course he did. But when he left office he was not qualified as a PR ex-pert. I really don't think he was ready for the PR industry. I've spent 28 years in this industry and I'm still learning." None the less, Kelly set up Michael Kelly Associates and by the early 1990s he was employing 15 peo-ple. He was asked to advise, among others, Edinburgh, Leeds, Bradford and Cardiff. He gained many impor-tant corporate clients. Then, in 1990, he joined the board of his beloved Celtic FC. There was an inevitability about this. He was steeped in the club; his grandfather had been the first player to sign for Celtic. His devotion to Celtic had been as zealous as his devotion to Glasgow; indeed the early months of his Lord Provostship had been dogged by controversy about his attending Celtic games to the exclusion of all others. He belonged to one of the two great Celtic dynasties, the Whites and the Kellys, and of the Kellys, he was the most prominent and intellectually able. But his father had quarrelled with his uncle, Sir Bob Kelly, who had presided over the club's glory years in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Michael Kelly had been in a peculiar position; at once an insider and an outsider. But his love for the club is not, and should never be, in doubt. His four years on the board are the subject of Kelly's first book, Paradise Lost, which will be published by Canongate at the end of next week. Before that, extensive extracts will be published in The Herald, start-ing this Saturday. In these Kelly speaks for himself, giving his account of four years of struggle and turmoil with lucid and forensic intensity. All that needs to be said here is that the book is rigorous, controversial and passionate; and also that Kelly's experiences on the beleaguered Celtic board certainly did his public relations standing no good whatsoever. Further, at the nadir of a recession, when his business needed all his attention, the affairs of Celtic took up more and more of his time. Most PR companies have a relatively high turnover of clients; as Kelly was losing clients, he wasn't replacing them. When I put it to him that having been regarded as a PR genius, he was now regarded as a PR disaster area, he bridled, but -- and this is typical of his style -- he composed himself to respond with his customary reason and courtesy. "Well, it's difficult for me to see it like that. But I can concede that my involvement with Celtic, and my in-ability to stem all the negative publicity Celtic received, would in some people's eyes be a reflection on my PR abilities. I can understand that new clients would be reluctant to come to an agency whose principal had been so deeply involved in so dirty a fight." The bitterness engendered by the decline of Celtic and the boardroom disputes would have broken lesser men. Kelly faced vicious attacks; worse, his family were abused without mercy. He is stoical about what he suffered, less so about the assaults on his family. He says: "When you're just a supporter of a club, you are more generous in your attitude. You band to-gether with the others, psychologically. But when you see hatred directed against you personally, you do re-alise that there are many appalling people supporting football, people who are vicious, drunken, unthinking, easily led." Kelly is a man of paradoxes. For a sincere and -- yes, devout -- Catholic, there is something almost Cal-vinistic about his asceticism, his belief in the work ethic, his suspicion of many of the good things in life such as alcohol and parties. (He is unashamedly austere in his personal life; he likes to be in bed by 10.30; he is a lifelong teetotaller and he thinks parties are a waste of time.) And for a dedicated servant of the Labour Party, his embracing of the market ethic of the 1980s seemed, for some on the left, rather overdone. He describes himself as as businessman socialist and says: "My political views are social rather than economic. I do believe in the market, it's very efficient; but it has to be controlled to prevent abuse." His enemies -- and it has to be said that they are many -- cannot take away from him his virtues. He is exceptionally hard working and highly intelligent. He is a brave man, and a decent one. His family life is ex-emplary -- he and his wife Zita have three children, Teresa, 28, a gynaecologist, Miranda, 24, a lawyer, and David, 18, who has just started work in a Glasgow office -- and his unstinting service to the city of Glasgow and other deserving causes is matter of record. It is worth mentioning here his long chairmanship of the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He says some of what he comes across in this work is so horrible that it cannot be dis-cussed, except that "it confirms how savage human beings can be, and you don't need to go to Rwanda or Bosnia to discover that. On the other hand, I meet all the volunteers who give so much of their time, so much concern." Arnold Kemp, editor of The Herald, has known Michael Kelly in good times and bad. He says: "Kelly did an outstanding job in leading and promoting the Miles Better campaign in the 1980s. He had commitment and an excellent understanding of the media. I noticed at the time that he was the victim of a certain amount of petty jealousy, a commodity usually in ample supply in the City Chambers and elsewhere. "I felt sorry for him as he struggled to retrieve an irretrievable situation at Celtic. He became the whip-ping boy of sports journalists whose forays into financial journalism were sometimes far from convincing and he was the subject of a disgusting campaign by dissident elements which unforgivably involved the intimida-tion of his family. The truth was that no amount of PR could conceal the depth of the morass into which Celtic had sunk." And so now Michael Kelly stands, aged 53, on the threshold of another change of career. "But I've changed course dramatically in the past and that doesn't worry me. I haven't a clue what I'll be doing in three years' time, but I know one thing: I'll be doing it wholeheartedly." The people of Glasgow should wish him a future that's miles better.
LOAD-DATE: August 30, 1994
LANGUAGE: English
GRAPHIC: Kelly at Parkhead: the bitterness engendered by the decline of Celtic and the boardroom dis-putes would have broken lesser men. He faced vicious attacks; his family were abused.
PUB-TYPE: Paper
Copyright 1994 Caledonian Newspapers Ltd.
