WE ARE…
Our Story
The Foundation of Hearts (FoH) is the most successful supporters’ movement in Scottish footballing history. We currently have a membership of almost 8,000 individuals, all of whom contribute financially to the organisation. This financial contribution is used to provide working capital for the club we support, Heart of Midlothian.
A not-for-profit organisation, the Foundation was created in 2010 by a group of local businesspeople (Jamie Bryant, Brian Cormack, Donald Ford, Garry Halliday, Alex Mackie), all of whom are lifelong Hearts fans.
In 2013, the Foundation was joined by all the Hearts supporters’ organisations – the Federation of Hearts Supporters Clubs, the Heart of Midlothian Shareholders Association, the Heart of Midlothian Supporters’ Trust, Hearts Youth Development Committee (HYDC), and Save Our Hearts. Under the chairmanship of Ian Murray MP, this united group worked under the Foundation of Hearts ‘banner’ to take forward the vision of fan ownership.
In 2014, one of the Foundation’s own team, Ann Budge (through her specially created company, Bidco), successfully acquired the majority shareholding of the club. A legally binding agreement was put in place between Bidco and the Foundation to deliver fan ownership via the Foundation. Doing so allowed the club’s finances to be stabilised and an orderly transition to supporter ownership to be organised. Bidco’s sole purpose has been to deliver fan ownership and it has therefore not sought to make any personal gain through the process.
The club exited administration in June 2014 with no money in the bank, and on day one, in line with the agreed business plan, the Foundation injected almost £1 million of essential working capital. Over the following years, funding has continued to be provided, including a £3 million contribution to the Tynecastle Redevelopment Project (whose main focus was the new main stand), a contribution which was voted for overwhelmingly by the Foundation members. The continued funding from the Foundation will see the loan of £2.5 million from Bidco (1874) Limited repaid by mid-2020. This will be the final step in the transfer of the majority shareholding in the club to the supporters, with the Foundation receiving a 75.1% holding.
Ann Budge has been implementing her strategy of running the club in accordance with a carefully constructed plan, a key objective being to restore the club to being a viable operation so that the fans, through the Foundation, will be operating a healthy going concern at the point that we take over ownership. We are delighted to have been working closely with Ann Budge and her team to pave the way for fan ownership at Tynecastle, and we acknowledge the extraordinary commitment, breadth of skills and new values which she has brought to the club. Her initiative has been a breath of fresh air in the Scottish football scene.
None of the Foundation initiative would have been possible without the incredible dedication and determination – defying sceptics and nay-sayers at every turn – of the magnificent supporters of Heart of Midlothian Football Club.
Directors
Gerry Mallon (Chair)
Gerry, who became chair of the Foundation in 2022, is chief executive of Tesco Bank and is a member of the Tesco plc executive committee. He served as Pro-Chancellor and Chair of Council at the University of Ulster and President of the Institute of Banking in Ireland, and recently completed a six-year term as chairman of the Irish Football Association. Gerry holds an economics degree from Cambridge University and received his MBA from Ulster Business School.
Andrew Brown
Andrew was born in Edinburgh and holds a BSc in Computer Science from Edinburgh Napier and an MBA in Business Administration from Henley Management College. He has worked for IBM since 1994 and is currently the General Manager for IBM’s Technology Business in the UK and Ireland. Andrew has experience working internationally with IBM living in North America and has spent time in Asia, focused on technology modernisation. He is a third-generation mad Jambo and currently lives in Twickenham.
Jim Burberry
A lifelong Hearts fan who has lived within the sound of Tynecastle for most of his life, Jim is a recently retired business adviser with around 30 years’ experience, built from a career in professional services firms, the last 20 of which were in a leadership role as a partner with client service, profit, risk, and governance responsibilities. Jim also has great experience of leading and delivering diversity and inclusion initiatives and looks to draw on his wide, high-level experience to further the ambition of the Foundation and its members.
Paul Cheshire
Paul is a chartered accountant and currently a partner in the accountancy firm PwC. He has 17 years’ experience of working in the auditing profession and works with a number of high-profile Scottish businesses. His role on the Foundation of Hearts board is to provide guidance around accounting and wider business matters, as well as oversee the Foundation of Hearts’ finances.
Donald Cumming
Donald is a lawyer in the global law firm CMS. Based in Edinburgh, Donald specialises in commercial and corporate work, and was part of the legal team which acted for the Foundation in the deal with Ann Budge’s Bidco in 2014 to enable the Foundation to become majority shareholder in Hearts.
Graham Robertson
Graham represented Scotland at bowls more than 200 times and won world outdoor and indoor titles in his illustrious career, as well as holding the role of national director of coaching. In his professional career, he was 20 years with HMRC and held a number of sales director posts before becoming managing director of a Sports and Surfaces business, which he and his wife acquired in 2015. A passionate Hearts fan who was a leading light in Tranent Hearts Supporters Club in the 1970s, he has clear ambitions to grow the Foundation membership.
Louise Strutt
Louise is a qualified chartered taxation adviser, chartered financial planner, and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Insurance by profession. She worked in professional practice in the financial services sector for many years before establishing her own bespoke tax, accountancy and financial planning practice in 2006.
Director of Member Affairs (honorary director)
Garry Halliday
One of the founding directors of the Foundation of Hearts, Garry is a bricklayer and a third-generation dyed-in-the-wool Hearts fan. He has been a key figure in the Foundation journey, successfully implementing a number of major initiatives, and in December 2021 – after standing down as a board director – he took up the new position of director of member affairs. This is an honorary director post and while he does not sit on the board, Garry reports to it on his work.
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