2024 Week34: Member of the Club

My late father-in-law, Jan Stepek, was brought up on a farm in Poland in the 1920s. He never had the opportunity to play football as a child or even watch a game. All the more ironic, therefore, that four decades later he would be the Chairman and main owner of a professional football club in Scotland.

When he arrived in Scotland, he quickly learned that football was a national passion. But he paid no attention to it. However, in 1969, he found himself drawn into a crisis concerning the local football club - Hamilton Academical - or "Accies" as they are better known. By this time Jan was one of Hamilton's and Scotland's best known businessmen.

One day, his next door neighbour who was a shareholder in the club, knocked on Jan's front door. Over a drink, the neighbour explained that the directors of the football club had agreed to merge with another local club, Clyde FC. This would mean that Hamilton Academical would cease to exist. A minority of the Board disagreed with the decision and the neighbour had been tasked to speak to Jan to see if he could help in a campaign to save the club. Jan agreed to be involved and led a successful change of leadership at the club, after which he was asked to become Chairman.

Article from The Daily Record Jan 15 1986

At the first game he attended (the first football game he had ever been to!), he asked after twenty minutes, "Which one is our team?"

However, he learned quickly and took the club from the bottom of the lowest league in Scotland to a place in the top league during his tenure as Chairman. He was the longest serving chairman of a football club in Scotland during that era and is credited with saving the club. There are many stories about his time there, but I shall save them for another time.

Obituary in The Hamilton Advertiser 1 Nov 2012

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