He learned some valuable lessons under the then Sir Alan Sugar at Spurs, but Dundee’s new chief executive Scot Gardiner is out to prove he is no apprentice in the world of football.
Gardiner was appointed on Monday and he wasted no time in pledging to ”get things right” at the club to help the Dark Blues fully realise their potential.
He arrives at Dens with an impressive CV, having worked as sales manager of Rangers in the 90s before moving to Tottenham Hotspur, where he was commercial manager.
Dundonian Gardiner has more recently been involved with the launch of a successful business in Edinburgh, although he will now be working full-time at Dens.
He said: ”I am very pleased to be here. It is clearly a great challenge but one I am looking forward to. I am Dundee born and bred and I wouldn’t have taken this job on anywhere else.”
Gardiner intends to use what he learned when he was with Spurs and adapt it to help Dundee. When asked what Lord Sugar was like to work for, he said: ”He was brilliant. He calls a spade a spade but he was extremely loyal.
”I was amazed he got a TV show as I didn’t see that happening but I still call him gaffer any time I see him.”
He added: ”Even when I was at Spurs during Dundee’s first administration, I joined dee4life to put a few quid in. Unfortunately, the second administration came along and I tried to do a bit then trying to drum up support.
”Everybody knew about Dundee guys like Gus Poyet were going on about the point deduction. I was amazed that people like him and Peter Hain, who is the shadow Welsh secretary at the moment, knew what was going on.”
Gardiner said: ”I was also at the hall of fame dinner where Pat Linney and Ian Ure were inducted and I just felt it was a phenomenal atmosphere. I never thought I would be here at that stage but I was up for Christmas and New Year, had some discussions with the directors and it developed from there.”
He added: ”I’ve always thought that whoever gets things right here could do something amazing and nothing in the last three weeks has made me think any differently. I was speaking to the directors at Kilmarnock the other night after the Scottish Cup game and they were full of praise for the fact that we had nearly a thousand fans there.
”They said this was the perfect example of why there should be an expanded Premier League. Apart from Celtic, Rangers and Hearts, they said no one had brought a thousand fans to their ground in the last five years.
”Obviously, there is a tremendous amount of work to be done, especially off the park, but the potential is definitely here.”
To help realise that potential, a major part of Gardiner’s job will be attracting outside investment to help the club and manager Barry Smith.
He said: ”I’ll be here day to day and there are two facets to the role. One is getting the structure right, but clearly Barry and the club need money to get better players on the park. So new investment will be crucial.
”I’ve had exhaustive discussions with the directors about how this will work.”
He added: ”I don’t mean my way is the only way, don’t get me wrong, but we have agreed jointly that here is a way of doing this where it meets all of the anomalies of having a fans’ society, a board as well as a business trust and the potential new investors who may be joining and what do they get.”