Interviews

Meeting McLintock

by Mark Rowe

Frank McLintock is the ‘M’ half of the guarding company H&M Security. Football had to be among the talking topics – as the Scot was Arsenal FC captain and a linchpin of the 1971 Double-winning team – but there was business, besides sports, to discuss, writes Mark Rowe.

Frank McLintock’s move into manned guarding stems from after-dinner speaking. Ian Henderson, the H ‘half’ of H&M Security, was let down late in the day by a speaker at an event in central London. These were the days Frank McLintock was among the former footballers on Sky TV on Saturday afternoons with such names as George Best, Clive Allen and Rodney Marsh. Frank asked for and was given the time off and did the dinner and speech. “And that’s how it started. He [Henderson] asked me, would I be interested in joining” – we are speaking in a meeting room of H&M Security Services at Highams Park on the outskirts of north-east London. “I said, I didn’t know about security; and he said, you will be able to open doors, and pick things up as you go along.” And so it has proved.

“It has been a real challenge, because you are doing something that’s completely different from your previous life; all the skills I learnt from my years as a professional footballer and manager took a wee while to transfer to the business world but I like to think I’ve made a success of it. It’s been exciting, helping to build a successful team and company. It’s hard but I love to win and strive hard to make sure others do too. As commercial director I am mainly responsible for the sales side of the business, a key component to any business, opening doors, speaking to people, securing the contracts and making sure the team is able to deliver them. I’m a people person. Communication is key and I like getting new clients and sitting with them and befriending them if you can and inviting them out and going to meet them.”

H&M share a box at the Emirates Stadium, the home of Arsenal Football Club, one of Frank’s former clubs.

As one of the most recognisable names in modern football, and known to a new generation from his work on Sky, Frank McLintock can indeed open doors; but your name, whoever you are, whatever doors you are going through, only takes you so far. Frank as commercial director, the business development man, has to keep in contact with clients. You have to sell, and keep selling, what the customer will pay for. You are, no matter who, only as good as your last job.

You are constantly seeking to ensure clients have a good service, and find new ones. “It’s a waste of time opening doors and not providing a good service. I strive to do the best I can do and demand that from everyone else. We all work hard together maintaining high standards. It’s been tremendous to secure long term contracts such as Cross Rail, London underground, NHS, Network Rail and National Grid, but the challenge is ensuring we deliver what we say we would. That is the ethos of the company. We are men of our word and that is how H&M do business.”

How supplier and buyer can go about procurement was among the topics at IFSEC in May; Mike O’Neill’s talk featured in the July issue. Frank describes what he may do for interviews for potentially big jobs. H&M have full time staff of 17, including two directors with over 30 years’ experience in the security industry, three operations managers and former police and military personnel. This team work together to ensure the client is best served, so Frank will use this team of experienced operators for any big presentations. “We don’t stand to order, have no egos and work hard together as a team to give the best pitch at the best price. I think this approach has been a key to our growth. I ask about the last dozen or so years, that have seen the Security Industry Authority and ever more technology. Has the job of providing guarding changed in that time; or stayed the same as it always has been?

“It’s become more highly regulated as all officers need to be licensed, we were certainly supporters of that from the early days and worked hard to get accreditation introduced. In fact H&M are now in the top 10 per cent of security companies on the Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) in the UK. This obviously has increased the administration and we have had to embrace and adapt to that as a company. Health and safety has also become a major issue with contractors & this has to be addressed on sites. A 24 hour control room enables us to monitor safety of our officers through constantly changing technology. It is very different from when I started 12 years ago.”

Younger readers may need reminding that professional footballers were not always paid a man’s yearly earnings in a couple of days; they were once normally-paid and like normal people. Frank recalls his time as an apprentice in the building trade, before his playing career. All that said, as a new-comer to guarding he was thrown in at the deep end. “I’ve done well and it’s pleasing that as commercial director I have played a key role in helping to grow this company. We are doing well and long may it continue. If you don’t get the work in, you don’t get the opportunity to show how good a company you are; and I went along with it when I was a player; I always gave of my best, so when I am into something, I am really into it. And I have always been that way. That commitment and dedication is part of my ethos and the company’s.

The emotion that we put into a sport or a team that we care about, can easily hide the truth that professional sport is a job of work; each piece of work demanding that you and your side do better than the other side. “I think sport and business are very similar, I really do,” Frank says. “Having regular meetings with people, discussing what went on last week, where we went wrong, what faults there were and how are we going to sort it out for the future. We have at least a couple of meetings every week, discussing certain issues that come up, and trying to improve ourselves as a company. This has helped us grown, improve and develop until we now turn over £9m, gained long term contracts with NHS, National Grid, Cross Rail, Network Rail amongst others and we are soon to open a Gibraltar office.

“The trouble with football is, it’s wonderful, it stays with you for the rest of your life, but it’s a ten to 15 years lifespan. I was lucky, I played 19 years at the top, and I never played a lower division ever, but when I left it and went into [football] management and coaching and then left that, I put my whole heart into the next venture.” Until this year he has been working five days a week and attending Arsenal home games, taking four or five clients to the Emirates. “It’s a challenge to help drive this company forward but I still manage to squeeze in enough of my other passion to football. Golf!

The afternoon after he was speaking to Professional Security in the morning, in fact, he was playing to golf. I mention that one morning last year I met the West Indian cricketer Sir Garry Sobers; he too (a fit-looking 75-year-old) in the afternoon was going on to play golf. What is it about sportsmen and golf?! I ask. Which brings up the fame of a sportsman. Frank says: “Because football, especially, is short term, it’s nice to have another sport, that you can still play until … I mean, I play with two guys who are 80 on our golf course, and they play pretty well and they are pretty fit as well.” As it’s a walk of five and a half miles or more to complete a round, that adds up to good exercise besides. “And it can be competitive, it can be as competitive as you like.” To inform the golfers among you reading, Frank is playing off a seven handicap. He says that it is getting a bit hard to keep to that, but don’t all golfers say that?! “I think it’s a great sport.”

Frank still gets recognised in London, and inevitably his fame crops up – or, it may be, someone who sees him tries to work out where he’s seen Frank before. “It’s no problem to me, honestly, I don’t think I have ever turned anyone down for a photograph; and everybody has their cameras. People say, would you mind having a photograph? I never turn them down, unless I am running for a train; in fact, in a way it’s a compliment, that people want to shake your hand, and say thank you, for what you have done for Arsenal. Sometimes they surprise you, because they say, ah, I saw you at Leicester, with Gordon Banks. It’s a huge compliment to you; I get a wee bit disappointed with sports people, who look as if it’s a huge burden.” I suggest that to some of today’s footballers, the attention may feel like a burden. As Frank agrees, players in his era of the 1960s and 70s thought they had a lot of press coverage, ‘but it’s a fraction compared to today’. The wages of past players and managers, too, were a fraction compared with today. This is not the place for what Frank says about football, the household names such as Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger and Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. To sum it up, as Frank says, ‘the change in football has been unbelievable’. What does come through is what Frank has spoken of: his continuing daily following of football – ‘Arsenal just needed three quality players in the last three years’, he says, and this was before the transfer of striker Robin van Persie to Manchester United – and of other sport: watching the Olympics, he says, ‘I’ve had tears in my eyes’. He is not short of opinions –Arsenal can compete with the leading Premier League clubs, he insists – and rather than get into any football argument, let us say it’s striking how Frank still puts his heart into things: “If Arsenal don’t do well, it spoils my weekend.” Equally, if his club does well, ‘I am chuffed to bits’. We are familiar with footballers finding it hard to come to terms with life after their years at the top of their game; the most famous footballers now earn so much, you could say they don’t need to come to terms. Can you imagine Robin van Persie working in a business in the 2050s?! Meeting Frank McLintock, you get the feeling that he cannot help but work as hard as he does, to the best of his ability. Whether you meet Frank McLintock in the corporate box at the Emirates Stadium, on the golf course, or as a Commercial Director, you can be sure he tackles the matter in hand the same way he did when he was at the top of British football for a generation.

About Frank McLintock: He was voted one of Arsenal’s 50 greatest players; visit www.arsenal.com. Aboput H&M Security: Based at Highams Park in north-east London, the guarding company’s clients include Network Rail, Crossrail, National Grid and the Oxfordshire-based Marussia Formula 1 team. Visit www.hmsecurityservices.co.uk. Frank McLintock blogs: ‘Manchester City will be the ones to beat … Spurs will be interesting’.

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