Hearts
He is remembered mainly for improving the fortunes of Hearts during the early 1980s. This culminated in Hearts coming within 10 minutes of winning the championship in 1986.
Mercer is also remembered for his attempt in 1990 to merge the two major Edinburgh clubs, Hearts and Hibs. Mercer reasoned that the Old Firm had far greater financial power than either Edinburgh club and that the only way to realistically compete was with a united Edinburgh club. Hibs fans suspected that the "merger" was more of a takeover by Hearts and they strongly resisted Mercer's bid to acquire a majority share in Hibs. Mercer was eventually forced to abandon his plans as some key shareholders refused to sell to him, denying him the level of shareholding needed to liquidate Hibs. Sir Tom Farmer eventually took financial control of Hibs instead.
In 2010, Mercer's widow and children issued a statement to the Edinburgh Evening News reiterating the reasons for the proposed merger of Hearts and Hibs. The statement also claimed that the increased dominance of the Old Firm since 1990 had vindicated the proposal.
Read more about this topic: Wallace Mercer
Famous quotes containing the word hearts:
“The first promise exchanged by two beings of flesh was at the foot of a rock that was crumbling into dust; they took as witness for their constancy a sky that is not the same for a single instant; everything changed in them and around them, and they believed their hearts free of vicissitudes. O children! always children!”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
“We sail across dominions barely seen, washed by the swells of time. We plow through fields of magnetism. Past and future come together on thunderheads and our dead hearts live with lightning in the wounds of the Gods.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“I sat on cushioned otter-skin:
My word was law from Ith to Emain,
And shook at Invar Amargin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
And drove tumult and war away....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)