St Mirren supremo Jim Gillespie reveals why he turned down chance to be Rangers chief executive

Scottish Sun

22-04-2025

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ST MIRREN chief Jim Gillespie has told how he's snubbed big money offers from England since rejecting Rangers.
The Buddies vice-chairman was offered a deal to become Ibrox chief executive last August, as exclusively revealed by SunSport.
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Jim Gillespie met Robert Grieve and Bill Leckie to discuss his time in football
Credit: Kenny Ramsay
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The St Mirren supremo almost became the new CEO of Rangers last year
Credit: Getty
Gillespie, 47, turned them down to stay with the Paisley club and continue in his role as CEO of care organisation The Kibble.
And in the latest edition of our Coffee Club podcast, out now, he insists he's happy with his decision.
Gillespie said: 'I've always respected anyone who comes and asks for a conversation or a cup of coffee with you.
'I've had conversations with other teams since Rangers.
'Rangers are a massive institution, a great organisation, and ultimately you have those conversations.
'But I've got an amazing job at Kibble, I need to say that.
'It's rewarding in more than just financial terms to make a difference to the kids that I work with on a daily basis, or the staff I lean on.
'That's something special - and obviously I'm now firmly embedded in St Mirren.
'Whether it's Rangers or there's other clubs, you've got to listen.
'But for the foreseeable future at the moment, my commitments are for The Kibble and St Mirren.
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'You get offer jobs from down south and you think, 'wow, look at the package,'
'But I've got two kids and I don't think I want to stay away from home from them.'
SunSport broke the news that Rangers had targeted Gillespie as a replacement for James Bisgrove.
He joked: "I was at at home under the bed for a couple of days - I couldn't leave."
AS a kid, his mum was forever telling him to give his head a rest.
But Jim Gillespie was obsessed with pushing himself to the limit as an enterprising youngster.
And it's that same mentality and ambition that motivates him now at St Mirren.
Gillespie, 47, is the Paisley club's vice-chairman driven by a vision and determination he's had all his days.
And he vows that doesn't stop after the club claimed its third top six finish in the Premiership in three years.
Gillespie told SunSport: 'I'm one of those ambitious people.
"My mother used to say to me, 'Jim, you need to give your head a rest,' because I was always thinking of what's next.
'And I wanted to bring that to St Mirren.
'Tony Fitzpatrick had a great attitude about the top six.
'But I used to say to Tony, 'achieving top six is great, but how do we BECOME a top six club?
'Because I think there's a slight difference.
'You can go and get top six once and you can maybe wait three or four years - I think we were 38 years before we did it.
'But how do we become a top six team, how do we achieve that?
'I couldn't be more delighted with the team this season.
'Getting that top six is people think 'oh, you've achieved that.'
'But we've still got five games to go and we're very much determined to win those five games and see where that takes us.'
Gillespie has opened up on life at St Mirren as a guest on SunSport's Coffee Club podcast that's out now.
In a rare interview, he tells of the ups and downs as the Buddies' hands-on vice-chairman.
And it's not all been smiles and pats on the back.
It started when he joined the club in 2020 just weeks before the world ground to a halt when Covid hit.
And earlier this season Gillespie was forced to show the door to three key players - Kevin van Veen, Shaun Rooney and Jaden Brown - for separate unacceptable off-the-field incidents.
He added: 'Personally, it's challenging because you're heavily involved in that recruitment process when you bring those guys in.
'But I go back to having resilience in our business, and one of the things that we needed to create in St Mirren was resilience.
'And I think that it demonstrated that the club has that resilience by how we came through that.
'Look, they're young guys and I'm not here to say that were they guilty or they not guilty?
'I'm not here to judge.
'But what was clear was there were certain behaviours and things that didn't meet the values of St Mirren.
'As a board, we said 'let's follow due diligence with HR processes and legal situations, but they very much trained and played their last game of the club.
'We had to move them on because we're a value driven club, a value driven organisation.
'And therefore, the outcome was that those players moved on to new pastures.
'Unfortunately, we didn't see those things permeating into the position that they did.
'But I think there's also standards in the dressing room, standards in the club. that you're setting.
'And, overall, when you get through that, it leads you in a better place.'
Buddies boss Stephen Robinson has always talked in glowing terms of his relationship with Gillespie - and the feeling is mutual.
He added: 'Stephen is top class.
"The relationship I have is based on him knowing I'm there to support him and give him what he can.
'To be honest, he gives me a lot back.
'He'll help me in the game and he'll he'll talk to me through certain things.
'He'll open up to me, which when you're a leader, you need that.
'You need you can have the relationship.
'The whole position for me as a manager at St Mirren is that they've got an ambition to go to a higher level.
'And if I personally or the club can help them in that, then why not?'
Gillespie's doesn't just work tirelessly at St Mirren.
His day job sees him strive to make the lives better of vulnerable people throughout Paisley and Renfrewshire as chief executive of care organisation, The Kibble.
He just hopes one that day the work they do each and every days is NOT required to be done.
Gilliespie added: 'I have said before that a strapline for the Kibble was that we exist not to exist.
'People, including the bank, find that mad when I say that.
'We're a big organisation.
'The Kibble is open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day and have been for over 170 years, so we very much just embrace it.
'We look after the most vulnerable young people in Scotland, sometimes further afield.
'But we have a host of services that, from residential care, community care, secure care, foster care.
'And we run education services right across that from in terms of workforce development.
'We get young people into employment, which is absolutely important for that hope in life, to get them into kind of skills for work and readiness.
'We offer that right across the 32 local authorities in Scotland, unfortunately, may I say.'
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