Latest news with #Mellon
Daily Record
3 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Record
Micky Mellon getting Oldham 'monster' back on it's feet as ninth promotion still owes thanks to Joe Jordan lessons
The former Dundee Utd boss made it a family affair at Wembley nearly three decades on from wide eye train journey to Bristol It's a little square of north London normally reserved for aristocracy, global heads of state and worldwide celebrities to enjoy the fruits of their labour. For a few hours last Sunday the Royal Box at Wembley was packed with Mellons. Of the Scottish variety. Micky Mellon did that. The VIPs in his life - mum Margaret, wife Jane, sister Lisa, his kids Jordan, Jacob, Evie and Michael, even his Uncle Martin and cousin Junior - were all down from Scotland and in the posh seats at the home of English football. There to get the best view in the house of Mellon securing a NINTH promotion in a career spent for all but one year south of the border. The 53-year-old has guided Oldham Athletic back into the EFL thanks to that dramatic 3-2 play-off final victory over Southend United. He'd have loved for his late dad Michael to have joined the celebrations. But he knows he'd have been watching down as another season ended on a high. This is nothing new to Mellon. Far from it. He's now steered every club he's managed to promotion at least once, other than Dundee United who were already in the top flight for his one year at Tannadice. He cut his managerial teeth guiding Fleetwood Town into the big time off the back of two promotions from the Conference North and Conference Premier in 2010 and 2012. Three years later he took Shrewsbury Town into League One via automatic promotion. He led Tranmere from the Conference Premier to League One following back-to-back promotions in 2018 and 2019- both via Wembley play off finals. It's becoming a bit of a habit. And a good one at that. As a player he won three promotions too, with Bristol City, West Brom and Burnley. And yes, the second of those was secured thanks to the play-offs. There's been a couple of blows, relegation with Tranmere and the sack from Prenton Park two years ago before he took over Oldham. But the highs have far outweighed the lows. No wonder the 'wee boy from Glasgow', as he puts it, felt like he was on cloud nine as he took time out from partying at Boundary Park and a civic reception with the mayor to reflect on it all with Mail Sport this week. He said: 'Nine promotions. I'm blessed. To come to England and achieve that, nobody can take it away from me. I'm really proud. 'The effort required, they're all tough, they're all really special. But the play-off final is the best way to go up. There were 53,000 at Wembley. 'My mum and my sister were down from Scotland and in the Royal Box. 'For a wee boy from Glasgow to put his mum and his sister, his wife and his kids, into the Royal Box at Wembley and win.. surely is what we all dream of? 'Mum went back to Elderslie happy and proud. That's the best feeling of all. "But I'm not done yet. I still have a real love for football. I want to help young players improve and get the moments like they got at the weekend. 'To see young people put that effort in and get moments in their life that they'll never forget - it's an unbelievable satisfaction. 'As my old dad used to say, 'Michael, football was good to you. You've got to put what you've learned back in'. I try and stick to that approach. Dad was a huge influence on me. A good man, good west of Scotland standards. 'I still have a lot of those morals and values that I use now. Things that I instil in my own kids.' It's been some journey for Mellon since Michael snr put him on a train from Glasgow to Bristol as a wide-eyed 16-year-old back in 1989. Thankfully he had a legend off the Scottish game waiting for him at the other end. Nine hours later. Joe Jordan was his first boss at Bristol City. And the best role model any young Scot could wish for. Within 12 months the first of those nine promotions was already in the bag at just 17 years old. Mellon said: 'I got put on a train at Glasgow Central at 16. 'I remember asking dad, 'when do I get off?' He said 'when it can't go any further, it's Bristol, it's the last stop'. 'It was the Sunday service, it went across to Newcastle, it took about nine hours. But I'll never forget waiting for me on the platform at Bristol Temple Meads was Joe Jordan and his assistant Jimmy Lumsden. 'He drove me and another Scottish boy that went down, Ronnie McQuilter, to the digs. What a real human touch. He knew two Glaswegian boys were coming to Bristol so he met us at the station. 'I would probably have never gone if it wasn't for him, he's a legend. I don't know if I would allow my 16-year-old boy to go on the train on his own now! 'But mum and dad knew that I was going down into good hands. I had a great time. I got into the team at 17 and we won the old Division 3 and got to what is now called the Championship. 'Joe was amazing, the way he ran the football club was way ahead, very disciplined, organised and professional. 'He led by example and actually still played in a few games despite being 38. 'I'm always proud to tell people I played for Joe Jordan. An unbelievable mentality, I learnt so much from him, he was a brilliant manager. An absolute gentleman too. I learned a lot about how you should treat young players and people.' Not just young players, either. Cameras caught Mellon giving his winner's medal away to an older gentleman as Oldham celebrated with 23,000 fans at Wembley on Sunday afternoon. He said: 'Frank Rothwell, the owner. He's a football manager's dream. He does so much for the club, for the local community and charity and things. 'Oldham is a monster of a club with brilliant owners and is climbing back to its feet again. 'I just felt that Frank deserved a medal, so I gave him mine. Hopefully it's not going to be my last.' Meanwhile, Mellon insists he'd never shut the door on another chance to manage in Scotland - despite his stint at Dundee United finishing abruptly. One season at Tannadice in 2020-21 remains the Glaswegian's only spell in Scottish football. He secured United's Premiership status in their first year back in the top flight - finishing ninth and just a point behind fifth. It came to an end after his relationship with sporting director Tony Asghar became strained. A mutual parting of the ways followed. But the Oldham boss said: 'I'd love to have the opportunity to go back to Scottish football again if it was all right. 'I love Scotland and I love Scottish football. So I would never shut that door. But I'm at a big monster of a football club at the minute and enjoying it. 'But I've no regrets about Dundee United, I loved it. 'We didn't have a lot of Premiership experience, we had a lot of talented players. 'But the boys did terrifically well. We just missed out on being in the top six, got to the semi-final of the Scottish Cup against Hibs and we managed to get a whole raft of young players into the team and sell a couple for big money. 'It just came to a natural end. We sat down after the season and it would be fair to say that the relationships weren't great. 'Two guys with respect for each other made a man's decision that they weren't going to be able to move forward together. 'It was the right decision to mutually accept it was better that we parted ways.' Critics had taken aim a lack of opportunities for young players despite Kerr Smith, Archie Meekison and Darren Watson all making their top level debuts under Mellon that season. Mellon said: 'I'm not going to get too much into it, it was just relationships weren't in the right place in order to keep Dundee United moving forward. 'We'll probably both have regrets about the way our relationship went. We had a lot of respect for each other and accepted it probably wasn't going to go any further. 'Maybe if things had been different and I got that second year then things would have been very good. I'd have enjoyed it. But I was delighted with what we managed to achieve. 'The only thing I was disappointed about at Dundee United was I never got to do it in front of the fans. 'It was the covid season. I'm the only manager in Dundee United's history who never met the fans! 'But we're currently trying to organise a friendly at Tannadice this summer - that would be nice to take Oldham there.'
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
100 years before Elon Musk, one of America's richest men came to fix Washington. It didn't end well.
He was one of the richest men of his time, a powerful force in business and then in government — so influential that political adversaries taunted the White House that he was 'the real president.' Today, that's Elon Musk's story, as the world's richest man winds down his tumultuous time in Washington as a 'special government employee' in President Donald Trump's administration. But while Musk's astronomical wealth and the work of his Department of Government Efficiency have been one of a kind, there are strong echoes of another businessman-turned-slasher-of-government who came to Washington just more than 100 years ago. Andrew Mellon, a Pittsburgh banker and one of America's wealthiest men in the early 20th century, was treasury secretary to three Republican presidents — Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover — for more than a decade in the 1920s and early 1930s. Like Musk, Mellon came to Washington with the aim of drastically cutting back federal spending. Like Musk, he remained involved in his private businesses at the same time, as biographer David Cannadine has chronicled, sparking fierce protests from opposition Democrats. Like Musk, political opponents made him a national boogeyman and suggested that Mellon was the true power in Washington. Three presidents served under him, the joke went. Sen. Robert La Follette Sr., a Wisconsin progressive, said Mellon was 'the real president of the United States. Calvin Coolidge is merely the man who occupies the White House.' And as Musk leaves the White House and appears to consider his political legacy, voicing concern that Trump and Republican lawmakers won't follow through on his hopes of big spending cuts, Mellon's own complicated legacy illustrates how difficult even titans of industry have found the task of permanently bending politics and government toward their will. Mellon achieved his goals for a time, paring back yearly federal spending to approximately half the level it was before he took over the Treasury Department and reforming U.S. tax laws. But the Great Depression turned the nation sharply against him and the Republican Party personified by wealthy businessmen, with Mellon becoming a political lightning rod in the way Musk has this year. In 'Mellon: An American Life,' Cannadine wrote that Mellon's son recalled witnessing an early exercise in political social media targeting the treasury secretary: a rhyme written on a urinal at a rest stop between Pittsburgh and Washington. 'Mellon pulled the whistle, Hoover rang the bell,' it began, 'Wall Street gave the signal, and the country went to hell.' When Democrats took back Congress in the backlash after the Depression began, they investigated the intersection of Mellon businesses and government contracts they won while he was in the Cabinet, initiating impeachment proceedings before he resigned to take an ambassadorship. And ultimately, Mellon saw his low-spending, laissez-faire ethos pushed aside in national politics by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, which ushered in a wave of government spending and social programs that were anathema to Mellon-era Republicans. No historical comparison lines up neatly in all respects. While Musk and Trump's administration sought to slash programs through presidential orders and an expansive view of executive power, Mellon worked through Congress to enact his budgetary priorities. Mellon was fabulously wealthy, thanks to investments in businesses from aluminum to oil to early airlines and beyond, but Musk's businesses and riches are on a significantly different scale. And Mellon's final work with the government, years later, was also of a decidedly nonpolitical nature: He established the National Gallery of Art, seeding it with his impressive private collection. Musk's story is far from its final chapter, with more twists and details to come even as he ends his stint at the White House. What we know for sure, though, is that wealth and power of that magnitude endure through the years. In a twist of fate, after the Trump administration and DOGE slashed grants and staff this year, the Mellon Foundation, which was launched by Mellon's children decades ago using part of the family fortune, stepped in to fill $15 million of the gap. And there's another eye-popping financial connection between the Mellon years and Musk's time in government. Musk was the biggest disclosed donor in the 2024 elections. The second-biggest? Timothy Mellon, Mellon's grandson, who gave nearly $200 million in support of Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other causes, according to OpenSecrets — paving the way for Musk's stint with DOGE in Washington. This article was originally published on
NBC News
29-05-2025
- Business
- NBC News
100 years before Elon Musk, one of America's richest men came to fix Washington. It didn't end well.
He was one of the richest men of his time, a powerful force in business and then in government — so influential that political adversaries taunted the White House that he was 'the real president.' Today, that's Elon Musk's story, as the world's richest man winds down his tumultuous time in Washington as a 'special government employee' in President Donald Trump's administration. But while Musk's astronomical wealth and the work of his Department of Government Efficiency have been one of a kind, there are strong echoes of another businessman-turned-slasher-of-government who came to Washington just more than 100 years ago. Andrew Mellon, a Pittsburgh banker and one of America's wealthiest men in the early 20th century, was treasury secretary to three Republican presidents — Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover — for more than a decade in the 1920s and early 1930s. Like Musk, Mellon came to Washington with the aim of drastically cutting back federal spending. Like Musk, he remained involved in his private businesses at the same time, as b iographer David Cannadine has chronicled, sparking fierce protests from opposition Democrats. Like Musk, political opponents made him a national boogeyman and suggested that Mellon was the true power in Washington. Three presidents served under him, the joke went. Sen. Robert La Follette Sr., a Wisconsin progressive, said Mellon was 'the real president of the United States. Calvin Coolidge is merely the man who occupies the White House.' And as Musk leaves the White House and appears to consider his political legacy, voicing concern that Trump and Republican lawmakers won't follow through on his hopes of big spending cuts, Mellon's own complicated legacy illustrates how difficult even titans of industry have found the task of permanently bending politics and government toward their will. Mellon achieved his goals for a time, paring back yearly federal spending to approximately half the level it was before he took over the Treasury Department and reforming U.S. tax laws. But the Great Depression turned the nation sharply against him and the Republican Party personified by wealthy businessmen, with Mellon becoming a political lightning rod in the way Musk has this year. In 'Mellon: An American Life,' Cannadine wrote that Mellon's son recalled witnessing an early exercise in political social media targeting the treasury secretary: a rhyme written on a urinal at a rest stop between Pittsburgh and Washington. 'Mellon pulled the whistle, Hoover rang the bell,' it began, 'Wall Street gave the signal, and the country went to hell.' When Democrats took back Congress in the backlash after the Depression began, they investigated the intersection of Mellon businesses and government contracts they won while he was in the Cabinet, initiating impeachment proceedings before he resigned to take an ambassadorship. And ultimately, Mellon saw his low-spending, laissez-faire ethos pushed aside in national politics by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, which ushered in a wave of government spending and social programs that were anathema to Mellon-era Republicans. No historical comparison lines up neatly in all respects. While Musk and Trump's administration sought to slash programs through presidential orders and an expansive view of executive power, Mellon worked through Congress to enact his budgetary priorities. Mellon was fabulously wealthy, thanks to investments in businesses from aluminum to oil to early airlines and beyond, but Musk's businesses and riches are on a significantly different scale. And Mellon's final work with the government, years later, was also of a decidedly nonpolitical nature: He established the National Gallery of Art, seeding it with his impressive private collection. Musk's story is far from its final chapter, with more twists and details to come even as he ends his stint at the White House. What we know for sure, though, is that wealth and power of that magnitude endure through the years. In a twist of fate, after the Trump administration and DOGE slashed grants and staff this year, the Mellon Foundation, which was launched by Mellon's children decades ago using part of the family fortune, stepped in to fill $15 million of the gap. And there's another eye-popping financial connection between the Mellon years and Musk's time in government. Musk was the biggest disclosed donor in the 2024 elections. The second-biggest? Timothy Mellon, Mellon's grandson, who gave nearly $200 million in support of Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other causes, according to OpenSecrets — paving the way for Musk's stint with DOGE in Washington.
South Wales Argus
28-05-2025
- South Wales Argus
Newport paedophile asked ‘girl' to send him naked pictures
Serial sex offender Robert Mellon thought he was speaking to an underage child called Ella. But he was in fact chatting to paedophile hunters Dank Dragon carrying out a sting operation. The 57-year-old from Newport has been in and out of prison for more than two decades after committing a string of crimes. His latest offending happened this year between March and April, prosecutor Abigail Jackson told Cardiff Crown Court. The teenager he thought he was contacting on social media was a decoy who had a fake profile picture of an underage girl. His first message to her was: 'Hi sexy!' Miss Jackson said: 'The defendant thought she was a 14-year-old girl from Cardiff. 'He asked her if she had a sexual boyfriend and the conversations carried on for a number of weeks. 'The defendant asked Ella if she shaved her genitalia and he told her she was beautiful and sexy.' She added: 'He talked to her in detail about having sex and asked for some pictures of her naked when she was in the bath. 'The defendant thought he was speaking to an actual 14-year-old girl.' Mellon, of Church Road, Newport admitted attempting to breach a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) and attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child. He has 14 previous convictions for 27 offences. In 2011 he was convicted of three counts of sexual activity with a child under the age of 16 for which he was eventually jailed for breaching the community order imposed in that case. Seven years later in 2018, he was sent to prison for 12 months for attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity. In May 2021, Mellon was locked up for 15 months for breaching an SHPO and attempting to engage in sexual activity with a child by arranging to meet a 14-year-old girl. That was another paedophile hunter operation. A year later in May 2022 he was jailed for 12 months for breaching an SHPO and again for 16 months in February 2023 for the same offence. 'This latest offending was a serious and persistent attempt to breach the order,' Miss Jackson told the court. 'It is aggravated by his prevention convictions.' Harry Baker for Mellon asked that his client be given full credit for his early guilty pleas. Judge Paul Hobson told the defendant: 'It is very plain to me that you are a paedophile whose sexual interest in children shows no sign of abating.' Mellon was jailed for 32 months and told he would serve half of that time in custody before being released. He will have to register as a sex offender and made the subject of an SHPO indefinitely.
The Irish Sun
20-05-2025
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
Former Premier League club closing in on return to EFL despite finishing 23 POINTS behind play-off opponents
FORMER Premier League side Oldham Athletic are on the cusp of an EFL return after a thumping 3-0 victory at York City. They became the first team to have competed in the Prem, of which they were a founding club, to drop into non-league when their 115-year stay in the EFL ended in 2022. Advertisement 4 Oldham City are nearing an EFL return after years in the wilderness Credit: Shutterstock Editorial 4 They thumped York City 3-0 to seal their spot at Wembley Credit: Shutterstock Editorial 4 Fans invaded the pitch as the goals flew in Credit: X/ DAZN_NationalLg 4 They also flooded the field after full-time Credit: The Sun Now Micky Mellon's side are only one game away from League Two after booking their place at Wembley for the National League play-off final on June 1. Only 24 hours earlier York boss Adam Hinshelwood, whose team finished second on 96 points, a whopping 23 ahead of Oldham, was celebrating his son Jack scoring the winner for Brighton over Liverpool. But he was brought back down to earth with a bang as they suffered heartbreak on home turf. York gifted Mellon's men the lead when goalie Harrison Male's poor pass to Alex Hunt was pounced on by Joe Garner, and the veteran drilled home from outside the box. Advertisement READ MORE IN FOOTBALL Vimal Yoganathan left the hosts with a mountain to climb with a low strike shortly after half time. And moments later Oldham stuck another dagger through the heart of the Minstermen. Joe Pritchard made it three with a near-post header to spark a pitch invasion from the away end. It is now back to the drawing board for Hinshelwood and his shell-shocked squad. Advertisement Most read in EFL BEST FREE BETS AND BETTING SIGN UP OFFERS Though Mellon, chasing a sixth promotion as a manager, and Oldham can start planning for their crunch trip to the capital. They'll face the winners of Wednesday's showdown between Forest Green Rovers and Southend United. Burnley pitch invasion marred by unsavoury scenes as Sheffield United star Hamza Choudhury is held back by security Both their meetings this season ended 2-2. Advertisement But something will finally have to give in their biggest game of the campaign so far.
