HE MAY have built his reputation in Hull, but Adam Pearson’s footballing roots lie firmly in Huddersfield.
The 43-year-old went to school in Wakefield, but he’s from Huddersfield and was a keen Town fan when the club were at their lowest ebb, kicking around in the old Fourth Division in the second half of the Seventies.
Hull City were in the same position when Pearson breezed into rundown Boothferry Park in March 2001.
He’d spent six years as commercial director of Leeds United, at that time one of the countries most ambitious and biggest spending clubs.
The contrast with Hull could hardly have been greater.
The club were in administration, the ground crumbling and the team at the wrong end of the basement section.
At the time Pearson departed earlier this year, they were established in the Championship and playing at the sparkling KC Stadium which cost a cool £43.5m to construct.
Having stabilised the club off the field, chairman and chief executive Pearson, who also became head of Stadium Management Company, who operate the KC, had to be patient in his hunt for success on it.
He went through two managers, Brian Little and Jan Molby, before bringing in Peter Taylor, the man who led the Tigers to two promotions in as many seasons.
Hull went up from Division III in 2004, the year Town won promotion from the same section via the play-offs, then marched straight through what became League I, the division the Galpharm club are currently trying to get out of.
Hull had moved to the mainly council funded KC Stadium in late 2002, since when crowds have averaged more than 16,000.
Not surprisingly, Pearson was highly popular with the faithful, and the vast majority were sorry to see him leave.
Having sold the club on June 11 for around £10m to a consortium led by Paul Duffen – Pearson was reported to have made around £4.5m from the deal – the original plan was for him to remain on the board to provide continuity.
But on July 31, Pearson resigned as a director saying: “It is best for all parties if I move aside and let the new chairman have some space.
“I don’t want to be seen hanging around in the past. It’s time the club went forward without me.”
Pearson made no secret of the fact that he wanted to remain in football adding: “It’s an industry I enjoy.”
Since then he and internet tycoon Peter Wilkinson, with whom he worked at Hull, have been reported to have made a bid for Leeds United.
And Pearson has also been linked with Bradford City, Derby County and Notts County as well as Hull FC, the rugby league club with whom Hull City share the KC Stadium.
