You could argue that Hillier did what he did for no personal financial gain. The fall out from Brian Hillier's demise and 1990 demotion was more to do with what happened after 1990 and not on his watch. This set up the problems for the likes of Rikki Hunt to 'shine'.
Yes, the club ended up paying back some additional transfer fees for players signed via tribunals. The bigger problem was after 1990 the players wages rose as they argued they were Div 1 standard. We continued to chase the dream for the next 3 years.
This was the living beyond our means that was financed by selling players like Alan Mac, Jon Gittens, Paul Bodin, Duncan Shearer and Dave Kerslake. This frustrated and saw off Ossie and then Hoddle so by 1993 we were in no position to compete either financially and with an ageing squad.
We ended up playing catch up for the rest of the 1990s as we sustained Championship football but the transfer fees dried up and the debts ran up. Rikki Hunt stuck with McMahon for far too long which drained the support base (5/6k gates in our last Championship season). Remember we sold George Ndah and said we were debt free 3 months before we went into admin.
Into the 2000s and SSW is still having to fund the losses to the point where any way out is a decent offer like St Modern, Best Holdings etc. When Fitton and Black arrive they spend millions clearing up the old debts so by 2013 the goodwill from Black had run out and being the gambler he was left the casino rather than chase his losses.
It's a long history of financial mess from either well meaning people making the wrong football decisions to more shadier characters behind the scene.
Maybe if we had not won the 1990 appeal and ended up in Div 3 we might have sold the stars of that side and rebuilt the club on a more sustainable level. No-one wanted that and we paid the price for that one season in the big time.
Sigh.
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