Ray Smith could see the writing on the wall and retired on his own terms, but not before seeing through Guilfoyle and going to the committee to warn them of the risks of appointing the megalomaniac narcissist as CEO. Naturally this advice from the sound mind of Ray Smith fell on deaf ears and we now have the club Guilfoyle left behind.

We can only wonder what would have happened if the committee actually did their job, did their due diligence and followed up on Ray Smith’s warnings about Guilfoyle as CEO. It is safe to say the club would be flying today instead of being mortgaged to a Chinese property developer.

Now as to their evidence we spoke of before, consider this. Ray Smith never once spoke to Tony Guilfoyle after he left the club in 2003 right up to his passing. Yes, the man who gave the golden haired boy so much refused to be in the same room as him for the last 20 years of his life. This fact alone tell the whole tale, and yet the City Tatts committee couldn’t see anything wrong until the club was well and truly fucked, reduced to smoke and ashes.

We have said it before and will say it again now, there is no other club like City Tatts. is there?

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When Guilfoyle was doing a hatchet job on Ray Smith through the board he told the board Smith was on too much money and simply ‘not delivering’ on the investment the club was making in him. Of course Smith knew nothing of this double-crossing and thus was giving Guilfoyle more and more power, while Guilfoyle was tightening the noose around Smith’s neck every chance he got. Notwithstanding these unspeakable acts of betrayal Smith kept his promise to Mr and Mrs Guilfoyle senior to look after their son. This was evident in the amount of trust and control afforded to Guilfoyle. At the time this was viewed by many in the club as putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank, or leaving Ronnie Biggs in charge of the bank vault.

This low piece of shit Guilfoyle, after being afforded total autonomy, and kicking up Smith’s wages, told the board he could do what Smith was doing as well as his own job for a ‘special price’ of $420,000 per annum. Remember this was back in 2002, nearly twenty years ago, a staggering wage at the time.

In effect this low piece of shit kicked up Smith’s wages, then knifed him to claim the top dog role and the money ‘he was saving the job’ by cutting Smith from the picture, just as he had done to Hayes-Williams some time before. He conned the board into believing he could do the job on his own, essentially cutting the original team of three to a team of one, delivering him total and sole control of the club and its purse strings.

We can only hope Guilfoyle’s children read this to understand what happened, or at least start the conversation to ask their old man how he could be so low, not to mention ruining and financially crippling a Sydney icon, City Tatts as it was once known. Sadly not any more.

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When Guilfoyle was making his sales pitch to the board to free the club of the dead wood Hayes-Williams his main selling point was that by culling Hayes-Williams the club would save at least $150k, as this was how much money Hayes-Williams was sucking out of the club in wages, remembering this was pre 2000 wages.

So Hayes-Williams goes but that’s when Guilfoyle started to get more involved. He went to the board and told them Ray Smith was underpaid and should be given a pay rise. Yes, you read that right. Guilfoyle told the board Ray Smith deserved a pay rise. Follow closely now and watch the long term scheme unfold. The board had no choice and bumped up his wages.

This is where the devil is in the detail. What we are going to tell you next is unspeakable but it happened. We have the evidence, which we will get to soon. So while Ray Smith gave a young Tony Guilfoyle a go when no one else would, and while Ray Smith allowed Tony Guilfoyle to make mistake after mistake without reprisals, one would expect that Tony Guilfoyle would have some kind of loyalty to Ray Smith? Well think again.

Not long after, Guilfoyle then began working on the board, white anting Ray Smith. He painted Ray Smith as a manager past his use by date. Guilfoyle’s exact sales pitch to the board was that Ray Smith was a ‘good politician’ and nothing else. Because Smith was now on much more money after the demise of The Weasel, Guilfoyle’s argument had more impact.

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According to everyone we spoke to, the late Ray Smith was a good man. Not only was he compassionate he was also clever. Nobody’s fool, he was definitely awake, not asleep at the wheel like John Healy and Keith Free. A few tried to pull the wool over his eyes but he was too smart for them.

If Ray Smith was so smart how did Guilfoyle progress through the ranks to CEO then? This was something that always puzzled us. So we spoke to members, former members, employees, former employees, suppliers and contractors to piece together Guilfoyle’s path to CEO.

Well where do we start? According to well-placed sources Smith knew Guilfoyle’s parents. We have been informed that Mr and Mrs Guilfoyle senior were fine people and would be mortified to see what a shit they have presented to the world (and Kirsty Assad). Given that they were good people Mr Smith had no hesitation in giving their son a go. He employed Guilfoyle when he was 18 years old and no other employer in Australia wanted him. We consider this an act of a good man. For the first few years Guilfoyle did what any other young bloke did, he had fun. As other employees left the club, not always through their own choosing, in other words through their own fuck-ups, he got ahead.

This is where Guilfoyle implemented his plan to knife Hayes-Williams, after years of gaining his confidence. When he got as high as he could he started to grease up his boss. He got in Ray Smith’s ear and started to tell him Hayes-Williams was a ‘log of wood’ who had to go. Ray Smith always knew Hayes-Williams was not that good anyway, hence the nickname The Weasel, so Guilfoyle got his way, after clearing it with the committee.

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We introduced you to the Lunch Club a little while ago. This was the daily sojourn Guilfoyle and another parasite, Peter Hayes-Williams, Assistant CEO and future superannuation executive, would make each and every day.

Just to recap, every day these two time wasters would leave the sanctuary of their cosy offices and spend two hours lazing around, filling up with free food in the club’s Corinthian Room. While there they would plot how to squeeze a bit more out of the club. Maybe arrange a few rorts like junkets, golf days, essential meetings where the club would lay on expensive wines and meals, you name it, they were in on it.

Each day Guilfoyle was greasing Hayes-Williams, gaining his confidence, and being gullible Hayes-Williams aka The Weasel fell for it hook line and sinker. After years of greasing The Weasel up Guilfoyle did the unthinkable. He knifed Hayes-Williams and effectively ended his career at City Tatts.

At the time there were three top dogs in the picture. The CEO, Ray Smith, the Assistant CEO, The Weasel and Guilfoyle who was Operations Manager. Guilfoyle didn’t like playing third fiddle so he worked on Hayes-Williams, got into his inner circle, greased him right up and then, just when Hayes-Williams believed he could see the sun shining out of Guilfoyle’s ass, Guilfoyle knifed him. Guilfoyle did a secret deal with the board, to make three into two. This essentially made The Weasel a dead man walking. The board then had no option but to send him out with the obligatory farewell lunch and (free) last drinks.

Hayes-Williams was moved sideways, literally from the plush surroundings in the inner sanctum of the executive nerve centre (remember that one?) to an office no bigger than a toilet cubicle near what became the Cafe 2 disaster. Now some would say The Weasel got his comeuppance but it was cruel in a way to see him reduced to a pile of confetti, going from Assistant CEO to superannuation office boy, at a time when he should have been consolidating his years of service instead of making excuses for the untimely demise of his career. After all he was in his fifties when all this happened, too soon to pack up shop and apply for the daily $2.50 unlimited rail ticket, but too late to start all over again.

So that was the end of the Lunch Club.

And if you think Guilfoyle couldn’t stoop any lower, think again. His next move was pure evil and proof that he was not only on his way but had arrived as a real life narcissist.

More to come.

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Yes, Cameron Roan is back!

Who is Cameron Roan, we hear you say?

Well, he was the auditor back in 2011 when it was discovered that Tony Guilfoyle had taken $200,000 from the club years before, without anyone’s knowledge.

And what happened as a result of this discovery?

Well, you have to remember this is City Tatts, so the answer is ……… nothing.

This embezzlement has been well covered in previous blogs, as has Patrick Campion’s feeble attempt to ‘explain’ it as ‘salary packaging’. You will also find extensive coverage of Campion’s complicity in aiding and abetting the crime through a sham ‘repayment’ scheme using non-existent unused annual leave.

To be fair to Cameron Roan if the committee elected to safeguard members’ interests didn’t care that an employee had stolen $200,000, and they didn’t, then why should he?

It was said a hundred years ago that an auditor is a watchdog not a bloodhound. Nowhere more true than at City Tatts.

Roan moved on after the 2016 audit but now he’s back.

Life Member Peter Davis must be pleased.

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If you’re new to City Tatts stories like these might seem hard to believe but this is the same Guilfoyle who allowed Tanya Purdy, his fuck buddy at the time, to dictate how her morning toast was cut. It had to be cut into little diamonds, all even on each side, with instructions on how far the butter was to be spread to the crust of the toast. There was also the famous burned toast incident. (See classic blog Well, who did burn the toast at City Tatts?)

We wonder how the replacement Mrs Guilfoyle, Tinker Bell, (yes, we know you read the blogs, Kirsty) handles old Guilfoyle’s bananas? Did Jan Ellks give you detailed instructions on how Guilfoyle likes his bananas served? If not you can expect a written warning soon for not attending to the bananas as you should. If you need help on this just ring Tanya Purdy, Michelle Abbey or Amy Conroy. Even the mighty Hyphenator, Lisa-Faye Tudhope-Wickham, will be able to give advice on this one. After all she was the Food and Beverage manager, wasn’t she?

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Apart from the insanity of Tony Guilfoyle’s regal food demands there is another aspect to all this. What were the committee doing while all this was going on?

As you are no doubt aware, at the time City Tatts had two fairly pricey restaurants. In one of these an average meal would have cost around $50, and in the other it would have been closer to $60. Just stop and think about that. What exactly is Guilfoyle’s explanation? Food that was good enough for members paying $50 or $60 is not good enough for an employee of the club? So he had to send out for, what, ‘proper food’?

Where was the committee that was supposed to represent members? Patrick Campion and Paul Cavallaro were on the committee while this insanity was going on. Does this mean they had no problem with it? Or did they even know?

The other thing that stands out is just how much Guilfoyle was taking from the club every day, right from his breakfast and morning workout in the club’s gym. The gym was free, the David Jones bananas were free, the milk was free, the Bakers Delight bread rolls were free. His kids’ school lunches were free. His family holidays were free. Gee, it makes you wonder why the club was paying this fraud any wages at all.

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Just when you thought it was not possible to hear any more stories about Tony Guilfoyle and his insane food requests along comes this pearler.

According to well-placed sources old Guilfoyle was a creature of habit when it came to breakfast time. We know he liked his Bakers Delight bread rolls brought especially for him from Circular Quay*, and his North Queensland bananas bought exclusively for him at David Jones**, all using club money and club employees to procure these delicacies we might add. Well we have just been informed of how Guilfoyle demanded, yes demanded, those bananas be served.

Now strap yourselves in because this is so funny you might have tears running down your face when you read it.

Each morning, after his workout in the gym, he would park himself in Zest to chow down on some free food, just like all the other parasites such as Mark ‘Humpty Dumpty’ Cooper and Michael Sterndale-Smith, the same Sterndale-Smith who was turfed from the committee not once but twice.

Guilfoyle would have two weatbix and skim milk with sugar bananas, and demanded that the sugar bananas be cut to a certain width. If the bananas were cut differently to his wishes he would let the staff member know he was displeased with the width of the slices. Our source has confirmed that two staff members were ‘let go’ for their failure to take proper care in how the ‘kings’ bananas were cut resulting in slices that were a few millimetres too thick!

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* Give us this day our daily bread, Bakers Delight!

** Mind Bending Bananas

At the recent AGM Patrick Campion congratulated the committee on keeping the loss for 2020 down to $57 million.

Apparently $56 million of that is simply due to writing down the value of the club’s building, so there is no need for anyone to worry.

Pat was keen to stress that one reason for the ‘good’ result, under the circumstances, was that the committee had a lot of meetings during the year.

Sure, Pat.

And the $2,060,918 received from the government in JobKeeper payments.

That must have helped as well.

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