IT is the kind of moment that can make grown men cry – at least, those football obsessives who wear their team shirts with pride and yell out their frustrations from the stands.
But tears are not what you expect from the smartly-dressed chief executive, who watches her football from the directors' box. Her view, by necessity, is coloured by constant thoughts of balancing the books.
Nevertheless, Vivien Kyles' eyes well up as she recalls the dramatic afternoon Livingston escaped relegation by the skin of their teeth, just months after the club nearly closed for good.
Sitting in the boardroom at Livingston's Almondvale ground, the Scottish Premier League's first woman chief executive has no hesitation in turning her mind back to May 2005, when asked to pick her favourite memories of her time at the club.
"The day we survived in the SPL," she says firmly. "The last game here was against Dundee and we had to draw to stay in the SPL and they had to win.
"With ten minutes to go, (Dundee striker) Tam McManus hit the post and I nearly fainted. We had a party here that night. It meant so much to stay up in the SPL.
"It was the first year we had the club. We had just got out of administration and three of us were up for relegation – but we drew and they were relegated. I thought, 'Christ, it has actually been worth all the hassle'."
With that, the friendly and composed business face is gone, and she suddenly chokes up.
She exhales deeply, reaches across the table for a coffee, then apologises and leaves the room, visibly upset.
This is the woman who, in her four-year tenure, has stood up to bullying agents, got tough on players' wages, gained respect in the all-male boardroom, and, most impressively, transformed the fortunes of a club which was £14 million in debt when she arrived. She has even overseen the departure of four managers.
She is back moments later, with more sincere apologies, and so too is the in-control boss who can turn around a failing business.
The 38-year-old high-flyer has just announced she is quitting her role to take over at Hamilton Racecourse. She was thrown into the world of football, and the inevitable comparisons with Birmingham City's high-profile chief executive Karren Brady – and ITV's series The Manageress, which starred Cherie Lunghi – after her former boss Pearse Flynn took over the club in 2004. She had been his number two at telecoms company Damovo, assessing potential take-over targets for the growing conglomerate.
When the chance came to buy Livingston from its administrators, Vivien was taking some time out and Pearse called her for advice.
"We were both interested in football. However, I was trying to look at whether it would work – given we were buying it from an administrator.
"My role was, is there something there or is it an endless, bottomless pit of money?," she says, laughing heartily. "Maybe I got it wrong. It's cost Pearse a lot of money. However, we have put it on a much more level business footing than it ever was before."
Vivien is well aware her business achievements will often be overshadowed by interest in her as a woman in a man's world. It is a situation she tolerates with good humour.
When asked about an infamous exchange between Karren Brady and one of her players, she is able to complete the anecdote herself.
Legend has it that in her early days, one player told Brady: "I can see your nipples through that shirt." Her instant response? "Well you won't see them from Crewe when I transfer you next week."
Cambuslang-born Vivien, who now lives in Bearsden, says she has never experienced anything like such disrespect. "I'll have a laugh with the players, but when we're talking about bonuses and contracts they know I'm pretty hard on stuff like that," she says.
Her friends tease her about the "talent" she is surrounded by, working with so many professional sportsmen – but no, she says, she has never been tempted to cross professional boundaries.
"I've had some of the players and coaches offering to be a personal trainer, but I'm not the best in the gym so have drawn the line at showing them that side of me.
"Being red-faced and then having to negotiate a contract doesn't give you a position of strength," she says.
Glamorous, lipstick-wearing, stiletto-sporting – and currently single – she may be, but Vivien is dismissive of "girly girls".
She says she can't abide anyone using their sexuality to advance themselves, although reluctantly admitting there are some advantages to being a woman in football.
"Naturally as a woman running the place there are boundaries I have to observe and which they observe around me.
"If I was male I'd probably walk straight into the dressing room to speak to them whereas obviously I don't do that.
"I'm not saying I'm their agony aunt but, particularly with the younger players who are trying to make the transition to first team regulars or have money worries at home, perhaps sometimes they'll open up more to me."
After the announcement of her departure to become chief executive of Hamilton Racecourse, comments on the fans' forum ranged from railing about mistakes she'd made to wishing her well. Did you read the one: 'She must have a stressful job, she wasn't half a bad-looking bird four years ago?'" laughs Vivien, "If you read everything on there you'd need the skin of a rhinoceros."
She admits making mistakes, including offering some players over-long contracts, but remains proud of lifting the club out of administration – "probably the most complex transaction I've pulled off in my career".
"The public might think we've made mistakes on some of the manager changes, but I stand by them," she says.
"Latterly I'm proud to have made the decision to keep Mark Proctor (manager] and Curtis Fleming (assistant manager]."
People have plenty of misconceptions about her role, she says.
"You're doing a job everyone thinks they can do better and wants to do. The perceived glamour of it is high. They think all you do is swan around the boardroom, drink champagne and watch your team.
"Some of my friends have asked if I go on holiday till August when the season finishes. Actually, that's when you're looking at ground maintenance, stadium repairs, new contracts, potential sponsors for the following year."
She's points out she'll remain on the Almondvale board and the SFL management committee, to which she was the first woman elected in its history.
Her biggest challenges at Hamilton? One can't help but wonder whether one might be curbing the "atrocious" pitchside language she admits to being famous for at Almondvale.
VIVIEN'S HIGHS AND LOWS
The club was in administration when Vivien became chief executive in June 2004. She cut costs and slashed players' wages, pulling it out of administration on May 13, 2005.
• At the end of the 2004/05 season, relegation rivals Dundee and Dunfermline complained to the SPL over the signing of Hassan Kachloul.
The Moroccan international was signed by Livi as an amateur after the January transfer window but it was claimed he was actually being paid. Livi was found guilty of a breach of the rules and fined £15,000 but escaped a points penalty that would have seen the club relegated instead of Dundee. Vivien said: "I could put my hand on my heart and be 100 per cent confident that what we had done was the right thing."
• She outlasted four managers – Allan Preston was sacked in November 2004 after seven straight defeats. Richard Gough took over but stepped down in May 2005, to be replaced by Paul Lambert, who resigned in 2006 with Livi heading down.
Hearts legend John Robertson was sacked in April 2007 after failing to return to the SPL.
The full article contains 1357 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
