Sir Tom Cowie - Telegraph In the late 1970s Cowie became chairman and major shareholder of Sunderland AFC - but later described his tenure there as his "greatest single failure." The club was struggling in the lower reaches of the First Division, and was relegated in 1985. Three managers had been dispatched before Cowie hired Lawrie McMenemy at a princely salary, but the results were even more disastrous and further relegation beckoned: as one wag put it, "two things should never have left Southampton, McMenemy and the Titanic." The atmosphere in the club's boardroom became poisonous, and having failed to agree terms that would have given him complete control, Cowie cut his losses and sold out - but remained a devoted fan, keeping a box at the club's new Stadium of Light. Meanwhile, the Cowie group developed a new strand as a bus operator with the takeover of the Grey-Green coach line in 1980, and continued to grow by acquisition throughout the decade. But an unsuccessful bid for the Henly's chain of dealerships in 1992 contributed to strained relationships between Sir Tom and his fellow directors - whom he accused of pursuing the bid without consulting him, while he took bets that it would fail. He was pushed towards retirement the following year. He became titular president, but letting go the reins of the company he had created and dominated for so long was deeply painful, and he was vocal in criticism of his successors. The final straw came in 1997 when the company name was changed to Arriva, which image consultants said suggested "promise and reassurance" - but which Sir Tom scorned as a "piece of euro-friendly mellifluence" that smacked more of animosity towards himself than sound business acumen. Arriva gradually shed its motor-trade interests to concentrate on buses and trains, and is now owned by the German state rail operator Deutsche Bahn. Cowie went on to buy and transform a warehousing business in Sunderland, North European Marine Services, but devoted most of his energies to the grouse moor. In his forties, he had taken up rough shooting with a borrowed gun; the sport became his passion, and when time permitted he would shoot on up to 75 days a year - sometimes taking a 250-bird day just for himself - at Ruffside, Holwick and Wemmergill (leased from the Earl of Strathmore) in Co Durham and Murton Grange in North Yorkshire. The novelist Wilbur Smith was a frequent companion on expeditions further afield: together they shot partridge in Spain, dove in Argentina and wild guinea fowl in Africa. After the shooting season, Cowie and his wife liked to cruise the Caribbean or winter at the Coral Reef Club in Barbados. Their home, Broadwood Hall, east of Durham, was a modern mansion with the look of a country club: it was said that a passing motorist once walked in and ordered a gin and tonic. Cowie was for many years president of Sunderland Conservative Association. He gave large sums to the party until 2007, when he declared himself disenchanted with David Cameron's "arrogant Old Etonian" leadership style and failure to sustain the grammar school model from which Cowie felt he had gained so much. In future, he said, he would give to the Prince's Trust instead - the Prince of Wales being an occasional shooting guest who had once observed that the royal Range Rover was the only one on the shoot not supplied by Cowies. "We can soon put that right, Sir," the tycoon replied. In his native Sunderland he was a benefactor of his old school and of the university, which renamed a campus in his honour. He also endowed a hospice at Lanchester and a woodland project at Consett. Tom Cowie was appointed OBE in 1982 and was knighted in 1992. He married first, in 1949, Lillas Hunnam, with whom he had a son and four daughters; the marriage was dissolved and Lillas died in 1994. He married secondly in, 1975, Diana Evans (née Kenyon); they had three daughters, and he acquired a stepson and stepdaughter. Sir Tom Cowie, born September 9 1922, died January 18 2012