Standing at 6ft 6inches and sporting a mullet that would make Peter Stringfellow wince, Tim Martin, the founder and chairman of JD Wetherspoon, has never been one to toe the line.

His route to the boardroom began when he dropped out of studying for the Bar to buy out his local in Muswell Hill, North London.

Not that one would expect a conformist approach to business from a man who named his pub in honour of JD, a character from the 1980s television programme The Dukes of Hazzard, and an old primary school teacher (Mr Wetherspoon).

While his occasionally pugilistic approach has won plaudits, it has been known to take it out of colleagues. “Ten years with Tim Martin sometimes feels like a lifetime”, joked Jim Clarke, the group’s finance director, when he announced his retirement in June.

In a public debate he once labelled Hugh Osmond, head of rival Punch Taverns, “a Vichy-style collaborator”, later explaining that in the world of business “you can’t pull punches” during a tiff.

Never one to fear piping up during an argument, he flooded Wetherspoon’s pubs with anti-euro beermats in 2002, when William Hague was giving the country 12 days “to save the pound”.

But he surprised onlookers with the chain’s proactive stance on the smoking ban. It barred smoking in some of its pubs last May, more than a year ahead of the ban’s arrival in England.

Yesterday’s news that the ban and the bad summer have put a dampener on profits is unlikely to subdue a man not short of an opinion or self-confidence.

JD Wetherspoon now has a seemingly ubiquitous presence in town centres, with 671 outlets dotted around the country.

And like him or loathe him, Tim “the Mullet” Martin does not look like he is going anywhere either.

When he stood down from his executive role in 2004, many expected him to take a back seat and perhaps leave the group altogether.

He told the industry paper the Morning Advertiser that he would be hanging around “for a long time - 15 to 30 years”. It will be some time yet before anyone calls last orders on the nation’s most outspoken pub landlord.

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