Liam Keen discusses Sir Jack Hayward's Wolves legacy on tenth anniversary of his death

Express & Star

Jonny Drury and Liam Keen sit down to discuss Sir Jack Hayward's Wolves legacy. Monday marks the tenth anniversary since the former Wolves owner and chairman passed away.

Transcript

00:00Hello, welcome to ExpressAndStart.com. My name is Jonny Drew. I'm here with Wolves reporter

00:05Liam Keane as we reflect on the life of Sir Jack Hayward OBE, the former Wolves owner,

00:12on the 10th anniversary of his passing. Sir Jack, someone who played a huge role in how

00:19Wolves currently are today. 17 years as owner, took them up the divisions, put a hell of

00:24a lot of money into the football club and got them, of course, to the Premier League. Keane,

00:3110 years on from his passing, his legacy is kind of still being felt at Wolves, isn't it? The fact

00:36that Wolves are in the Premier League, obviously they've bounced up and down since then, but the

00:40fact that they're in the top flight and they're in the position they are today still is owed a lot

00:45to the work of Jack Hayward. Absolutely, no, spot on, Jonny. Wolves, as a founding member of the

00:51Football League, are a fortunate club that they have, as with many clubs across the country up

00:58and down the land, that have lots of historic names and historic people and legends of the

01:03game and heroes of the football club that they can look to. Sir Jack Hayward, from a Wolves

01:08perspective, has to be up there. He brought the club really with it on its knees. The football

01:15club had no training ground. Wolves, Molyneux was in disrepair. He used his personal finances

01:24to write off debts, to bring players in and to build the infrastructure for a football club that

01:29we now know today. Of course, owners that have taken Wolves forward, Steve Morgan and Fosun,

01:37since Jack Hayward sold the club, have obviously done their own work to help this club get to where

01:42they are. But without any solid foundation, without personal finance, without a desperate

01:48desire to see a local lad see his own club come back from ruin, really, this wouldn't be where

01:55Wolves are today. Wolves had a sustained spell in the Premier League, as I say, in part to the

02:00current owners Fosun, but also largely in part to Sir Jack Hayward and the work he was able to do

02:06to bring this club back from the brink. He was able to enjoy the one season in the early 2000s,

02:13the 2003-04 season in the top flight, before of course he sold on to Steve Morgan in 2007.

02:19The iconic pictures of him at Cardiff, the Millennium Stadium in that play-off final,

02:24the two thumbs up, of course the statue we now see outside Molyneux that depicts that very moment

02:28is things that live long in the memory of Wolves fans, a lot older than I am,

02:33but also for me too as someone growing up watching the club in that early 2000s period. He's a

02:39he's a modern day great and historic great for this football club.

02:43Yeah and an historic great in kind of English football, you know, he bought the club in 1990

02:47for around 2.1 million, like you said there, wrote off debt, spent an awful lot of money on Molyneux,

02:53I know reports say he spent in excess of 70 million of his own personal finance redeveloping

02:59Molyneux and writing off debt, you know, took Wolves to the Premier League and then sold on

03:05the club, you know, we talk about famous photos, that famous photo of him exchanging £10 with

03:10Steve Morgan on the condition that he invested £30 million in the club and that remains his

03:16legacy as well, isn't it? And I imagine, well I know for sure with all the money in football now

03:22and, you know, states and oil barons, we won't see the likes of Sir Jack Heywood again, you know,

03:27Jack Walker at Blackburn, Dave Whelan at Wigan, you know, there's still Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough,

03:33but he's one of that select band of the last kind of group of people who sort of took over

03:39the club they loved and put their heart and soul and their money into it. Yeah, absolutely,

03:45you know, you don't see very often local lads these days owning their football clubs and when

03:50you do, there's something special about it. Sir Jack Heywood wanted to see his side, his beloved

03:58Wolves, at a renewed, rejuvenated Molineux return to the highs of dominating English football that

04:06he saw in the 1950s when he, you know, periods that he lived through. Of course, Wolves never

04:11got back to that, whether they do or not in the future is yet to be seen, but he restored so much

04:18pride in a local and historic football club that it carries through generations and you will never

04:26see such a selfless act, and there were many of them that I could point to, you'll never see a

04:32selfless act as that selling for £10 with the caveat to see Morganov, you put £30m investment

04:40into this football club. He could have had that money himself and instead he wanted it to go to

04:45the football club, he wanted the club to benefit from him selling to a new owner, and of course

04:52Wolves did make the Premier League only a few years later after that and since Fosun have taken

04:56over have had a sustained spell in the top flight. It's special to see moments like that and to see

05:02a legacy like that and that's why he's remembered, that's why 10 years on from his very sad passing

05:08on the 13th of January 2015, we're doing videos like this and we're talking about him and we're

05:15sort of fondly remembering what he was able to bring to this great football club.

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