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Liam Keen discusses Sir Jack Hayward's Wolves legacy on tenth anniversary of his death
Express & Star
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13/01/2025
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.
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Sports
Transcript
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00:00
Hello, welcome to ExpressAndStart.com. My name is Jonny Drew. I'm here with Wolves reporter
00:05
Liam Keane as we reflect on the life of Sir Jack Hayward OBE, the former Wolves owner,
00:12
on the 10th anniversary of his passing. Sir Jack, someone who played a huge role in how
00:19
Wolves currently are today. 17 years as owner, took them up the divisions, put a hell of
00:24
a lot of money into the football club and got them, of course, to the Premier League. Keane,
00:31
10 years on from his passing, his legacy is kind of still being felt at Wolves, isn't it? The fact
00:36
that Wolves are in the Premier League, obviously they've bounced up and down since then, but the
00:40
fact that they're in the top flight and they're in the position they are today still is owed a lot
00:45
to the work of Jack Hayward. Absolutely, no, spot on, Jonny. Wolves, as a founding member of the
00:51
Football League, are a fortunate club that they have, as with many clubs across the country up
00:58
and down the land, that have lots of historic names and historic people and legends of the
01:03
game and heroes of the football club that they can look to. Sir Jack Hayward, from a Wolves
01:08
perspective, has to be up there. He brought the club really with it on its knees. The football
01:15
club had no training ground. Wolves, Molyneux was in disrepair. He used his personal finances
01:24
to write off debts, to bring players in and to build the infrastructure for a football club that
01:29
we now know today. Of course, owners that have taken Wolves forward, Steve Morgan and Fosun,
01:37
since Jack Hayward sold the club, have obviously done their own work to help this club get to where
01:42
they are. But without any solid foundation, without personal finance, without a desperate
01:48
desire to see a local lad see his own club come back from ruin, really, this wouldn't be where
01:55
Wolves are today. Wolves had a sustained spell in the Premier League, as I say, in part to the
02:00
current owners Fosun, but also largely in part to Sir Jack Hayward and the work he was able to do
02:06
to bring this club back from the brink. He was able to enjoy the one season in the early 2000s,
02:13
the 2003-04 season in the top flight, before of course he sold on to Steve Morgan in 2007.
02:19
The iconic pictures of him at Cardiff, the Millennium Stadium in that play-off final,
02:24
the two thumbs up, of course the statue we now see outside Molyneux that depicts that very moment
02:28
is things that live long in the memory of Wolves fans, a lot older than I am,
02:33
but also for me too as someone growing up watching the club in that early 2000s period. He's a
02:39
he's a modern day great and historic great for this football club.
02:43
Yeah and an historic great in kind of English football, you know, he bought the club in 1990
02:47
for around 2.1 million, like you said there, wrote off debt, spent an awful lot of money on Molyneux,
02:53
I know reports say he spent in excess of 70 million of his own personal finance redeveloping
02:59
Molyneux and writing off debt, you know, took Wolves to the Premier League and then sold on
03:05
the club, you know, we talk about famous photos, that famous photo of him exchanging £10 with
03:10
Steve Morgan on the condition that he invested £30 million in the club and that remains his
03:16
legacy as well, isn't it? And I imagine, well I know for sure with all the money in football now
03:22
and, you know, states and oil barons, we won't see the likes of Sir Jack Heywood again, you know,
03:27
Jack Walker at Blackburn, Dave Whelan at Wigan, you know, there's still Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough,
03:33
but he's one of that select band of the last kind of group of people who sort of took over
03:39
the club they loved and put their heart and soul and their money into it. Yeah, absolutely,
03:45
you know, you don't see very often local lads these days owning their football clubs and when
03:50
you do, there's something special about it. Sir Jack Heywood wanted to see his side, his beloved
03:58
Wolves, at a renewed, rejuvenated Molineux return to the highs of dominating English football that
04:06
he saw in the 1950s when he, you know, periods that he lived through. Of course, Wolves never
04:11
got back to that, whether they do or not in the future is yet to be seen, but he restored so much
04:18
pride in a local and historic football club that it carries through generations and you will never
04:26
see such a selfless act, and there were many of them that I could point to, you'll never see a
04:32
selfless act as that selling for £10 with the caveat to see Morganov, you put £30m investment
04:40
into this football club. He could have had that money himself and instead he wanted it to go to
04:45
the football club, he wanted the club to benefit from him selling to a new owner, and of course
04:52
Wolves did make the Premier League only a few years later after that and since Fosun have taken
04:56
over have had a sustained spell in the top flight. It's special to see moments like that and to see
05:02
a legacy like that and that's why he's remembered, that's why 10 years on from his very sad passing
05:08
on the 13th of January 2015, we're doing videos like this and we're talking about him and we're
05:15
sort of fondly remembering what he was able to bring to this great football club.
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