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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