Players and managers come and go, but supporters are the heartbeat of a football club, and Sir Jack Hayward was one fan who was able to impact his beloved Wolves forever – although he was just “Glad to have helped”.
On what would have been his 100th birthday, Sir Jack’s legacy is celebrated, not only at Molineux and Compton Park – where a stand and the training ground bear his name – but across the city of Wolverhampton. A city which will always be indebted to his philanthropic ways and a city which has always been united by their love for their football club.
“Sir Jack was an unbelievable person,” remembers Matt Murray. “Fun-loving, friendly, a massive Wolves fan, a fan of the academy and the youth as well, and he was just a man of the people. He really, really loved the club.”
“He was the most charismatic man I’ve ever met,” former CEO Jez Moxey said. “He has a presence that when he walked into the room, everyone knew he was there, and his love for the club just shone through.
“You knew this man was completely and utterly besotted with Wolverhampton Wanderers and expected everybody else to be that way.”
Having been born a stone’s throw away from Molineux in Whitmore Reans, Sir Jack first watched Wolves at the age of five before finally becoming the owner and chairman of the club in May 1990.
During his time in charge, he is estimated to have put more than £70 million of his own personal fortune into helping turn the club into what is known throughout the world today.
“He did a lot,” Wolves’ record goalscorer Steve Bull recalls. “People say that I helped come in and pick the club up, but Sir Jack came in and made the club what it is today. You just need to look at the ground now and it’s fitting for any club, and he did a cracking job with Wolves.”
“The club meant everything to him,” Moxey added. “Yet his biggest disappointment was that we couldn’t get over the hump.
“He spent tens and tens of millions of pounds, which in comparison to today’s figures look small, but when you look back then, was an enormous amount of money for one individual to plough into a club.
“The biggest legacy is that he re-established pride in both the football club and how the supporters felt about the football club, because if you look back previously to his ownership, the club was on extremely rocky ground, and I think today, we can still feel and see the Sir Jack legacy.”
Two of Sir Jack’s many legacies at Wolves will be the redevelopment of Molineux and the creation of the club’s academy.
When he first took over the reins, the stadium was in dire straits. The famous ground had turned in a decrepit relic of its former self, and Sir Jack wanted to put it right. Within three years the newly renovated stadium – most of which is still in place today – was officially opened.
But what is a stadium without players to play in it? As a local lad done good, Sir Jack loved nothing more than to see young talent come through the club, and his investment paid off with the building of a youth set-up which is still providing first-team players for the team in the Premier League.
Murray, Lee Naylor, Joleon Lescott and Robbie Keane were just some of the first batch of players to break through under Sir Jack’s ownership, and former pair recall how important a role the chairman played in their progression into professional football.
“He was a good man, who cared about the youth and what I was a part of.” Naylor said.
“He always wanted us to do well and was clearly proud of our success, and I know he was, because he would always come in the dressing room and interact with the boys. It’s a testament to what he was to not only the club but also to the city.”
Murray added: “You could see he took pride in the fact that he’d taken the club from the deep depths to right up and had built a fantastic stadium, helped so many young players in their careers, because of the fantastic academy he had put in, and he gave Wolves fans so many great times.
“Sir Jack Hayward is a real, real top man, a family man, and just an all-round good person. The training ground is named after him – too right – the stadium, all that sort of stuff, and the fan base has grown and grown, and Wolves is a big brand now, it’s massive.
“Everywhere I go I see Wolves fans, and for me, the club’s history is amazing, and a big, big chunk and a big, big chapter is because of Sir Jack.”
But Sir Jack would never take the credit. A humble man who would always put the needs of others in front of his own.
Never one for celebrating his own achievements, he would probably not have been overjoyed at Molineux renaming the South Bank in his honour, or the creation of a statue outside the famous subway which guides supporters from the city centre to his stand.
But as the Wolves brand grows and the club’s global reach shadows anything seen before, new fans are choosing the Old Gold as their won, and for those who were not present during Sir Jack’s tenure, these tributes will ensure his legacy shines bright.
“It’s not just the place he loved, it’s the people,” Bull explained. “He was a people person and that’s why the statue outside Molineux has him facing the city centre. He wanted to face the city and have the city in his hands, and the people there in front of him.
“He was never one for wanting accolades or tributes, he would be embarrassed by them and would rather them be given to charity and to help other people. He’d rather give away what he had to help others rather than be given things or keep things to himself.”
Murray concurred: “It wasn’t about the fame for him. He knew the special moments that you can create for people. Money can’t buy that. But I’m really pleased that Wolves fans for centuries to come will understand how much of a great guy Sir Jack was.”
Last month marked 20 years since one of Sir Jack’s greatest days – the 2003 Division One Play-off Final.
Not many people inside the Millennium Stadium that afternoon would have deserved to see Wolves overcome Sheffield United as comfortably as they did than the club’s owner.
Sir Jack had given everything he could to see Wolves return to the promised land of the top-flight, and no-one will ever forget when the cameras picked out the chairman with just minutes remaining and he gave his iconic thumbs up.
“When I looked up and I saw Sir Jack put his thumbs up, it was the moment we knew we were ok. He’s given us the ok,” Murray admitted. “He’s been through all the heartache, through all the play-offs and everything else, and it’s ok now.
“You see him come on the pitch and he was hugging everyone, and he obviously had that immense pride for himself, but the way he was as a person, he just loved the fact he’d given so many people that moment.
“The first time in almost 20 years that we’d been in the top-flight. That was thanks to him and that’s why the Wolves fans love him so much.”
Naylor, another of the key players that day in Cardiff, added: “He gave me my special day. He gave me my dreams of playing in the Premier League and we gave him his dreams of being there as well. It was hand in hand and it’s brilliant what he did for us as players and as a club.
“There is not a chance the football club would be in the position it is today without him. What he did for this club and for this city is absolutely massive.
“The passion, the money, the charity, everything he did for this city and the football club is massive. I didn’t really realise that until he passed away, and when Rachael [Hayhoe Flint] was speaking at his funeral, talking about the things he had actually done which I never realised, and he was an inspiration to people.”
Sir Jack’s time in charge of Wolves ended in May 2007 when he handed over the club to Steve Morgan for a nominal £10 fee. But if you were to compare Wolves from the start of Hayward’s reign to the end, the club was unrecognisable.
He had laid the foundations for Wolves to go on to bigger and better things. That included three successive years in the top-flight under Morgan’s ownership before Fosun’s arrival in 2016 signalled the start of a new dawn for the football club. One which had not been seen for almost 50 years.
However, none of the success the Old Gold has experienced during recent times would have been possible if not for Sir Jack, as Moxey made all too clear. “He had poured everything he had, emotionally, financially, into Wolverhampton Wanderers.
“But the motto that he went by, and I think everyone still remembers, was ‘Glad to have helped’. That’s how he thought about his involvement in the club over the years. Glad to have played his ‘small’ part in helping the club.
“Nobody should ever forget what Sir Jack has done because he created that foundation on which the Steve Morgan era and now the Fosun era are building on. To me, he was the architect of this success that the club is having now and hopefully will have in the future too.”
“He couldn’t have done more for the club,” Bully added. “When he handed it over to Steve Morgan, I think he was tired. He felt he’d done his bit and thought it was time for someone else to take it on with fresh legs and move it on further.
“But he’s left something here which will stay with us for the rest of our lives.”
