On the 14 June, 1923, businessman, property developer, philanthropist, President and owner of Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, Sir Jack Arnold Hayward, OBE OBE, was born in the Whitmore Reans area of Wolverhampton.
As a boy Jack failed the entrance exam for Wolverhampton Grammar School, and was educated at Northaw Preparatory School and later Stowe School.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, he cycled to Oxford to volunteer for the Royal Air Force (RAF), and served as a pilot officer, flying Dakota transporter supply aircraft.
After demobilization he began work in Rotary Hoes, part of the Firth Cleveland Group of Companies formed by his father, Sir Charles Hayward , as an agricultural equipment salesman in South Africa. In 1951 he founded the American arm of the Group in New York, where he was based for five years before relocating to the Bahamas.
In addition to his home in Freeport, he owned a farm in Sussex, and was the Laird of Dunmaglass, a 14,000-acre estate near Inverness in Scotland. In 2009 he was placed 125th on the Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated fortune of £160 million.
Hayward, who first watched Wolves aged 5, and became the owner and chairman of Wolves after buying the club in May 1990 for £2.11 million. It is estimated that he spent well in excess of £70 million of his personal finance on redeveloping the Molineaux Stadium, writing off annual debts, and purchasing players for the club, during the 17 years for which he was owner.
Hayward was knighted in 1986, adding to his OBE award of 1968, for his considerable charitable actions.
In 2007 he sold control of the club for a nominal £10 fee, in exchange for a conditional £30 million investment in the club. Hayward remained the life president of Wolverhampton Wanderers and was later inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame.
He befriending fellow Wulfrunian, the cricketer Rachael Heyhoe Flint, and financed tours of the West Indies by the England Women’s cricket team in 1969–70 and 1970–71. And in 1973 sponsored the first ever women’s cricket World Cup, two years before the first in the men’s World Cup was inaugurated.
He was awarded the Freedom of the City of Wolverhampton on 9 July 2003.
Jack died aged 91, in 2015. Hundreds of fans lined the streets and gathered in Queen Square, Wolverhampton to watch Sir Jack’s Funeral, and several roads throughout the city were closed off.
The Wolverhampton Wanderers FC announced proposals to rename the South Stand in his honour, and a statue of former Wolverhampton Wanderers owner Sir Jack Hayward was unveiled on what would have been his 95th birthday.
14 June, 2019