WOLVES NEW OWNER - AND HAYWARD’S WASTED CHANCE

22-05-2007

Now that Liverpool fan Steve Morgan has bought Wolves for a tenner, it’s time to assess the contribution made by the previous chairman Jack Hayward - the man who rebuilt Molineux but wasted a golden opportunity.

It’s hard to imagine now the depths to which the Wanderers sank in the 1980s; the stadium was a hovel with one side shut down completely, and the club had sunk to the depths of Division Four.

To be fair, though, the revival had already started by the time well-known patriot and tax exile “Union” Jack Hayward took over in 1990. By then, Wolves were back in the Second Division, fired by the goals of Steve Bull and expertly guided by Graham Turner.

The ground was still a tip, mind, and it was here that Hayward made his major contribution. On the way to squandering more than £50 million of his personal fortune, he rebuilt three sides of the ground, and Molineux is unquestionably one of the finest stadiums of its size in the country.

It’s on the field that the Hayward legacy will be questioned. Although he was more than generous with his cash, three play-off failures seemed to wear him down.

When Wolves squandered an 11 point lead and over the Baggies and missed out again in 2001-02, Hayward said that “the golden tit” had been squeezed dry - no more large quantities of cash would be forthcoming.

He was as good as his word, meaning that when Wolves did finally clamber into the top division a year later, they were woefully under-equipped, and succumbed to immediate and inevitable relegation.

It was a knockback the club is still recovering from, although ironically, Mick McCarthy has done wonders on a tight budget and against the odds took his team to the play-offs.

It remains to be seen how much of the special spirit he has instilled will remain now that the big spending days are back.

For all the disappointment, Hayward will still go down as a great chairman and President, having handed over the club to new owner Steve Morgan for the price of a Wembley programme, in return for the pledge of a £30 million investment.

Sir Jack’s problem - like that of so many before him - was that he simply didn’t know when to go.

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