Businessmen considered Iron takeover

Last updated : 29 October 2003 By Patrick Hill & Luke Thornhill
Hayes met the board of directors at Glanford Park shortly after Steve Wharton became chairman of the club, and although the discussions were only held at one meeting Hayes claims in an exclusive Iron-Bru.net interview that he had a number of businessmen interested in a takeover.

He said: "I had some businessmen who were interested in taking the club over, unfortunately one that came over from Jersey looked at the ground and he'd only seen an aerial photograph and when he actually saw it his comment was well this is a Vauxhall Conference ground. Which it is really.

"He was interested in entertaining his UK clients at football but didn't feel that the ground gave him the image that he wanted to portray.

"I made certain proposals as to how I'd run the club which were obviously poo-pooed and I notice from this weekend's press that they're keen to get two new Directors but they certainly haven't approached me, maybe because I'm too controversial and have my own opinions.

"I don't think my thought's on how a football club should be run particularly impressed the board. One of my restructures was of a totally new management team and they immediately thought that was to sack Brian Laws. That wasn't neccessarily it.

"One of the main player's dropped out and no further interest was shown by Scunthorpe United because obviously it's a closed shop and we never went any further. Had they approached me, perhaps we could have rejigged something but there's been no approach."