Crawley Town’s mystery backer for the past five years last night made himself known at a fans’ forum. Crawley News today announced that Paul Hayward from Northampton is in fact the previously unknown benefactor.
Crawley won the Conference National title in the 2010/11 season under now Rotherham United manager Steve Evans and since that season an overseas investor has been invested into the football club. With Hayward preferring to remain amongst the shadows and adopt a low profile, the mystery backer earned the nickname of ‘Hong Kong Paul’ amongst the Crawley Town faithful.
Chairman Dave Pottinger read out a letter at last night’s forum on behalf of Hayward to reveal himself to the public and provide a general background to his achievements in the world of business to date,
“My name is Paul Haywood. I was born in Northampton. I have three wonderful children and have been married for 15 years. I currently co-own and manage the largest (night) life group in South-East Asia with branches in Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore.
In addition to this we manage and co-own, as landlords, the largest adult entertainment complex in the world, although we don’t manage any of the businesses inside the complex.
My business partner, Micky Doherty, is the group’s CEO. Micky and I have met many Crawley Town fans on our visits. Both Micky and I have passed the Fit and Proper Person’s Test. Neither of us was needed to take these tests as our roles don’t qualify us as directors, shadow or otherwise.”
Hayward went on to reveal exactly why he elected to pour millions of pounds into the West Sussex outfit, insisting that the profile and situation of the club at the time met what he was looking for,
“Just more than five years ago, it was brought to my attention that a little non-league club was on the verge of being wound up. The club had problems on and off the field, and had a history of bad luck at ownership level.
I had been looking to get involved with a football club for some time but hadn’t found the right opportunity. I wanted to be involved with a club whose supporters had never really tasted success.”
Hayward also went on to say how he loved the prospect of taking a ‘rags to riches’ club from non-league into the Championship ‘just for the fun of it’. He also revealed how he and Doherty were offered shares of the football club but turned them down out of courtesy. It remains to be seen when Hayward will next attend a Crawley Town game at the Checkatrade Stadium but revealing his identity does clear up what had been an on-going mystery amongst the supporters.
