Jack Walker was the Blackburn Rovers chairman from 1991 untill his death from a heartattack in 2000.
The steel tycoon took over the club at the end of the 90-91 season inheriting a side at the bottom of the second division of English football. Within a year Blackburn had secured a world clas manager in Kenny Dalglish, gained promotion to the newly formed premiership and broken the British transfer record to bring Alan Shearer to the club from Southampton for £3.5m. Walker is in many ways the prototype of billionaire owners like Roman Abramovich, who have bought into English football but in those days the cost of buying a top squad was only around £20m and the emphasis was on bringing the top English youngsters to the club rather than established foreign stars. Walker also significantly redeveloped the clubs stadium Ewood park bringing it into line with the stadia of the day and upping the capacity to 32,000.
Walker again armed Dalglish with a blank cheque book and he brought Chris Sutton to the club again smashing the British transfer record Shearer had set by paying Norwich City £5m for the 21 year old striker. He was followed by Tim Flowers, Graeme LeSaux and David Batty all players tipped to have long and successful England careers. With a squad assembled at a cost of tens of millions compared to the shoe string budgets the rest of the premier league teams were dealing with it was no wonder that Walker was accused of ‘buying the premiership title’ when they were eventually crowned champions in 1995. However further analysis suggests that the foundation of their success was the management skills of Dalglish and prolific finishing of Alan Shearer, as both had departed the club by the end of 1996 and the clubs form dipped massivley as a result. Subsequent managers failed to reverse Blackburns fortunes and Walker was forced to look overseas for a replacement for Dalglish securing Sven Goran Erickson’s signature only for the swede to renege on the deal at the end of the season, with Roy Hodgson eventually taking up the reigns and brief causing a resurgence in form. Nothing could halt Blackburns demise and they were eventually relegated in 1999. Blackburn still hold the distinction of being the only team to have won the premiership and also be relegated from it.
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