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Owen John Oyston (born 3 January 1934) is an English businessman who is the majority owner of Blackpool Football Club. ==Background== Oyston was born in County Durham, but his family moved to Blackpool when he was two. He was educated at St. Joseph's College in the town. He opted out of further education at sixteen and started his career as an actor. He briefly appeared as a barrister in Granada TV's 1970s afternoon television courtroom drama series ''Crown Court. In the 1950s, Oyston moved to London, where he started his business career as a sewing-machine salesman; however, the firm failed, and in 1960 he moved home to Blackpool,〔 where he had considerable success in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in the estate agency business. By the mid-1980s Oyston's Estate Agents had become the largest firm of family-owned estate agents in the United Kingdom. In 1987 he sold Oyston's Estate Agents for an estimated £37 million to Royal Insurance,〔 〕 just weeks before the stock market crash. Also in 1987 he bought a large stake in then-struggling Blackpool F.C., becoming the club's owner on 31 May 1988, when he purchased new shares. His ambitions of a new, world-class stadium for the club made headlines through much of the 1990s. They were eventually realised when he invested in a stadium with new stands, restaurants and a 70-bedroom hotel in the club's original location at Bloomfield Road. He also built up holdings in the media, including the successful ''Lancashire Life'' series of magazines, before selling them in 2000 to the Archant Publishing Company. He was a major investor in the ''News on Sunday'' newspaper, a struggling left-wing tabloid newspaper. It had been launched in April 1987 and had been kept afloat during the general election campaign thanks to the extension of a loan from the Transport and General Workers Union; however, after the election it went bankrupt and Oyston then bought it outright. Just five months later, in November 1987, it ceased publication.〔 〕 He also had media interests in commercial radio. He was chairman of the Red Rose Group, later to be named Trans World Communications, which owned and launched Red Rose Radio in Preston in October 1982.〔 〕 The group went on to purchase Radio Aire in Leeds, Red Dragon Radio in Cardiff, and Piccadilly Radio in Manchester. All these stations were subsequently sold to the publishing group Emap. Oyston also acquired The Superstation, a station that had been set up in 1987 as a central, syndicated overnight sustaining service for Independent Local Radio in the UK. It closed in 1990. He was also a major investor in, and chief executive of, Miss World international beauty pageant through TWC until 1991.〔 〕〔 〕 In the late 1980s, following the liberalisation of the strict regulations governing the provision of cable television in the UK, Oyston (through Oyston Cable Communications Group Limited) won, and started to develop, six of the government-granted monopoly broadband franchises, issued by the newly established Cable Authority and covering almost 700,000 households and businesses in the Northwest of England. In 1990, when the Baby Bell operating companies saw an opportunity to use cable telephony to gain a foothold in the UK's telecommunication market, Southwestern Bell acquired a majority 80% stake in the Oyston Cable Communications Group.〔 〕 Oyston's remaining 18% holding was also bought by Southwestern Bell, for £2.99 million, in 1991 (a Statutory Instrument dictated that the remaining 2% holding in Oyston Cable had been vested in Liverpool City Council, on behalf of all the local councils covered by the Oyston franchise areas.) On 2 March 1992 World in Action screened a report, entitled ''The Dirty War'', describing a campaign against Oyston waged by the Preston's political agitator Michael Murrin, owner of a fish and chip shop. The television report revealed that Murrin had tape-recorded his conversations with his supporters, including the Conservative MPs Sir Peter Blaker and Robert Atkins. The April 1992 ''Esquire'' revealed that the principal source of funds for the 7-year dirty tricks campaign had been William Harrison, 1921–1999, a Lancashire property developer. The report by Chris Blackhurst described "A seamy saga of smears, death and vendetta. Or how two Tory MPs, a fish and chip shop owner, and a Blackpool wheeler dealer with a secret grudge tried to ruin a socialist millionaire."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Our Friends in the North West: The Owen Oyston Affair )〕 In October 1996, Oyston revealed that he was offered control of Manchester United, but that he refused to desert Blackpool.〔 He commented: "I had the opportunity to buy a controlling interest in Manchester United, but I was not prepared to relinquish my family's interest in Blackpool Football Club. After discussing the matter in detail with the Football League, it was apparent that it would not consider any formula which would allow me to have an interest in both clubs."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Owen Oyston」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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