30 Facts About Owen Oyston

1.

Owen John Oyston was born on 3 January 1934 and is an English former businessman best known as the former majority owner of Blackpool Football Club.

2.

Owen Oyston served three years and six months of a six-year sentence in prison.

3.

Owen Oyston was released after a judicial review of the parole board's refusal to grant parole.

4.

Owen Oyston was born in County Durham, but his family moved to Blackpool when he was two.

5.

Owen Oyston was educated at St Joseph's College in the town.

6.

Owen Oyston opted out of further education at sixteen and started his career as an actor.

7.

Owen Oyston relaunched Oyston's estate agency and revived two previously low-profile Ridings Publications titles, The Lancashire Magazine and The Yorkshire Ridings Magazine, with managers and journalists who previously worked with him on the "Life" series of county magazines.

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8.

Owen Oyston built up holdings in publishing, including the Lancashire Life series of magazines, before selling them in 2000 to the Archant Publishing Company.

9.

Owen Oyston was a major investor in the News on Sunday, a struggling left-wing tabloid newspaper.

10.

However, after the election, it went bankrupt and Owen Oyston then bought it outright.

11.

Owen Oyston was a major investor in, and chief executive of, Miss World's international beauty pageant through Trans World Communications until 1991.

12.

Owen Oyston 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.

13.

Owen Oyston acquired The Superstation, which had been set up in 1987 as a central, syndicated overnight sustaining service for independent local radio in the UK.

14.

In 1987 Owen Oyston bought a large stake in then-struggling Blackpool FC, becoming the club's owner on 31 May 1988, when he purchased new shares.

15.

In October 1996, Owen Oyston said that he was offered control of Manchester United, but that he refused to desert Blackpool.

16.

Owen Oyston made his first public appearance at Bloomfield Road since his release from prison, in February 2002 at the opening of two new stands at the stadium.

17.

Owen Oyston was instrumental in the club bringing in Latvian businessman Valeri Belokon to invest in the club in 2006.

18.

Owen Oyston admitted that it was only after being contacted by police officers investigating the model agency that she felt compelled to speak out having previously made no allegation against Oyston.

19.

Owen Oyston had been between 16 and 17 years old in the indictment period.

20.

Owen Oyston claimed that at one time he was being investigated by the Fraud Squad, the Inland Revenue, the Drugs Squad, the City's regulatory takeover body Imro, international private investigators, The Sunday Times and other newspapers.

21.

Owen Oyston told his defence counsel, Anthony Scrivener QC, that he had been cleared of wrongdoing.

22.

Owen Oyston distributed a 72-page glossy booklet, "The Oyston file", detailing the allegations to reporters at his trial.

23.

Owen Oyston brought the matter up again in the House of Lords in 2003, following his elevation to a peer in 2001.

24.

Owen Oyston was forced to relinquish control as each of the radio stations stood to lose its licence should he retain a controlling interest.

25.

Under normal parole terms, Owen Oyston would have been due for release in May 1999.

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26.

Owen Oyston unsuccessfully appealed to the European court for his conviction to be overturned.

27.

On 29 June 2001 Owen Oyston spoke publicly for the first time since his release.

28.

Owen Oyston was the subject of controversy again in 2007 when he was invited by Sir Alex Ferguson and former sports minister Richard Caborn to a Labour Party fundraising event in the new Wembley Stadium and attended by the newly appointed Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

29.

Owen Oyston attended the event and subscribed for two tables of guests.

30.

Owen Oyston has a fourth daughter, Natalie Christopher, who became chair of Blackpool FC in 2018.