Owen Oyston
| Owen Oyston | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Owen John Oyston 3 January 1934 |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | St Joseph's College, Blackpool |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Known for |
Blackpool F.C., The Lancashire Magazine |
| Net worth | £100M |
| Criminal charge | Rape |
| Criminal penalty | Six years (served three years and six months; 1996–1999) |
| Spouse(s) | Vicki Oyston |
| Children | Karl Oyston |
Owen John Oyston (born 3 January 1934) is an English businessman who is the majority owner of Blackpool Football Club. He was convicted of rape and indecent assault in 1996. He served three years and six months of a six-year sentence in prison. He was released after a judicial review of the Parole Board's refusal to grant parole.
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 . 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, a struggling left-wing tabloid newspaper. It had been launched in April 1987 and had been kept afloat during the 1987 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.
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