Ken Davy

Ken Davy (born 1941) is a successful businessman who is also the chairman of the Super League side Huddersfield Giants and the Football League One side Huddersfield Town.

Career

Davy grew up in Filey on the East Coast of Yorkshire, he left school at 15 with no academic qualifications and worked as a photographer for P&O. At 21 he set up a commercial photography business in Huddersfield before joining Abbey Life in 1971. In 1979 formed independent financial advice company DBS, which he sold in June 2001, for £75m. In 2003 he set up SimplyBiz, providing development, research and marketing services to financial advisers

Huddersfield Giants

In 1996, Davy took over as chairman of Huddersfield Giants. Then in 1999, Davy merged Huddersfield Giants with Sheffield Eagles, a move which resulted in the formation of the Huddersfield-Sheffield Giants. It was an unpopular move with supporters. After one season the club reverted back to the Huddersfield Giants.

On August 26, 2006 Davy witnessed Huddersfield Giants play St Helens in the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final. It was the first time that the Giants had reached the final since 1962.

Huddersfield Town

Davy lead the successful consortium, out of three interested, that took over Huddersfield Town in 2003, when they were in administration following the collapse of ITV Digital and Town's recent relegation to the Football League's bottom tier.

In September 2006, he was criticised for failing to offer Town a significant transfer budget for the 2006-07 season to enable the club to build on their play-off position of the previous season. The budget, which was unspecified, was (according to former manager Peter Jackson) already been used up on signing just 2 players, goalkeeper Matt Glennon and striker Luke Beckett despite the release of Tony Carss, David Graham, Junior Mendes, Phil Senior, and Anthony Lloyd. However, Davy openly stated that Jackson was given the opportunity to strengthen his squad in order to mount a drive for promotion. This was not utilised and Jackson's "inability to attract key players" was one of the reasons given by Davy for the manager's dismissal. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/h/huddersfield_town/6422635.stm "Huddersfield sack manager Jackson"] , BBC Sport, 6 March 2007]

After Huddersfield's 2-3 loss to Yeovil Town on September 16, 2006, he addressed a peaceful demonstration of around 100 Town fans who had called for him to up the transfer budget or go, because of Town's poor start to the season in Football League One in which they only picked up 9 points from the first 9 games.

At the end of season 2008-09 he hands over as chairman to Dean Hoyle, but will retain a minority shareholding. [http://www.teamtalk.com/football/story/0,16368,1822_3406615,00.html "Hoyle to be Terriers chairman"] , TEAMtalk, retrieved 11 April 2008]

References