Wayne Jacobs 1988/89
In March 1988, Sheffield-born Wayne Jacobs had already featured 10 times in the First Division for Sheffield Wednesday. Only 19 years of age, the left-back was left with a dilemma on deadline day in only his first year as a professional footballer.
“Looking back, I did really well in my first year. I made a few handful of league and substitute appearances and back then, deadline day was in March,” said Jacobs. “I finished training and went home and laid on the sofa and then I got a call from my then-manager Howard Wilknson. He said I needed to come back in to the club as Hull City were coming to speak to me. I had a contract on the table from Sheffield Wednesday, but I was a squad player, because I was young and have to be patient.
“Hull wanted me to play in their first team so I had a decision to make. I went in, met Brian Horton and met Howard Wilkinson just beforehand and had a good chat with him and after speaking to Brian, I liked the prospect of getting some league games under my belt and going to play for Hull.”
Joining alongside Keith Edwards on deadline day, the duo combined on debut against Leicester City, with Jacobs delivering the cross for Edwards to convert at Filbert Street. With Pat Heard coming towards the end of his stellar career, Jacobs competed with Ray Daniel for the starting shirt down the left wing, with the now 54-year-old speaking on his competition with Daniel and his relationship with manager Horton.
“Ray was a great lad that played anywhere on the left. He was healthy competition. Brian was a clever manager as he took a bit of pressure off me when saying to the Hull Daily Mail I was one for the future, but he put me in the first game against Leicester. It gave me a good start to be fair and I never looked back; I went from strength to strength.”
After featuring six times following his transfer to the Tigers, the defender became an ever-present in City’s backline. Featuring 38 times in his first full campaign with the club, Jacobs was awarded the club’s Player of the Year award for his stellar performances down the left flank. The season also brought one of Jacobs’ favourite games in a City shirt, competing against Liverpool in the fifth round of the FA Cup at Boothferry Park.
“The great Liverpool team of its time, which was packed full of stars playing at Boothferry Park in the FA Cup, and we were 2-1 up at half-time. We lost 3-2 as John Aldridge came on and scored a brace and for me at that point in my career, that was a big, big game and wonderful to be involved in,” reminisced Jacobs.
“It was amazing and a real honour to receive Player of the Year. It is a team game and you want the team to do well, but when the dust has settled, people decide who has had a good season and I remember us having some good players. It was phenomenal times for me on the pitch.”
Football was a consistent for Jacobs in his life. However, off-the-field, there were troubles in his personal life as a young adult at the time.
“Off the pitch, things were very difficult for me. The summer before I signed for Hull, my mum had passed away with cancer and you don’t know at the time, but you’ve not really grieved that or gone through that process, but football and playing football was the only thing in that time of my life that seemed to be a constant. Having that focus was a good thing for me and I think it served me not just in my career but off the pitch as well where I was really struggling.
“Neil Buckley looked after me ever so well and Billy Askew took me under his wing. I get emotional talking about it, because I look back then and realise the situation I was in. Jim and Jess, Neil’s parents, took me under their wing a little bit. They fed me and I stayed at their house a few times and they were really kind.”
A consistent feature in City’s starting XI, including featuring in all 50 games in the 1989/90 campaign, it was the 25th January 1992 against Stoke City that saw Jacobs make his 150th and last appearance in a black and amber shirt after a cruel injury.
“They had a throw-in and they threw it over my inside shoulder and I turned to chase it and my knee just snapped. The pitch was tough that day and I am not sure if that game should have gone ahead but we probably had to play it due to the financial difficulties. From that day, it became tough at Hull for me. It was probably where my time there became sweet and sour because of how it finished really. As a young lad, I was a bit naive and there were no agents back then so I wasn’t too sure what was happening. My contract was finishing in the summer and I had just sold my house as I wasn’t sure on what was happening.
“I travelled to see a specialist and he just looked me in the face and said ‘you may never play again.’ I literally had my clothes in a bag and was homeless in that sense. I had no contract as it had run out. What I didn’t realise was in the summer, Hull had to give me six months due to the PFA to help me rehabilitate so they did that. I never knew that was a statutory thing.
“I was trying to get back fit and the club called me in in December and said Martin Fish the Chairman, wanted to see me. You never saw the chairman back in those days and it was a little house on the corner of Boothferry Park where the admin offices were. I remember going up the stairs and walking in thinking he looks really nervous and he’s shaking a little bit. He sat me down and said ‘Wayne, we’re going to have to let you go,’” revealed Jacobs.
“It was two weeks’ notice totally out of the blue for me and it was just a shock. I remember walking down the stairs to the exit and to make sense of it, I walked back into Boothferry Park and just walked around the pitch on my own with tears down my face, because I had been a constant. My actual last day was Christmas Eve that year. One part of the deal was I could still go back for physiotherapy on no salary. A lot of players to be fair asked if they could at least give me something and the club had said no, so for me that was where it was hard for me to go back and I felt I had been treated harshly in that sense.”
After being told the potential of not being able to play again, the 54-year-old proved everybody wrong as he made a further 405 appearances for the likes of Rotherham United, Bradford City and Halifax Town.
A devout Christian, Jacobs is the founder and Chief Executive of the One in Million charity, which work extensively with disadvantaged children in the Bradford area. Looking back on his time at Hull, the defender now understands the decisions the club made then and how he always loved the fans of the football club.
“I always had a really good relationship with the fans; they were great! I was very thankful for how they were to me and the people of Hull were tremendous in that sense. It was just one or two decisions in the club where as you get older, you understand. We were struggling and that is the harsh reality of football that you’re a worth to them and then you’re not. In their eyes, I understood the decision was that they thought I would never get back to the level that I had been playing so they made that decision.
“Some of us as players get hurt at clubs, but you just need to walk away and let the clubs prosper, because that is what they need to do to achieve things and I feel like you can just look forward to the challenge in-front of you.”
