John Hall (businessman)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir John Hall (b. Ashington, Northumberland, 1933) is a property developer in North East England. He is also life president and former chairman of Newcastle United Football Club.
In the 1980s his company, Cameron Hall Developments masterminded the construction of the MetroCentre shopping mall in Dunston, Gateshead. When it opened in 1986, it was Europe's largest shopping centre, a status that it subsequently lost to Bluewater in Kent, but has recently regained.
Hall began constructing a Newcastle Sporting Club in an attempt to emulate the success of FC Barcelona. He began by taking over the football club in a bitter battle for control and appointing Kevin Keegan as manager in February 1992. Keegan turned the club's fortunes around, taking the team from the brink of relegation into the Third Division, to competing with Manchester United for the Premier League in 1996.
The Leazes End of St James' Park is named the Sir John Hall Stand.
He also bought the Newcastle Falcons and the Newcastle Eagles. He purchased the Durham Wasps in 1995, who began to play at Sunderland's Crowtree Leisure Centre. They were renamed the Newcastle Cobras when they moved to Newcastle Arena the following season. [1] (They are now called the Newcastle Vipers).
