Source: Liverpool_Echo
Dominic King: LFC owner John W Henry is the calm after the storm
IT was just before 8pm on Wednesday evening when an unassuming debonair gentleman, carrying a briefcase on his shoulder, slipped in through the front doors of a London law firm.[LNB]At first glance, it would have been easy to let him carry on by. There was nothing flash, brash or ostentatious about him nor was there the heavyweight entourage that often accompanies those who are ultra wealthy.[LNB]But, upon doing a double take, the man in question was John W Henry; he could have remained in Boston, far from the madding crowd, he could have sent his Tweets in support of Liverpool from across the Atlantic but the fact that the prospective new owner wanted to be there at the defining moment struck a chord.[LNB]During Liverpool's exhaustive search for investment, numerous groups have been only too happy to court the media and have their name associated with what has unquestionably been the biggest sports story of the modern era.[LNB] So it says much about Henry's character that he has kept a low profile throughout this frantic, ever changing affair.[LNB]Some, inevitably, have looked to pick faults in him and he was the subject of a withering newspaper column last weekend because he was pictured smoking a cigar the size of an elephant's trunk after one of the Boston Red Sox's World Series victories.[LNB]Critics from afar will ask why there are such celebrations because all Liverpool have done is swap one set of American owners for another, pointing out that New England Sports Ventures do not have the wealthy of Roman Abramovich or Sheikh Mansour.[LNB]True. But John W Henry is not Tom Hicks or George Gillett and first impressions, as is always the case, last; Henry, you get the impression, is not the type of man who will say he 'took in a ball game with the Hotspurs' or start talking about turning Stanley Park into 'a giant swimming pool.'[LNB]Nor does he strike you as a man who, before an important game, will start pulling fistfuls of dollars out of his blazer pocket and proclaiming 'we'll need a bit more of this' if Liverpool want to buy 'Snoogy Doogy or whoever'.
