THERE will only ever be one Jack Walker.

As Blackburn Rovers prepare to enter the increasingly common world of foreign ownership, no-one will forget the club’s proud past and the man who made the glorious last 20 years possible.

A decade ago today, Uncle Jack’s death saw Blackburn Rovers in mourning but it also left a legacy that has to be kept intact no matter what the future has in store.

Jack Walker’s Rovers story was a fairytale of immense proportions. Forget Abramovich’s millions at Chelsea and Sheikh Mansour’s for-tunes at Manchester City, this was a tale that will never, ever be matched.

The steel magnate’s motives were never complicated as he started putting his self-made wealth into his hometown club. It was a simple desire to make his club the best.

To go from growing up in a working class family in Blackburn to transforming the family business, a back street scrap metal business, into the largest steel stockholder in Britain was no mean feat.

But Rovers will remember him far more as the man who made their dreams come true. The man who made an already proud club Premier League champions.

What fans during the 1980s could realistically predict what was to follow? Seeing players of the calibre of Alan Shearer, Tim Flowers, and Tim Sherwood and the legendary Kenny Dalglish as manager were something dreams were made of.

Seeing their team lift the Premier League trophy at Anfield, one of only four teams still to have ever lifted the prize, is a moment no Rovers fan will ever forget. It is forever stamped in the club’s history.

Even today, 10 years on, Walker’s legacy is there for all to see. The Jack Walker statue in front of Ewood Park’s reception and the three impressive grandstands are obvious signs of what he made possible.

But his legacy goes deeper than that. From putting in place one of the world’s most impressive training centres at Brockhall to modernising Ewood Park into one of the country’s finest stadia. Walker is simply a club legend.

Some of the more envious outsiders attempt to taint Walker’s success at Ewood Park with accus-ations of simply ‘buying the title’ and sparking the influx of money that was to follow in the game.

Sure, without his money a lot of what followed was never going to possible, but there was far more to their Premier League rise than material matters.

Walker’s passion and love for Rovers filtered through the club at every level. There was a sense of togetherness, of team spirit and of determination – qualities not even money can buy.

These qualities still exist today. There is a family feel and a sense of belonging around Ewood Park that rarely exists in football these days.

This was there long before Jack Walker but his Rovers era ensured those principles remained at the forefront of everything and his predecessors have carried this on since.

In a poignant twist, the club took a large step into the future yesterday as an Indian tycoon moved closer to buying Rovers of the ‘Walker Trust’.

Over the next month, Ahsan Ali Syed is confident of taking complete control and has pledged to plough millions of pounds into helping Rovers back to the top of tree.

Whatever happens, whether this new dream in pie-in-the-sky or reality, Jack Walker’s name will forever be linked to the club. He was the man who has made all this possible.

Without his investment, his vision and his hard-work, Rovers could still be languishing as one of football’s also-rans.

So for that, and everything else, Blackburn Rovers will forever be indebted to the great Jack Walker.