This is Hull Newspaper article - John Weatherill & Hull FC

When you think of country mansions you don’t generally think new build. The expectation is of something from a century or two ago, the home of a successful industrialist or local squire.

Millington Grange, just a couple of miles above Pocklington, however, is the exception to the rule.

It is the East Riding’s newest country residence and looks out in all its splendour on the rolling pastures of the Yorkshire Wolds down to the Vale of York. It is the home of John Weatherill, a self-made millionaire who earned his fortune from the telecoms industry, and his wife Pauline.

John’s JWE business exploits have been well-documented . . . they saw him leaving his agricultural roots to becoming one of the major players in the mobile phone world, pitting his wits against the likes of Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U. “It was a very exciting, fast-moving business where every day there was something new,” he says.

So fast and so big was his business that John was once in the Sunday Times Rich List, but he left all of that behind some years ago when his health took its toll.

“We were really successful in the nineties,” he said. “I was in my early 50s then and suddenly I had to have a heart bypass. I’ve had five stents since, then I found I had diabetes. It was my heart surgeon who told me I’d have to either pack in the job, or the job would pack me in.”

A peaceful retirement? Something with less strain and no angst? It was never going to happen that way for John and it would seem that all he has done is find new avenues to explore instead, and he actually seems to be working harder than ever.

Life has, in a sense, turned full circle. For today, instead of running a multi-million pound telecoms business he has recaptured the farming bug by concentrating his efforts on establishing what he hopes will be one of the best and most profitable herd of Limousin cattle in the UK as well as trying to win as many prizes as he can with his stock at shows such as the Great Yorkshire and Driffield.

He is also about to relaunch his beef marketing company Yorkshire Beef and, oh yes, there’s the little matter of being the major shareholder in rugby league Super League team Hull FC.

Not a lot then, really – easy does it John!

“The cattle side is my substitute for running JWE,” he says. “Competing is in my blood. Trying to have the best stock is just the same as trying to have the best company and the same is true with a rugby league club.

“When I first put my money into the club it was insolvent, but we’ve pulled it around. We’ve had a difficult year. We had to change the coach and we’ve had more than our fair share of injuries, but look at us now. We made it to Wembley and we’re one of only three clubs in the Super League who have been granted an ‘A’ licence, which means that even if things did go downhill we would still be in for another nine years rather than the three years that some have been guaranteed.”

John is originally from Surrey but came North to run a poultry farm in Halsham, near Withernsea, after having started out conducting research in poultry down south. He recalls how he was first told how little there was to do in Holderness when he used to play darts at The Station pub, in Patrington.

“One lady said to me that all there was to do out there was ‘ale and tail’ – to a young man that at least made it an interesting life,” he said.

He has lived in various parts of East and North Yorkshire in the ensuing decades, with his favourite home, until now, having been in Dalby Forest. “If I could have moved it down here I would have,” says John. “We had seven acres of garden and a trout steam running through with kingfishers. It had been built in the 1300s and it was idyllic. But the work was around here.”

His newly-built country spread sits within the 1,000 acres of farmland he now owns and was designed between himself, Pauline and his good-friend, architect Roger Dykes, who died earlier this year.

He said: “Originally it was to be a seven-bedroom house built in the style of the old farm house next door. But the planners wanted a Georgian-style manor house! My advice to anyone having to deal with planners would be to ask for what you don’t want and then they will say the opposite.

“It took us seven years and we went through five different planning officers before we received clearance, but we’re happy with what we have now.”

Despite being around the East Riding for most of his life John’s first foray into the world of rugby league was with Bradford Bulls. “They were way ahead of the rest in terms of marketing and I wanted to approach selling mobile phones in a different way,” he said.

“We went to both Leeds United and Bradford Bulls to sell them their own phone with a fascia on it. The Bulls went for it with the Bull Phone. As a result they entertained us at the ground and we became associate sponsors with Compaq.

“Pauline loved it. But Hull FC kept banging on our door and with our doctor at Pocklington being their doctor there was a link. We became a main sponsor and then, when I retired in 2000, they asked me to get involved financially.

“Pauline was very keen and they were in need of help, both financial and management. We got involved and everyone I knew thought we were crazy, because they had heavy debts and losses, but the Board turned it around into the good strong profit that we make today.

“We have a good Board of directors and shareholders who have invested in Hull FC with their money and time. They take nothing out of the club financially. I’m now the main shareholder, but I’m not the chairman. I’ve enough to do without that.”

There is a view that you should only get involved with a sports club of any kind if you can afford to lose a lot of money, but John doesn’t subscribe to that. “I’m very competitive in everything I do and when I took it on I was determined to make it a success,” he says. “To me it’s a company and I just want to steer it in the right direction. It’s really no good having a good team and yet having debt collectors chasing you.

“I’m sure one or two fans think running a club is a piece of cake, that it’s just like being a fan, but there’s so much that goes on behind the scenes. It is a business not a hobby.

“We didn’t do too well in the early months of last season and that hurt me. In fact it upsets me more than other things I do. It particularly upset me when our fans went all the way to Cardiff only to lose for a second time to Hull KR.”

John knows all about success and failure. In his life he’s experienced incredible highs and extreme lows so he’s well placed and well balanced enough not to get too carried away with the fans’ cries when things aren’t going too well.

He said: “As soon as the club isn’t performing there’s always a case of ‘sack the directors’, but if it wasn’t for directors like me there wouldn’t be a club.

“I hope people appreciate that. I’d love us to be really successful, to win the Super League Grand Final, to win the Challenge Cup again – but I’d also like to take the interbreed championship at the Royal Show with one of my Limousins, and I’d like to be a successful cattle exporter, and I’m determined that my relaunch of Yorkshire Beef will succeed second time around, too!”

Watch out for a possible new name on Hull FC shirts in years to come!

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John at his beloved KC Stadium

John takes pride in his stock - winning at this year's Driffield Show