Wolves youngster to local council chief: The journey of Dave Heywood

The left back’s debut, which remains one of the youngest in the club’s history at 17 years and 157 days, had arrived a few months earlier, against Wolves’ next opponents Manchester City.

Today, into this evening and the early hours of tomorrow, he will be serving as the Returning Officer for South Staffordshire District Council, one of the many duties which are part of his role as the local authority’s Chief Executive.

It would be a decent quiz question to ask how many former footballers have gone into local government after hanging up their boots?

Of course, Wolves’ legend and Vice-President, and indeed Heywood’s boyhood hero, John Richards, moved into similar circles after retirement, working as a sports and recreation manager with the City of Wolverhampton Council and head of leisure services with Cannock Chase Council.

Heywood, meanwhile, whose arrival as an apprentice at Molineux came just after Richards had ended his long playing association with Wolves, has progressed all the way through to the top role at South Staffordshire Council, one he has delivered, for the last eight years, with considerable success.

Walk into the council offices in Codsall, and it doesn’t feel like a council. Or at least, the stereotypical view of a council.

Since taking the helm in 2017, Heywood has worked closely with elected members and a diligent and creative group of management and staff to lead a number of initiatives including a groundbreaking and innovative project which has transformed the council space.

It has become a Community Hub, home to over 20 different organisations ranging from small private sector businesses to public sector partners and the voluntary sector including the local doctor’s surgery, South Staffordshire police force, a children’s nursery, and a library, to name but a few.

Not only does that help the Council bring in vital finances to help deliver such a vast range of services, it also encourages a level of connectivity and joint working between organisations which must surely boost efficiency for all those who benefit from their work.

“When I think back to when I was a footballer, never would I have thought I would end up as the Chief Executive of a local authority,” says Heywood.

“But I feel both very privileged to be doing this role, and to have an influence in the wellbeing and prosperity of the community of South Staffordshire.

“To see the transition of the council since I have become Chief Executive makes me very proud, but I am fortunate to have come into a very good council, with a really strong workforce.

“It has all been about creating a cultural environment that has enabled individuals to excel - and the council to excel - in providing services to residents of our local communities.

“Turning the council offices into a community hub was always a key part of the plan, not only in developing the values of the council in how we work and the way we work, but also providing a facility for the community which can offer so much more.

“As a council, we are relatively small but also complex in what we do, offering over 20 different services and functions from leisure to open space, planning, waste and recycling, housing and addressing issues such as homelessness

“The difference that we can all make to the lives of local people is humbling, and that is why it is a privilege for me to hold a position of this nature and to be able to install the values which myself, councillors and the leadership team here believe in.”

Heywood occupying such a vital and influential position of a local authority, back in the area where he spent so much of his childhood, forms just part of his overall story, in which so much was packed into the short stint of his first team involvement at Wolves those four decades ago.

He believes some of the qualities of resilience and leadership which he has carried forward into his current employment emerged and were nurtured during his spell as a young player at Molineux, but alongside the extreme highs of enjoying his teenage kicks making his senior breakthrough, also came the disappointment of eventually being released, but more pertinently the heart problem which could have been dangerously serious.

Heywood was born in Sedgley before the family moved to Codsall when he was about nine, and football was always very high on the priority list.

His Dad would take him to watch Wolves at Molineux, and he also played for different junior teams including Bilbrook, Albrighton and South Staffs Wolves.

It was only at the age of 15 when he started to get more recognition, being selected for the county team and joining Willenhall Town’s youth team thanks to a recommendation from Richie Dams, the PE teacher at Codsall High School where Heywood was a pupil.

Willenhall’s manager was Geoff Blackwell, also a scout at Wolves, and he recommended Heywood to trial for the club’s Midlands Floodlit Youth League team, from which he emerged successful after a fairly rigorous recruitment process.

At that point, Shrewsbury Town came in with the offer of an apprenticeship, which effectively forced Wolves’ hand to come to a decision in offering a similar deal, and Heywood was given the opportunity of a two-year scholarship.

“I was never the cream of the crop playing junior football, I never really stood out,” he reflects.

“I was always that bit below those players who were getting picked up by the scouts and signing schoolboy forms, and when I got to 15, I thought I was going to have to give up the dream of becoming a professional.

“I was starting to think about what else I could do, but then things started to happen and there were conversations, and eventually I ended up at Wolves.