New London Broncos chairman Ian Lenagan was born and bred in Wigan, right in the heart of rugby league's traditional stronghold.
So it is only fitting that the 59-year-old multi-millionaire is now responsible for promoting the sport in the capital.
A big rugby league fan, Lenagan possesses the necessary business credentials to make a big hit of his latest venture.
Not only did he earn a small fortune by floating his software company, Workplace Systems plc, on the London Stock market in 2000, he is also a successful theatre producer and the chairman of the Sports Caf� chain.
A former Mayor of Woodstock, the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, he appears to be the ideal person to turn the Broncos from rugby league also-rans into Super League heavyweights.
He is someone who can provide financial stability to a club that desperately needs a firm fiscal hand at the same time as maximising its enormous potential.
Educated at Wigan St Patricks and West Park Grammar in St Helens, Lenagan has a BSc in mathematics and a Masters in magnetohydrodynamics (the dynamics of matter moving in an electromagnetic field).
He lived and worked in Leeds for five years before moving south in the early 1980s, living in Oxfordshire, Milton Keynes and London for the past 25 years.
His passion for the sport - and his academic background - dovetailed together when he set up a �300,000 scholarship scheme to help young league players get into Oxford University last year.
An employee of the Burroughs Corporation (now Unisys) for 10 years, he became managing director of several companies.
But it was with the flotation of his own computer software company in 2000 that he made his millions.
Lenagan has since diversified into other areas, taking over the Sports Caf� Group in 2001 and becoming a theatre producer.
But the Broncos could be his most dramatic show yet.
MMIX
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