Michael Jacobs (David Hunt) 1997-1998

First Regular Appearance: 1.1 (#1)  Tuesday 14th October 1997

Last Regular Appearance: 1.29 (#29)  Tuesday 20th January 1998

Duration: EP: 1 - 29  |  SE: 1.1 – 1.29

Position: Harchester United Chairman (1992-1998)

Last Seen: Collapsing from a heart attack on the youth team training pitch while re-living his playing days.

Michael's involvement with Harchester United began when he was a teenage apprentice, and he worked hard to achieve his dream of one day playing professionally for the first team. His ambition didn't go unnoticed by club manager Harry Sidwell, who gave Michael his call-up in late 1975. In a match that December, when briefly onto the pitch, Michael suffered a crippling injury, a broken leg, which ultimately shattered his career hopes with the club and his chances of becoming a professional footballer. Gutted, Michael went through a downward spiral, but with the support of his father he threw himself into the next best thing he could, and went to work with his dad in the business world.

In the late 70's Michael was in love with a girl called Lynette, but she had another admirer in Des Baker and chose him, something Michael never understood as to him Des was a loser who could never offer Lynette the rich and affluent lifestyle he could. Michael settled for Stephanie, though both were surprised when she fell pregnant with a daughter, Georgina, and the new parents had a quickly arranged wedding shortly before her birth. The marriage was rocky and Michael and Stephanie divorced when Georgina was three, after which they shared custody of their daughter, depending on which had the least hectic lifestyle at the time.

Michael never truly let Harchester United go, and became a shareholder in the club. In November 1992, Michael takes his grandest step in clinging onto his long-held dream of being a part of the club, when he takes over the chairmanship from Clive Hawes. He sets about making big changes for the club, replacing safe and steady manager Steve Tomkin with the more bold, risk-taking Ron Atkinson, a manager who favoured the club's young new home-grown star Karl Fletcher. It pays off, for at the end of his second season as chairman, Harchester are promoted and enter the new Premiership for the first time. Though demoted again for the 1996-97 season, the club is back in the League the following year, but Michael is unhappy with a poor run of early results which he feels the fans blame him for. After yet another clash with Ron Atkinson, the manager resigns, leaving the team without a permanent boss until the arrival of Ian Coates a couple of months later.

Michael's daughter Georgina is also living with him for good at this point, and turning sixteen years old, it seems Michael has little or no idea of what she gets up to! Michael thinks the club have a real star in Dean Hocknell, and the chairman can't be more proud as he continues to bang the goals in. But when Michael accompanies the team on the coach following the FA Cup 3rd Round against Leicester, he puts on the infamous tape of Dean's boardroom romp with Georgina - not realising it is his daughter on the tape! A furious Michael sets about making Dean's life a misery at the club, going as far as sleeping with Dean's now ex-girlfriend Lucy when they both feel bitter towards him.

A strain is also put on Michael's relationship with Georgina. Lynette is around to be a support for the Jacobs' as always, but her closeness to Michael leads Des to believe Michael may be trying to start something up with her again. Confronting Michael in the boardroom at a meeting, Des punches his love rival sending Michael flying across the table. Later, Michael is on the training pitch with the reserves and decides to show them a thing or two from his playing days. Georgina arrives, to bring the news to her father that she will need his support as she is pregnant with Dean's baby, but before she can tell him Michael collapses suddenly on the pitch. Georgina is stunned when Brian the coach orders an ambulance be called as Michael is having a heart attack. At the hospital, a distraught Georgina is told Michael has died, and Stephanie arrives to look after her.

The drama continues after Michael's death, for Georgina is not old enough to be left the club to run meaning it falls into Stephanie's guardianship. Plus Des and Lynette almost split up, when it is learnt Michael also left Zoe shares in the club that she receives on her eighteenth birthday. Des believes Lynette had an affair with Michael resulting in Zoe not being his, but they soon decide they don't need a piece of paper to tell them whether they are father and daughter, they already know from a lifetime of love. The most tragic outcome of Michael's passing is on Georgina, who blames herself for the difficulties between she and her dad before his death, and ultimately loses her baby with the stress.