The Times o

IN a sport filled with larger-than-life personalities and massive egos, Mike Ashley is likely to cut something of an anonymous figure.

Despite being one of the richest men in the country, ranked 25th in the Sunday Times Rich List, few people beyond his family and closest friends have ever actually met him.

The 42-year-old billionaire rarely grants interviews and is almost never photographed. Some of his staff don't even know what he looks like.

Until last year, the only public photo in existence showed him as a teenage tennis player.

The secretive billionaire lives alone in a large house in Hertfordshire. His home is screened by trees and the grounds are monitored 24 hours a day by CCTV cameras.

When his local newspaper tried to find out more, journalists hit a brick wall. Eventually, the paper resorted to running an advert asking for anyone who knew him to come forward - no one did.

Ashley, a former county-level squash coach, is an intensely private individual, not given to showboating or making rash statements. He never promises what he cannot deliver.

Over the past 20 years, he has built a sporting goods empire under the Sports World International umbrella that encompasses some of the world's most famous brands, including Lillywhites, Dunlop, Kangol and Lonsdale.

Ashley grew up in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, and left school to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions at 16.

Starting as a high street trader, he soon demonstrated his uncanny ability to predict retail trends by developing a modest chain of ski wear and sports shops in the London area, just as the fitness boom began.

The stores prospered and by the late Nineties, they had been re-branded as Sports Soccer. At its peak, the group had more than 100 outlets across the UK.

Even the most ambitious entrepreneur would have paused for breath, but for Ashley, the chain's success marked was merely the curtain-raiser.

In 2002, he swooped for Lillywhites, in London's Piccadilly Circus, turning it into a discount sportswear store.

His famous name brands have been applied to a range of sports goods sold throughout the group's stores. By controlling the brand and the product, Sports World International has been able to extract the maximum profit from every item.

Just how successful that method has been was demonstrated when Ashley made £929m - the largest sum banked by a British businessman in one day - by floating Sports Direct, which he founded, in February.

At the time of the float, Ashley said he had no plans for the cash he had raised and intended to put the money in the bank. The following month he spent £180m to buy a 3.15 per cent stake in Adidas.

His 100p a share bid for Newcastle United represents a 19 per cent premium on Tuesday's 84p closing share price, and values the club at £133m.

If the takeover succeeds, Ashley's purchase of Newcastle United will renew an old rivalry with Dave Whelan, the founder of JJB Sports and chairman of Wigan Football Club.

Whelan allegedly once mistook Ashley for a gardener when they met for the first time at the Cheshire home of David Hughes, the chairman of now bankrupt rival Allsports.

On realising his mistake, Whelan reportedly cautioned Ashley: "There's a club in the North son and you're not part of it."

Buying Newcastle United surely changes all that.

And if Ashley's ambitions for Newcastle United are realised, Whelan's words may come back to haunt him when Wigan return to St James' Park next season