Never get the fuss about him. He was a long serving employee, and that’s it. Always seemed like something of a Swales lapdog. How he became a supposed City legend is beyond me; ticket office was worse than it is now when he was responsible for it. Actually thought he started out as an Oldham fan too? (Nothing wrong with that but not the basis of City legend
An underground bank on Balloon Street! Never heard of that before!
Allowing him to collect the FA Cup was a disgrace for me, the man was at the club during a time when hundreds of thousands of pounds went missing and he knew exactly where.Never get the fuss about him. He was a long serving employee, and that’s it. Always seemed like something of a Swales lapdog. How he became a supposed City legend is beyond me; ticket office was worse than it is now when he was responsible for it. Actually thought he started out as an Oldham fan too? (Nothing wrong with that but not the basis of City legend)
"City's new regime felt they needed to acknowledge his longevity without any knowledge of what he got up to.Rather than a lapdog, more chief spy.
Responsible for so many bad things about the Club during his time.
City's new regime felt they needed to acknowledge his longevity without any knowledge of what he got up to.
A ****, and I don't say it lightly about someone who is passed away.
Rather than a lapdog, more chief spy.
Responsible for so many bad things about the Club during his time.
City's new regime felt they needed to acknowledge his longevity without any knowledge of what he got up to.
A ****, and I don't say it lightly about someone who is passed away.
Wow! This thread is a real eye opener for me. I never knew there was so much vitriol against him. I know Tolmie knows his onions and got connections so I won't argue the toss,because I know fuck all. Just surprised me somewhat. I knew he was always fiddling the gates, but I always put that down to Swales commands. It's interesting to get this side of the story.Allowing him to collect the FA Cup was a disgrace for me, the man was at the club during a time when hundreds of thousands of pounds went missing and he knew exactly where.
His "management" of the ticket office was an utter shambles.
It's a good job the inland revenue did not go in too deep into our accounts because if they had PJ and Bernard would have done time.
What on earth our owner/Execs were thinking of is beyond me and for once they got it very wrong.
The PL are currently checkin' their rule book to see if they can get us past 120 infringements.Wow! This thread is a real eye opener for me. I never knew there was so much vitriol against him. I know Tolmie knows his onions and got connections so I won't argue the toss,because I know fuck all. Just surprised me somewhat. I knew he was always fiddling the gates, but I always put that down to Swales commands. It's interesting to get this side of the story.
He wore a City tartan flat cap with much less swagger than Big Mal and his fedora, but still had a smidgen of swagger.. . . . . . . . . . Coming back to St Bernard if he ever did anything good for City I’d like to know what it was
Sorry to reply to my own post but I had another situation with St Bernard a long time after this. In 1999 we were playing Wigan in the play off semi final, away first leg. In those days you queued up at the ticket office for tickets for big matches. I think we had something like 1000 tickets for the match; you were allowed 2 tickets with 2 different peoples season tickets. I was about 150 to 200 in the queue and started queuing about 6 to 8 hours before the tickets went on sale. Unfortunately St Bernard deemed it unnecessary to have any stewards controlling the queue so during the day loads of Blues jibbed into the queue and it ended up that loads of us who’d been queuing for hours were going to miss out. I recall talking to (I think his name was Nathan, I found him to be a good lad) the ticket office manager and suggesting he asks Mr Halford to do something to sort the problem) - he told me that Mr Halford had gone home hours ago and that he’d phoned him at home and his response was that he definitely wasn’t coming back to the ticket office!) - after speaking to Nathan he at least used his own initiative and decided to hand out raffle tickets to everyone in the queue so at least there could be nobody else could push in). Unfortunately I got very near the front but just missed out - what Nathan did do was take the names and phone numbers of the first 50 to 100 people in the queue and said he’d do what he could to get some more tickets from players, staff etc - I got a call the next day and was told Nathan had got some more tickets and I’d been lucky in the ballot and had got 2 tickets. Again I never forgot Mr Halfords complacency and lack of interest in such a significant matter, and also never forgot Nathan’s proactiity.My first job took me to London in the early 1980’s (in those days the job market was even more London-centric than now). The London branch was a mix of exiled Mancunians like me and people in the south east who supported City for various reasons, none of them glory hunters!). The 80’s was a pretty shit decade for City and it’s fair to say Swales was an extremely unpopular chairman. The London branch used to produce a newsletter to keep members in touch, and in the interests of free speech some of the articles were inevitably critical of Swales. Because of that the London branch was threatened with expulsion from the supporters club if any other articles criticised Swales - I recall that the branch were not prepared to be censored and we ended up being expelled from the supporters club, can’t remember how long for but I think it was a year or two. I recall that there were 2 people at the club who were particularly complicit in the expulsion of the London branch, and they were Bernard Halford and Frank Horrocks, the latter being in the position that Kevin Parker now holds. I never forgot those 2 and their role in the support of swales and their stifling of free speech; swales was a chairman who in my opinion ruined the club for decades, and it took us several more decades to recover from. Anyone who supported that clown and also stifled free speech isn’t a proper Blue in my opinion - as for lifting the fa cup, fucking hell. One other anecdote about Horrocks - I recall speaking to him in the social club after a home game, and him telling me (as someone born and bred in Manchester, City fan all my life, went to London as a 21 year old to get work) that as I lived in London I should support a London team!! Staggering attitude. Coming back to St Bernard if he ever did anything good for City I’d like to know what it was