51 years ago today - Swales became chairman

he is part of our history and his time for many fans was both enthralling and also heart wrenching as we yo-yo'd and went through batshit seasons of highs and lows.

we nearly won the league twice under his charge and the cup, and did win a league cup, we also suffered relagation, in the end his ego and obssesion with being one of the top dogs at the FA failed us.
 
Swales became Manchester City chairman in 1973, with the club in a reasonably strong position and regularly challenging at the top of the Football League with clubs such as Liverpool, Leeds United and Derby County.[2] Swales presided over a general decline in City's fortunes, which was exacerbated by numerous controversial decisions.[3] After two decades, frustration grew, and Swales was ousted by Francis Lee after a long protest by City supporters, famously known as "Forward with Franny".

With a little more luck his tenure could have been more successful. We should have beaten Wolves in the league cup final in 1974, won the league in 1977 and beaten Spurs in the first game of the fa cup final in 1981.

His biggest mistake was fetching Malcolm Allison back as assistant to Tony Book who had built a strong side capable of challenging at the top. Many fans were excited at his return, myself included. I remember the headlines in the MEN, "Allison to return to City and be given a huge warchest by Swales to propel City back to the top" or some such rhetoric. Sadly that warchest was spunked paying over the odds for unknown mainly useless players.
 
I remember in the early 80’s we created the first ever Sheffield branch of the supporters club. We were amazed that our Chairman made the effort to come to our inaugural meeting as there was only about 10 of us. As a child I was very impressed. Dad, god rest his soul, not so much! spent the whole evening challenging Swales on his transfer dealings, in particular Steve Daley if I remember correctly. Suspect he didn’t attend many supporters club meetings after that LOL.
 
urban genie said:
he is part of our history and his time for many fans was both enthralling and also heart wrenching as we yo-yo'd and went through batshit seasons of highs and lows.

we nearly won the league twice under his charge and the cup, and did win a league cup, we also suffered relagation, in the end his ego and obssesion with being one of the top dogs at the FA failed us.
Click to expand...
Twice? 1977, obviously but what was the other time we nearly won it under his tenure as 1972 was before his time?
 
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