It’s finally online-the Peter Swales video we’ve been waiting for P31

[BeerIsTheBest]

I thought life was a sideshow. The real test was PS; and we survived with honours. How many of us got to go to Buck House for a gong for services to supporting a football team despite what was thrown at us? I'm still waiting for the crested HRH letter!

Dave Ewing

Reading your posts I’m not sure you are going to make it to 100 and receive the monarchs best wishes! :)

 

[Vienna_70]

Paul Lake speaks very highly of the great man.

But what does he think of Peter fucking Swales?

 

[kismet]

Speaking to an individual who worked for Swales in the 50/60's. They advise me that -

- on a Monday when City had lost Swales would come into his shop laughing and joking and generally taking the piss out of the City fans

- he didn't hide the fact that he supported Manchester United

As Johny Rotten used to say....." Ever get the feeling you've been cheated "

 

[KippaxKid69]

No chance did swales support United he was a blue through and through that was his problem he was always trying to catch United it became an obsession that's why he failed

 

[johnnytapia]

Thats brilliant and im sure thats tits out jackie getting shoved by a copper when the players are getting off the coach at west brom at the end

100%!!!

 

[kismet]

Was he even a City fan? I remember him being co-chairman at Alti with Noel white but was he actually a Blue as a kid?

he was not a City fan........from a very good source

 

[petrusha]

he was not a City fan........from a very good source

He always claimed to be a City fan, but I never remember hearing him speak about following the club as a youngster in the way that I or most people on here do from time to time. Be that as it may, though @kismet is a poster I've always had a lot of respect for and trust to post in good faith.

But even if Swales had been the most avid boyhood City fan imaginable, he nailed his colours firmly to the mast when he was chairman. In the way he ran the club, what mattered to him was the self-interest of Peter Swales, first, last and everywhere between.

 

[Goatmeal]

Swales was totally out of his depth but same can be said about a lot of chairmen back then.
They operated more out of luck than judgement. We shouldn’t compare chairman back then to the modern day chairman.
My opinion was he genuinely wanted city to be successful.
Allison was a very strong character. He had some great ideas but his application was poor. He blinded Swales by science and Swales backed a bad horse.
Allison did the equivalent of selling De Bruyne and Bernardo for peanuts and brining in unknowns unproven for high transfer fees.
Swales fell for his patter and backed him.
I liked Allison as did a lot of city fans at the time but he has to take the majority of the blame in my opinion.
Yes Swales was well out of his depth but he just wanted to see city winning just like all of us.

 

[urban genie]

It was all freddie pye really, stockport fan trying to destroy us from witihin ;-)

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

How on earth did a TV salesman become the Chairman of Manchester City? What were the circumstances that led to him being in charge?

I know some of this story. He and Noel White originally got involved in Altrincham, thanks to a young Alty fan called Brian Lomax. Brian went on to become the first person to set up a Supporters Trust, which he did at Northampton. I was working in Northampton in 2006, when we were looking to do the same at City so he was the obvious person to start asking for advice.

I rang him and explained who I was and what we were trying to do and he said "You'll probably put the phone down on me but I have to own up to being the person who got Peter Swales into football." He told me that he was a very enthusiastic Atrincham fan, going home and away. Eventually, the club took him on the team coach to away games and he got to know the club officials quite well.

They hit financial difficulties and he carried out a one-man campaign to drum up financial support in the town for their local club. He visited Swales & White, who'd sold the business to Thorn EMI so had a few quid in their pockets. They heard him out and agreed to get involved in financing the club and helping run it. That's where they got the taste for running a football club and set their sights a bit higher.

In the early Seventies, when there was a boardroom battle at City between 'young' Albert Alexander and Joe Smith, who Frank Johnson sold his shares to. The new faction was being encouraged by Malcolm Allison apparently, which ultimately led to the Mercer/Allison split. Swales claimed he went into a pub in Hale Barns and saw Sidney Rose & John Humphreys discussion the situation. In his version of the story, he went over to them and offered to intervene, without any real idea of how he could do that.

I spoke to Sidney Rose about that and he dismissed Swales' version as a complete fiction. He couldn't remember the exact sequence of events but said it definitely wasn't the way Sales told it and he thought the board agreed to contact Swales as a mediator. Swales commenced discussions with both parties and they eventually reached a concordat. As a reward, Swales was made a director. Once in, with just a few shares, she consolidated his position and acquired a majority shareholding, along with his allies.

Sidney confirmed something I'd long suspected, which is that you couldn't really believe a word Swales said. Everything was twisted to make him look better. I doubt he was genuinely a City fan. Alistair Mackintosh, the CEO before Garry Cook and now at Fulham, was another like that.