bridgeblue
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GaudinoMotors said:
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Peter Swales!
- Thread starter henrythedogcity
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Quality user name, pmsl
Dyed Petya
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The day Peter Swales became a director should be regarded as one of the very darkest days in our history.
His catastrophic mismanagement, from sanctioning British record fees we couldn't afford for journeymen to selling off the club's commercial rights for peanuts when other clubs were making millions from the same source, set the club back decades and ensured the failure of his successors. This inept buffoon created the conditions that led to the most unsuccessful protracted spell in our history.
Apart from a brief spell in the mid-fifties, City had, in the twenty years after the end of WW2, been a moribund club and looked finished as a major force in the English game. Thanks to Mercer and Allison, we were revived, and towards the end of the seventies, we were attracting comfortably the third biggest gates in the country behind United and Liverpool, had a stadium regularly chosen above Old Trafford for FA Cup semi finals, one of the best squads in the country and had a successful youth policy too.
When we won the League Cup in 1976, it was our ninth major trophy. Up to the summer of 1976, in each club's entire history, Spurs and Everton had won ten, United eleven and Liverpool thirteen. Villa had four (one under Mercer) since the end of WW1 and one of those had been in 1920.
We were very close in terms of stature of even the biggest clubs (United and Liverpool), and were probably in the best position of any of the rest. It's what happened in the eighties and since that allows these goons to come on here and claim we have no history. But then the fact that a man, in Peter Swales, who played a major role in the disgraceful shoddiness of Mercer's departure should be the man who comprehensively managed to damage the great man's legacy is perhaps unsurprising.
Swales was capable of showing concern for supporters. I remember my sister, around 1990, when she was doing a GCSE project, doing something on football and she sent a questionnaire to Swales. He sent back a detailed, handwritten reply that went far beyond her expectations and he'd obviously spent a lot of time over it. But he was equally capable of thoughlessness and callousness towards great servants of the club. Look at Joe Mercer's departure for one, or speak to a host of former players and managers.
And can we nail this utter nonsense about him wanting what was best for the club. If he had, he'd have been searching for investment and willing to step down to secure it before we had to sell Trevor Francis. Instead he clung on, driving the club into the ground, for the sake of his own ego.
Without MCFC, he'd just have been a local businessman whom few people had heard of. The club gave him a media profile and enabled him to progress within the FA (what an indictment of that organisation in the 1980s that someone like him was able to do so). Being on TV and going on junkets abroad with the England team were the things he liked. He was a fan of PJ Swales, NOT the club.
This man, for his own ends, took City from a position as one of the leading clubs in the country and created the conditions for us to plunge to depths that should have been unimaginable: Francis Lee made many mistakes, some serious, but his biggest problem was the state of the club when he took over. It was truly shocking, and I know this because through work I saw the documentation about the club made available to Lee before the takeover. Whoever had taken control in 1994, unless it was a Jack Walker, would have struggled.
And all this was to keep an egotistical moron from being anonymous. He p!ssed away our status as one of the undisputed, genuine big clubs in England and refused to let anyone else come in and repair the damage so that he could enjoy a public profile and feel important. I utterly despise the man. I don't see how any proper and informed City fan can do otherwise.
The idiocy and naivety of posts like the one immediately above this one is simply astounding. If Swales had cared about the club, he'd have been willing to step aside. End of discussion.
And, editing my post, one other thing is that he created the famous 'fifth column'. He ran the club in an almost fedual way, allowing all kinds of chancers into honorary positions, which they then were desperate to maintain, even to the detriment of the club. Just look at the City! documentary in 1981 which is on youtube. The way the club is run is utterly cringeworthy. Yet some people still defend the guy. Unbelievable.
His catastrophic mismanagement, from sanctioning British record fees we couldn't afford for journeymen to selling off the club's commercial rights for peanuts when other clubs were making millions from the same source, set the club back decades and ensured the failure of his successors. This inept buffoon created the conditions that led to the most unsuccessful protracted spell in our history.
Apart from a brief spell in the mid-fifties, City had, in the twenty years after the end of WW2, been a moribund club and looked finished as a major force in the English game. Thanks to Mercer and Allison, we were revived, and towards the end of the seventies, we were attracting comfortably the third biggest gates in the country behind United and Liverpool, had a stadium regularly chosen above Old Trafford for FA Cup semi finals, one of the best squads in the country and had a successful youth policy too.
When we won the League Cup in 1976, it was our ninth major trophy. Up to the summer of 1976, in each club's entire history, Spurs and Everton had won ten, United eleven and Liverpool thirteen. Villa had four (one under Mercer) since the end of WW1 and one of those had been in 1920.
We were very close in terms of stature of even the biggest clubs (United and Liverpool), and were probably in the best position of any of the rest. It's what happened in the eighties and since that allows these goons to come on here and claim we have no history. But then the fact that a man, in Peter Swales, who played a major role in the disgraceful shoddiness of Mercer's departure should be the man who comprehensively managed to damage the great man's legacy is perhaps unsurprising.
Swales was capable of showing concern for supporters. I remember my sister, around 1990, when she was doing a GCSE project, doing something on football and she sent a questionnaire to Swales. He sent back a detailed, handwritten reply that went far beyond her expectations and he'd obviously spent a lot of time over it. But he was equally capable of thoughlessness and callousness towards great servants of the club. Look at Joe Mercer's departure for one, or speak to a host of former players and managers.
And can we nail this utter nonsense about him wanting what was best for the club. If he had, he'd have been searching for investment and willing to step down to secure it before we had to sell Trevor Francis. Instead he clung on, driving the club into the ground, for the sake of his own ego.
Without MCFC, he'd just have been a local businessman whom few people had heard of. The club gave him a media profile and enabled him to progress within the FA (what an indictment of that organisation in the 1980s that someone like him was able to do so). Being on TV and going on junkets abroad with the England team were the things he liked. He was a fan of PJ Swales, NOT the club.
This man, for his own ends, took City from a position as one of the leading clubs in the country and created the conditions for us to plunge to depths that should have been unimaginable: Francis Lee made many mistakes, some serious, but his biggest problem was the state of the club when he took over. It was truly shocking, and I know this because through work I saw the documentation about the club made available to Lee before the takeover. Whoever had taken control in 1994, unless it was a Jack Walker, would have struggled.
And all this was to keep an egotistical moron from being anonymous. He p!ssed away our status as one of the undisputed, genuine big clubs in England and refused to let anyone else come in and repair the damage so that he could enjoy a public profile and feel important. I utterly despise the man. I don't see how any proper and informed City fan can do otherwise.
The idiocy and naivety of posts like the one immediately above this one is simply astounding. If Swales had cared about the club, he'd have been willing to step aside. End of discussion.
And, editing my post, one other thing is that he created the famous 'fifth column'. He ran the club in an almost fedual way, allowing all kinds of chancers into honorary positions, which they then were desperate to maintain, even to the detriment of the club. Just look at the City! documentary in 1981 which is on youtube. The way the club is run is utterly cringeworthy. Yet some people still defend the guy. Unbelievable.