Thanks for that.Most of the franchise contracts were companies owned by his mates I was told he renegotiated them all at ridiculous rates, the TVs around the ground were leased by a certain White & Swales at vast expense. He also bought a new Jaguar and insisted it was given to him Most of his demands were at the very last minute Franny came back from his winter holiday to finalise the agreed deal, which suddenly changed leaving Franny no option to accept, they met at the White Swan Bucklow Hill
Good move; it meant you avoided having to endure Vince Miller!
Well he couldn’t run a football club for toffee, so that makes perfect sense.Talk back in the day he was involved with the quality street gang.
Seriously!
In fairness to Lee, his bog-roll money was enough when he took over, but a couple of years later sky and the PL changed football finance forever and Lee wasn't able to keep up.I personally have my doubts about both Swales and Lee - both small time local businessmen with questionable ethics who both liked the limelight, both hoped to make a quick buck and neither had anywhere near the financial muscle to backup their boastful claims. Swales was a disaster and was too pig headed to step aside even though he had become the problem. Lee inherited a basket case but his lack of finance and piss poor judgment meant his only contribution was a 24 month delay to the fire sale he so readily accused Swales of planning. The (latter) Swales and Lee eras were very dark days looking back.
the only man who could have written such a book with any authority was Bernard Halford and he refused. Ian Niven could shed light on the Swales eraI've always thought that a warts & all good & bad in depth book dealing with rumours & facts, IE local mafia involvement, fiddling the attendances book about the Swales era & concentrating on him needs to be written - we've got our title now Peter Swales - Financial Genius