Remembering Swales

halpo123 said:
bono said:
when swales took over about 1972 i think city were consistant top 6 ,always in europe playing in a 50/60 thousand stadium ,by the end of his watch we were heading for the third tear of english football playing in a 34 thousand capacity ground,all we need to know really.
Still in the top league from what I remember
fair point ,it was the road we were headed on that i was trying to put across
 
The most generous thing I can say about Swales in respect to his fan status is he became one He wasn't one when he wormed his way in. Any club could have suffered Swales he was looking for a way in to a top flight club and the take over battle presented a perfect opportunity for him As other posters have alluded to, he loved himself with his comb overs and cuba heels. He was a poor busy man who bleed the club dry with his over borrowing and poor business sense. His own company was £2m in debt with this secured on his share of City, he surround himself with sycophants and hangers on telling him how good he was Ultimately Malcolm Allison's ego was to blame for the Swales era. make no mistake the pain and the suffering of nearly 40 years was directly down to this man As to a fan running a club then they seem to forget what they learn and apply in their day to day business so in my view not a good idea
 
Blue Lloyd said:
Took one of the biggest, one of the best supported, one of the most successful in the proceeding years football clubs in England to near bankruptcy in less than twenty years. On top of that his cheap policies probably ruined the career of the best Youth Product possibly ever that had come off the Maine Road production line.

Yes he was a fan, but he was a meglomaniac as well and that's always a dangerous combination.

I thank our lucky stars we are in the position we are in today.

I'm finding it hard to disagree with anything in this post.
 
ColinBellsjockstrap said:
Peter Swales loved City as much as any poster here on Bluemoon.

The trouble was he loved himself more.

Nailed on observation
My believe was that you could have pulled any punter from the Kippax at the time, we all shared the same ambition to overtake the rags in attendance and success.
We damn near did it but to maintain the momentum we had to sell the family silver or anything else not nailed down. Losing the 81 Final shattered the dream and the decline into poverty started in earnest
Swales was a Blue as fanatical as any of us, destroyed in the end by something he loved.
Its the story of a tragedy.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
Interesting subject. I think Peter Swales main love was himself and he certainly did us no favours as a club. A small-minded man who had no vision other than the kudos of running a football club and the benefits that brought him.

If you look back at City chairmen, most have been genuine fans. The Alexanders, Swales, Lee, Bernstein & Wardle. Albert Alexander & his son Eric did a good, solid job. Swales we've talked about, Lee partly suffered becasue of what Swales had done to us but at least got Bernstein in. He was getting us sorted then was undermined by Wardle. who was a well-meaning but ineffectual chairman.

So you can still be a fan & a good chairman but you've got to be able to make the hard decisions and think long-term.


You've also got to own or represent the majority shareholding on the board or you are hamstrung. No point owning 14.4% or 30-ish% unless the whole board is pulling in the same direction. Swales raising cash from Boler and increasing Bolers stake led to our downfall back then I believe. At best he didn't give a shit as Swales did. At worst he was a rag like his son. For decades that block of shares (the biggest single shareholding post Swales)owned by people who only hoped for a return and didn't give a shit about the club was a block to meaningful investment by those that did or might have done. Well meaning chairmen with, or representing, minority interests can only go so far.
 
Peter Swales, where do you start? Took us from greatness/near greatness to desperate in a few years!
My long lasting memories of us while he was in charge was, us going in for some quality players, which were well reported at the time and our inability to close the deals down due to personal terms, those players then going elsewhere and making a difference while we faltered again and again.
If he hadn't been so tight in these MOMENTS, we could of been closer to our close rivals, I will never forgive him for that!!! He then was over generous as if trying to make a point when he should of kept his money in his pocket.
I was always told he was a wideboy and posts on this thread by people with more knowledge than me seem to back this up.
Never liked his combover either!
Remember his passing, god forgive me but I didn't shed a tear.
CTID
 
Total lack of vision, blinkered to the extreme, a souvenir shop no bigger than the cabin on coronation street, which was even on a franchise, interference as some would believe in transfers and team selection, some of the players the managers wanted to buy against some if the players they were told to buy. His decision to hold a team meeting behind ron Saunders back was on a parr with the famous Leeds back stabbing of Brian clough, his treatment backed up by his lap dogs of John bond after the failure of the cup final was a disgrace, his negotiation of purchases of players whilst big mal was in charge was cringeworthy, the catalogue of errors was astronomical, he should have been moved to one side straight after the cup final defeat but I felt he was more interested in his f a position, the one manager he was desperate to get on board was graham Taylor, that alone tells you everything. He was a city fan but was more interested in what he could achieve for his vanity through club and country.
 
The Ox said:
I remember the demonstration outside Maine Road after the Coventry game, where they had to lock the gates to the Maine Stand to stop us protesters getting in !
I also remember the Sunderland game last game of the season and the Kippax was fucking rammed, attendance was supposed to be 40,000 but must have been 50,000 there, I could imagine "Shredded Wheat Head" sat there at half time drawing the official attendance with a Bingo machine :)

I took my eldest daughter, aged 18 months to her first game against cov. Went round to the demo afterwards (it was a Friday night game and the game that we were told Brian ''Who'' Horton was the new manager.
Was stood between 2 cars outside the main stand as City fans laid down on the ground as police on horses tried to move them up. Copper told me I should move along (holding my daughter in my arms) and I suggested I was safer between these two cars than out in the open from police horses!

As for gate fiddling - the Bournemouth 3-3 home game 1989, the capacity was 48,000. All four sides except the Platt Lane (where the Bournemouth fans were housed) was rammed. So you'd be talking 42,000.
The crowd was announced as 30,000 and the fans boo'd the announcement.

Swales was a joke / con man / egotistical - and a Blue.
After he died, the one minute silence (at the relegation game against Liverpool) was respected - unlike Robert Maxwell's at Derby and no doubt Ken Bates' will not be at Leeds. City fans simply respected that in our hearts a fellow Blue had passed away (but in our heads we all knew he was a twat)
 

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