The "Swales Out" Campaign

[plattlane01]

A couple of things I recall:

1/ 9-0 up against Huddersfield and they score, half the fkin Main Stand start singing "Swales Out, Swale Out" pmsl

Thats bollocks.

 

[Vic]

Also I remember a priest or vicar screaming on the Kippax and getting bit of media attention. What was the deal there was he a real man of the cloth because he was very angry for a man meant to be at one with god

Can't remember his name but he was an odd choice as front man for Lee. "Frannie will be here!" (but he's not the messiah....)

His bishop eventually told him to calm down.

 

[plattlane01]

I don't believe there were any people coming forward with enough money to sort out the mess that Swales and his supporting directors had created. Mike Mcdonald was the closest other bidder (he ultimately became Sheff Utd chairman), but I don't truly believe there were other serious bidders capable of satisfying Swales' own personal demands and achieving anything at City.

The mess Franny found City in was much worse than anyone could have predicted. I've been fortunate to interview both Swales & Lee and both of them talked about the takeover battle. There are rights & wrongs on both sides but the lengths some of the other directors went to (according to Swales & Lee) were disgraceful.

As a fan it hurts me still knowing what they did. & What did the do Gary?

There were several weird financial activities during the early 80s - including the proposed sale of the Kippax car park and part of the Kippax itself for a supermarket!

On the start of Swales Out - it started in 1982 (possibly even earlier!) with the 'Bring Back Trevor Francis Campaign' - I have leaflets which simply state 'No More Swales Rubbish!' and I have vague memories of hearing Swales Out during the 1982 season (around the time Bond left), but you are right to say that it wasn't really until we were in the Second Division that it increased. It continued to increase until Lee's campaign.

Ironically, Swales was a key figure behind the formation of the Premier League because I think he recognised its potential money-earning capabilities, yet his desire to match Utd prompted his panic sacking of Reid (just after he'd given him a better contract!) and that led to the Lee takeover decision. So Swales was never able to capitalise on his new PL baby.

 

[plattlane01]

It was a stain on the Club, what I mean the fans, because what’s been said before players, board members etc come and go, we don’t. It’s a scar. I wanted him gone, but looking back, I’m still gutted how it all turned out, we put a man in his grave for what? “Forward with Franny”?

There are still Swales elements at the club today, The Fifth Column? Halford, Niven and others backed this man. Although Halford was just secretary, there are others still lurking.

Back to the treatment Swales got though, whatever people opinions are on others, it went too far, and I was one of them, truly, I’m ashamed of myself.

From then until The Sheik arrived, would our path been very different to what it is? Doubt it.

Final note – Where are we going today and why oh why has someone spent so much on us, are we lucky? Are we doomed? Who knows hopefully Peter Swales knows and his looking down wishing us all the best and I bet he is. True Blue.

 

[Gary James]

It was a stain on the Club, what I mean the fans, because what’s been said before players, board members etc come and go, we don’t. It’s a scar. I wanted him gone, but looking back, I’m still gutted how it all turned out, we put a man in his grave for what? “Forward with Franny”?

There are still Swales elements at the club today, The Fifth Column? Halford, Niven and others backed this man. Although Halford was just secretary, there are others still lurking.

Back to the treatment Swales got though, whatever people opinions are on others, it went too far, and I was one of them, truly, I’m ashamed of myself.

From then until The Sheik arrived, would our path been very different to what it is? Doubt it.

Final note – Where are we going today and why oh why has someone spent so much on us, are we lucky? Are we doomed? Who knows hopefully Peter Swales knows and his looking down wishing us all the best and I bet he is. True Blue.

Unless you did something illegal don't feel ashamed. Supporters have a right to voice their opinions and, as was proved with Swales, even our opinions can be ignored for many years. Assuming the serious demos started around 1984 - it took a decade for anything to change and even then it was because Lee came in (a lesson for Utd fans thinking they'll get rid of the Glazers by demonstrating and appearing on Coach Trip in their yellow & green scarves).

The people who should be ashamed are those that wrecked our most successfull management team and then took the Club from a position of strength (in every area) to one that became more famous for failing.

I criticised Peter Swales a lot back in the 80s & 90s. I spoke against him at an AGM. After he'd gone I did the last recorded interview with him because he recognised that, perhaps like him, I genuinely cared about City. I disagreed with much of what he said but it became abundantly clear to me that he did have a strong passion for City.

His obsession with Utd was not good - to me that was his biggest error (as I said at my talk on Friday night at Waterstones - "focus on your own team and you'll be okay; focus on your neighbours and you'll fail" - that was a warning to a Red who thought it was healthy for Fergie to comment about City all the time).

I think people should have tried to control him more before he had a large shareholding in 1983. Had they harnessed his love of City more than his obsession with Utd who knows how it would have all played out. He was supported at Board level from the early 70s when he had about ten shares - many fans had more than that but couldn't get on the Board!

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I feel no guilt either. If you play with fire you get burnt.

Swales was happy to shit on anyone, even the club he professed to love, in his incessant power broking at City and the FA. Whilst he was a poor chairman, he was a very good and astute political player.

Things got nasty at the end, no doubt about it, but he should have acted when it was obvious to the whole football world that the fans didn't want him in the club. It was, and is, our club, not his.

He clung on for dear life and if it cost him his health that's his own fault.

He was a human being when all's said and done, so I do feel sorry for what his family and he went through. But no guilt.

 

[plattlane01]

Well Didsbury Dave & Gary, you have made me feel a little better.

We were so close to the top during that era, (Swales) (not league position wise, I know) we had fans (plenty), huge potential, before this tag we now have of being perennial failures. I remember talk of European Super Leagues, we were always there. I suppose you could point to the Swales era of having put us back so many years.

If we could have been pointed in the right direction we could have achieved everything.

Time goes so quick, all of sudden we are without a decent run of success for nearly 40 years.

Anyway lets all look forward eh?

 

[1_barry_conlon]

And who was responsible for this state of affairs above all others?..... Peter Swales.

And thus Swales with his cuban heels, ridiculous comb-over, over-inflated ego, and undignified desire to cling on to power no matter what logic dictated is more than any other factor why we are what we are today.

Would I change it if I could?

Not for all the tea in China.

Thats the spirit!

Didn't he own a record store in Altrincham?

Obviously not as much talent as Richard Branson. Richard's first business was Virgin Records and one of his first stores was in the Arndale centre.

I think you'll find it was on Lever St before it ever made it to the Arndale.

 

[KenTheLandlord]

Well Didsbury Dave & Gary, you have made me feel a little better.

We were so close to the top during that era, (Swales) (not league position wise, I know) we had fans (plenty), huge potential, before this tag we now have of being perennial failures. I remember talk of European Super Leagues, we were always there. I suppose you could point to the Swales era of having put us back so many years.

If we could have been pointed in the right direction we could have achieved everything.

Time goes so quick, all of sudden we are without a decent run of success for nearly 40 years.

Anyway lets all look forward eh?

Unfortunately and joking apart, that is one of the worst problems of Swales. The red youngsters today in M/cr well out number young blues. We lost a huge opportunity of a generations' support. It will take a lot of success and a sustained amount of time to get levels back to early 70s.

It is an often overlooked but significant point, in my humble opinion.

 

[1_barry_conlon]

Boring these days, isn't it?

(I'm half serious with that too)

The Swales and Lee takeover era saw people fuming but looking back I remember it as containing some top comedy.

The bloke running on the pitch and dragging his family with him.
Brian Who (turned out to be a top bloke)
Alan Ball's World Cup Winner's medal
Lee milking it in the crowd
Geoff Thomas walking up the fucking moterwayHarry Bassett taking the piss and shitting himself at 6 in the morning.
Coppell
Phil Neal
Frank Clark
A bloke running on during a night game against Oxford (or could have been Port Vale) when we were getting pasted in the first half and giving Nigel Clough a piece of his mind.
Swales Out demos
Lomas in the corner.
Polllock's own goal
Frank Clark hearing he was sacked on the radio
Planes flying over with Swales Out/Forward With Franny banners.
Demos after that night game where Huddersfield won
'What the fuck is going on' chants
'We're shit and we're sick of it' chants.
That FA Cup Quater Final against Spurs with everyone convinced we had won the cup already.
And that's off the top of my head.

Might be to do with the fact that I was a teenager at the time of all that, but I definitely used to find it all exciting in a strange way.

Don't the forget the important bit JMA. He would have walked up the motorway on broken glass!!!
A quite ironic quote for the time as some of us who went home and away during all this felt like we were walking on broken glass all the time with the f'kin pain we endured.