Peter Swan ex- Wednesday and England Centre half has died at the age of eighty four. Served time for his part in the match fixing scandal. Played for Prison team and had fellow lags chant Mucky Duck from the touchline in Thorpe Arch prison. Born in South Elmsall, his family moved to Armthorpe near Donny which is where Kevin Keegan grew up. RIP Swanny.
Don't know about that one but he owns the Mill at Brimington, nr Chesterfield...his son has been running it for quite a few years as Peter was suffering with dementia.
I saw him play and he was one very impressive centre half of the old school in a Wednesday side which was second only to the great Tottenham Hotspur 'glory' team of the early sixties. I think that he did play at least once for England, but was edged out by Maurice Norman then, presumably, Jack Charlton. I have always found it a mystery that players of top quality such as Tony Kay, Peter Swan and David Layne got entangled with a n'ere do well like Jimmy Gauld, whose resentment at the FA seemed to be the motive for the scandal. Jimmy Gauld was an average player with lower division teams like Mansfield Town and Plymouth Argyle. Kay and Swan were top flight players on the fringe of the international scene. I knew that he was from South Elmsall, but did not know that he moved to Armthorpe, which is where my uncle lived, working at Markham Main Colliery. With Swan, Kay and Layne, it was rumoured that Thorpe Arch had the best team they had had for years. Problem was, they could only play home games. No wonder they did well. RIP Swanny. One good local lad who made good and blew it, presumably after several pints.
My former Junior School teacher Bob Parkin taught Peter at Mere Lane Infants in Armthorpe. Mr Parkin coached me and told my Dad that he knew at age nine, that Swanny would play professional and possibly international football. It was due to his coaching that I played for Doncaster Boys and later had trials at Doncaster Rovers. In my mid twenties I was playing for a local team in the Doncaster Senior League and was lucky enough to score a couple of goals. After the second, I heard a spectator shout " what on Earth are you doing on here."? I realised it was Mr Parkin and at full time went over to chat to him. At that point he was working as a teacher of the kids of our troops in Germany and he confided that with the early promise I'd shown under his tutelidge, he had honestly thought that I would have made a career as a pro footballer, which was very flattering. When Swanny was sent down, he served his time at Thorpe Arch along with numerous other disgraced pros who had got caught up in the bribery scandal. A lad I grew up with, also served time at Thorp Arch at the same time as Swanny, Kay, Bronco Layne and others, many of whom had been capped at International level. As you rightly say TE, for obvious reasons, the prison team had to play all of their games at home. The lad I knew, went to watch their first game which was against a team who were top of the league and like Leeds, played in all white complete with elasticated number tags on their socks. The Thorp Arch team came out in quartered shirts with some wearing white, black and blue shorts and odd coloured socks. Apparently Wednesday and Scotland defender Tony Kay began to dominate play by spraying the ball out to the wingers who then crossed for Bronco to score. They literally ripped the previously unbeaten opposition to shreds and registered double figures without reply. It was during that game that Swanny who was known for his bone crunching tackles, ran over to ask his fellow lags to make him feel at home by chanting " Mucky Duck", which is what the Wednesday fans always called him.
