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Corrupt players, bent referees and arranged results feature in new book ‘Soccer Scandals’

A new book exploring remarkable tales of corruption in football is reviewed by Eric Brown…

Soccer Scandals book cover

BY ERIC BROWN

Sunday newspaper The People kicked it all off on April 7, 1963, with the first instalment of what became English football’s greatest bribe scandal.

Their story, headlined “£100,000 soccer bribes coup”, seemed surprisingly hidden, given that this sum is equal to about £2.6m today.

Readers might have expected to see it on page one. Yet the first article about a seedy saga which dominated headlines for months was tucked away near the bottom of page 11, next to reports about a libel writ being issued against That Was The Week That Was presenter David Frost, and Mrs Dorothy Hubbard of Swaythling near Southampton complaining that 20 “beatniks” were holding wild drinking parties in a farmyard at the bottom of her garden.

Perhaps the near concealment of the betting story occurred because it was based largely on allegations by bookmakers aggrieved at losing out after taking bets on two matches the previous day.

Both Derby County and Stockport had been heavily backed at 6/4 to win at home in bets placed at the same time all over Britain.

They did just that, against Scunthorpe and Hartlepool. The results ran true to form and the Football League’s initial response to the bookies’ complaints was indifferent.

Secretary Alan Hardaker said: “The truth is that bookies are nowhere near as smart as they like to think. If they choose to include matches that even a four-year-old can pick the winners of on their coupon, it is their look-out.”

Sunderland’s fiery Wales international forward Trevor Ford had already lifted the lid on football bribery by revealing in his 1957 autobiography “I Lead the Attack” that the skipper of one team had offered opponents £5 a man to sell the game.

He hinted this was just the tip of an iceberg, but the authorities could not obtain proof despite also learning of an attempt to bribe Stoke goalkeeper Jimmy O’Neill.

This trickle of disclosed corruption developed into a roar as the Daily Mail waded in during October 1960 with a story of Exeter player-manager Glen Wilson claiming that, in April 1957, when he was with Brighton, there was an arrangement with Watford players to let Brighton win two Third Division South matches.

Promotion-chasing Brighton duly won both matches, the second by 6-0 against relegation-threatened Watford. The Watford captain Johnny Meadows confirmed that his players shared out £100 between them to lose both matches.

These were just the opening shots in a match-fixing saga which at first involved players at or near the end of their careers revealing corruption in the lower divisions.

Newspapers competed aggressively for bribery confessions from current or former footballers. The League started investigating even before the story reached its zenith with journeyman footballer Jimmy Gauld, one of the main fixers, now persuaded to work for The People.

Gauld, who had spells at Everton, Charlton Athletic, Mansfield Town, Swindon, Plymouth Argyle and St Johnstone, set up and recorded many bribery attempts with players he unhesitatingly sold out to the newspaper.

Gauld implicated a whole host of lower division players until The People hit the jackpot on 12 April 1964 with a piece headlined: “The Scandal of the Century.”

This revealed that three Sheffield Wednesday players had allegedly backed their own team to lose against Ipswich Town on December 1, 1962, in the only undisputed case of a Division One match being fixed by Gauld’s syndicate.

What made the affair even more eye-catching was the status of the players involved. Peter Swan had made 19 consecutive appearances for England at centre half while bustling Tony Kay, another England cap, was so highly rated that Everton spent £55,000 – a record for a wing half – on him and promptly made Kay captain.

Both players were candidates for England’s 1966 World Cup squad. The third man was Wednesday’s topscorer David “Bronco” Layne. They served prison sentences along with seven other guilty but lesser-known players and were hit with life bans from football. Ringleader Gauld received four years.

This sleazy episode is perhaps the highlight of ‘Soccer Scandals’, prolific author Anton Rippon’s well-researched book into a number of toe-curling scandals that shamed football.

Not all feature bribery. A brutal match which the BBC warned viewers about before screening it, the scandal of decaying and dangerous grounds and inadequate policing all get an airing as Rippon reveals the episodes football would rather forget.

He delves into Brian Clough’s claims that his Nottingham Forest and Derby sides were denied European glory by corruption, examines a World Cup qualifying match with a result “arranged” so both teams went through, the ONLY top-level match featuring not a single shot at goal, suspicious floodlight failures, and allegations of match fixing against Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar.

An entertaining read with the capacity to shock.

‘Soccer Scandals: When the Beautiful Game turned Ugly’ by Anton Rippon is published by Pen and Sword White Owl, price £15.99.

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