Peter Swan
April 13, 1964: Three players for South Yorkshire soccer team Sheffield Wednesday -- Peter Swan, Tony Kay and David Layne -- are revealed to have bet on Wednesday to lose their match away to Suffolk team Ipswich Town on December 1, 1962. Ipswich were defending League Champions at the time, so, at the time, it didn't arouse any suspicion that they won, 2-0.
A centre half, Swan had played for Wednesday since 1952, helping them win the Football League's Division Two in 1956 and 1959, and to finish 2nd in Division One in 1961. He was selected for the England team at the 1962 World Cup, but fell ill and didn't get into a game.
In a 2006 interview, Swan admitted his guilt in the fix of the Ipswich match: "We lost the game fair and square, but I still don't know what I'd have done if we'd been winning. It would have been easy for me to give away a penalty, or even score an own goal. Who knows?"
All 3 players -- Kay had moved on to Everton, and helped them win the 1963 League title -- were banned from English football for life. FIFA, the governing body for world soccer, made the ban worldwide. All 3 were convicted of conspiracy to defraud -- a crime for which the 8 banned players from the 1919 Chicago White Sox were found not guilty.
Their careers were ruined. They were sentenced to 4 months in jail, but were released after 10 weeks. Swan and Kay were only 27, and "Bronco" Layne was just 24. Swan had been told by England manager Alf Ramsey that he was "top of the list" for centre halves for the 1966 England squad, which won the World Cup without him. He also missed the 1966 FA Cup Final, as did Kay, whose Everton team beat Wednesday.
Swan and Layne were reinstated in 1972. Swan, 35, rejoined Wednesday. Layne, 32, tried, but didn't make the team, and retired a year later after playing for a lower-division side. Swan remained in the game until 1976, including serving as player-manager for lower-division Matlock Town. Kay was never reinstated, but was among the players honored at Everton's Goodison Park in 2003, on the 40th Anniversary of the League title.
Swan ran a pub in Chesterfield, but became afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, and died on January 20, 2021, at the age of 84. He should not be confused with the man of the same name who played the same position for several teams, including Leeds United, in the 1980s and '90s.
Layne also ran a pub, in Sheffield. Kay became a groundskeeper. As of April 13, 2022, both are still alive.
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April 13, 1964 was a Monday. Actress Caroline Rhea was born.
In America, football was in its off-season. The NBA was between the end of its regular season and the start of its Playoffs. Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals was played, and the Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Larry Jeffrey scored the winning goal, 7:52 into the 1st overtime. But the Leafs would win the series in 7 games.
And it was Opening Day of the season in what would soon be named Major League Baseball. President Lyndon B. Johnson threw out the ceremonial first ball at District of Columbia Stadium in Washington. (It would be renamed Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in 1969.) But the host Washington Senators lost to the Los Angeles Angels, 4-0. Ken McBride allowed just 1 hit, but walked the bases loaded in the top of the 7th inning. Angels manager Fred Haney brought Julio Navarro in to relieve, and he not only got out of the jam, but finished the 1-hit shutout.
In the other game played that day, the traditional National League opener in Cincinnati, the Houston Colt .45s beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-3 at Crosley Field. Jimmy Wynn, a Cincinnati native known as the Toy Cannon for being short but strong, hit a home run. Frank Robinson went 1-for-4, and Pete Rose went 0-for-4.
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