1964 British betting scandal
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2011) |
The British betting scandal of 1964 was a scandal in English association football in which eight professional players were jailed for offences arising from match fixing.
Contents |
[edit] History
Player Jimmy Gauld over several years systematically interfered with matches in the football league, enticing players into betting on the outcome of fixed matches. His criminality came to light after he approached Sheffield Wednesday player David Layne, a former colleague at Swindon Town, in December 1962 to identify a new target game.[citation needed] Layne suggested that Wednesday were likely to lose their imminent match against Ipswich Town and proposed to his fellow players Peter Swan and Tony Kay that they ensure the outcome.[citation needed] The three all bet against their own side in the match.
In 1964, Gauld, in search of a final "payday", sold his story to the Sunday People for £7,000, incriminating the three Wednesday players. The paper broke the story on 12 April. Gauld's taped conversations were ultimately to convict himself and the three Wednesday players, the judge making it clear that he held Gauld responsible for ruining the other three.
The four received jail sentences at their trial the following year, as did Mansfield Town players Brian Philips and Sammy Chapman, along with Ronald Howells, Ken Thomson, Dick Beattie and Jack Fountain. Gauld was described by the judge as the "central figure" of the case and he received the heaviest sentence of four years in prison. On release, they were banned for life from any participation in football. Thirty-three players were prosecuted, in total.[1]
The incident was dramatised in 1997 in a BBC film The Fix directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Jason Isaacs as Tony Kay and Steve Coogan as Sunday People journalist Michael Gabbert, whose investigative work led to the uncovering of the scandal.
[edit] References
- ^ Cox, Richard William; Russell, Dave; Vamplew, Wray (2002). Encyclopedia of British Football. Routledge. pp. 72. ISBN 0714652490.
[edit] Bibliography
- "Swan still reduced to tears by the fix that came unstuck", The Times July 22, 2006, p. 102, Broadbent, R.
- Triumph and despair, Kay's own account, The Observer, July 4, 2004
- Johnson, N. (2006). Peter Swan: Setting the Record Straight. Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7524-4022-5.
- Simon Inglis, Soccer in the Dock (Collins, 1985) ISBN 0-00-218162-2 ISBN 978-0-00-218162-4
[edit] See also
- 1915 British football betting scandal, a similar scandal nearly 50 years previously.
- List of professional sportspeople convicted of crimes
- 2011 Turkish football corruption scandal
|
||||||||||||||
