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Frank Swift
| Category: | Male Player |
| Year Inducted: | 2009 |
Profile by Robert Galvin, the author of The Football Hall of Fame, the official book of the National Football Museum Hall of Fame:
Who better to describe the qualities of Frank Swift than one of the opponents he frustrated so often - Joe Mercer, the outstanding Everton and Arsenal player of the middle years of the last century?
‘He was the best goalkeeper I ever saw,’ the England wing-half wrote of the Manchester City custodian in 1964. ‘When Frank was in full song, coming out and attacking the ball, he was unbeatable. He would catch shots in one hand, like an apple falling from a tree and then look straight at the opposing forwards contemptuously. It used to break their hearts – he made it look so easy.’
On and off the field, had there ever been a more popular or entertaining footballer? In tough times economically, his occasional theatrics during games, mischievous sense of humour and generosity of spirit lifted the national mood. To his great friend and City team-mate, Matt Busby, the future England keeper and captain was simply ‘Big Fella’.
‘Swifty was an artist with an artist’s temperament,’ Joe Mercer added. ‘A good save early on would inspire him. He could also inspire the whole team and was responsible for great deeds not only in defence but in starting attacks.’
Tactically, Swift was also credited with being the first goalkeeper to use a long throw-out as an attacking weapon. ‘He was a creative player, the first really positive goalkeeper,’ Mercer wrote. ‘He fed the forwards with the ball, throwing it out to the wings and starting positive movements.’
Famously, in 1934, he fainted at the end of a winning FA Cup final appearance, the result, ‘presumably,’ The Times reported, ‘from an excess of emotion’ in a player barely out of his teens. He followed that success with a League championship medal in 1936-37.
It had been a demanding introduction to the demands of professional football. But his City team-mates had absolute confidence in young Swift from the outset. ‘Even in my early days with Manchester City, centre-half Sam Cowan - as dominating a captain as you will find - insisted that I was in command in the penalty area,’ Swift recalled. ‘My duties went beyond a “Right!” when I was coming out or calling for a pass from a defender harassed by an opponent. If a back was robbed of the ball because he held it too long, Cowan blamed me for not shouting a warning. I was expected to call when I did not want a pass and to direct my colleagues when to clear.’
That Wembley appearance came less than six months after his debut for the City reserves - and it also followed a number of sleepless nights. ‘I had these nightmares in which, all night long, fierce shots would be rained at me and I would lunge about in vain attempts to stop them,’ Swift recalled.
His rise to international level was rapid: in March 1935, less than a year after helping City, his only club, win the Cup, Swift played for The Rest in a trial match against England, and impressed the watching football reporters.
By the time organised football resumed following the war Swift was an automatic choice for the national side - and from his position between the posts he witnessed a period of dominance for England, at home and abroad.
Then, in 1948, he became the first goalkeeper in the modern era to captain England, in a stunning 4-0 win against Italy in Milan. Before the game, the England players, especially Swift and centre-forward Tommy Lawton, had been mobbed by the star-struck Italian fans. In the dressing room, he shook the hand of all his team-mates, and they, in turn, vowed to run themselves into the ground for their popular team-mate.
‘Frank played the game of his life,’ Lawton wrote later. ‘One save from Gabetto promoted the number nine to punch the turf in disbelief. We were so determined to make sure that we won the game for Frank.’
Swift combined extraordinary height and reach, positional sense and courage. ‘He was without fear, and he would chill you to the marrow with his blood-curdling roar of “Right!” when he thought that a ball was his.’ Lawton recalled. ‘I have never seen a goalkeeper save so many “certainties”.’