We continue our countdown to the biggest event in the Club’s history - the 25 year Anniversary Dinner. Follow the highs and lows of each year the Swans have been in Sydney every day on sydneyswans.com.au leading up to the event. Here is 1994...

Hawthorn’s Dermott Brereton and the Essendon duo of Derek Kickett and Peter Filandia joined the Sydney Swans in 1994.

While Kickett and Filandia would give good service to the Club for several seasons to come, Brereton’s career in the red and white did not have the best possible start when he was reported for an indiscretion in a preseason game – ironically against Hawthorn, the club where he had attained champion status.

He received a seven game suspension before the season proper had even begun. A further suspension later in the season, combined with chronic injuries, meant he played only seven games in his one season with the Swans.

The Sydney Swans registered four wins in the 1994 season – against Richmond, Melbourne, Adelaide and Carlton. Those four wins were not enough to allow the Club to escape its third consecutive wooden spoon, finishing one game behind second-last placed Fitzroy.

However, probably the most memorable game of the entire season was not one of the rare victories, but a bitterly disappointing defeat.

Round 7 at the SCG, and the Swans played St Kilda. That was the day of the infamous collision between Sydney’s Peter Caven and St Kilda’s Tony “Plugger” Lockett, which resulted in serious facial injuries for Caven and an eight week suspension for Lockett.

It was also the day the Swans led by 48 points at the six minute mark of the final quarter, yet lost by a solitary point, with Lockett kicking the Saints’ winning goal in the last seconds of the match.

Despite the team’s ultimate ladder position, there was improvement in 1994, and reason for the faithful to maintain hope. Off the field, the Club continued its administrative and financial recovery process, reverting to a membership-based organisation.