While Bicentennial festivities were in full swing across the nation throughout 1988, there was little to celebrate that year for the Sydney Swans.
By the start of the season, players who had been pivotal to the Club’s relatively successful years in 1986 and ’87 were no longer wearing the red and white. Mark Browning, former Captain and veteran of 251 games had retired, and Warwick Capper had moved north to play with the Brisbane Bears.
Their loss was felt keenly early in the season, as after five rounds the Swans had only one win on the board, and after round nine they had added just one more to the tally. The team’s performance would not have been helped by the fact that once again the administration of the Club was in crisis.
The first private ownership experiment had failed. The Club was deeply in debt, to the extent that player payments were late, basic medical supplies were unavailable and the telephone at the Swans office was disconnected. Crowds no longer flocked to the SCG, and on 16 April Powerplay announced that the Club was up for sale once more. The asking price was six million dollars. They were not overwhelmed with offers.
Three weeks later, Powerplay cut their losses and sold the Sydney Swans back to the VFL for ten dollars, and an interim Board was appointed.
During the second half of the season the team rediscovered its form, and ended up only one win short of contesting the finals for the third successive year. Gerard Healy polled 20 votes to win the Brownlow Medal, but still all was not well within the team.
Tom Hafey’s coaching contract was terminated at the end of the season and the problem of ownership was still to be resolved.
With the expansion of the VFL, it was imperative that the pioneers of the national competition – the Sydney Swans – be a stable and successful Club. It was with a view to achieving this stability that the League sold the Club once more. This time ownership passed to a consortium of sixteen investors, each of whom contributed a substantial amount of money to settle the Club’s debts and hopefully give the Sydney Swans a fresh start in 1989…
