THE MAGNIFICENT "FIVE"?

I suspect there will be another pair of cowboys to write about but I haven't time to wait for two to turn up. So I am going with FIVE.

One: Glen Campbell, the Rhinestone Cowboy, has passed on, after a life of ups and downs and I bet a few of you will be nipping out to the latest Charity Shop to see if there is an old CD of his best songs going for a song. What joy he still brings.

Two: down the track, another cowboy has bit the dust, Ty Hardin, a cowboy, "blond beef-cake" who cheered us up on BBC TV between 1958-1962 in his series about the wild west, "Bronco".
(apparently a popular parody went "Bronco, Bronco, tearing across the dotted line" with reference to the shiny, abrasive lavatory paper that could be found in all "public" conveniences).
Anyone remotely famous at the time called Layne adopted the nickname "Bronco". Ty Hardin was actually a college footballer, but of the American style. Three-Five:

So the link is with David "Bronco" Layne who played at Rotherham (11 apps/4 goals), Swindon town (41/28), Bradford City (65/44) nearly 74 odd games for Sheffield Wednesday in his prime scoring 52 goals.
He was involved in a huge match fixing scandal in 1964. Layne is now 78 years old and his club partners in crime were Tony Kay and Peter Swan.

All three were approached by Jimmy Gauld, a Scottish youth international, who knocked around with lower league clubs and in 1962 he approached old team mate from Swindon Town, Bronco Layne.

On 1st December 1962 the three Wednesday players were to throw their league match against Ipswich Town, but actually Ipswich were too good and Ray Crawford, the Tractor Boys prolific centre-forward scored in a 2-0 win. Tony Kay was given Man of the Match at the time.
In the previous season Ipswich had won the First Division championship under Sir Alf Ramsey, in 1962-3 they came 17th! Did anyone investigate that?

Gauld fixed other games on the same day; Lincoln City v Brentford (1-3) and Oldham v York (3-2) and he is recorded to have benefited by £7,000 from the bets and his personal exposure about the crime to the Sunday People, the amount equivalent to £128,000 today.

On April 12th ten players from various fixed matches were on trial at Nottingham Assizes, where taped evidence was first used. Gauld got 4 years, Layne and co 4 months. 33 people were eventually prosecuted.

Swan having been at Wednesday from 1953 and an established England international, was banned in 1964 for 8 years. He continued playing in 1972, helping Bury FC (1972-4) to promotion into Division 3 and then took Matlock Town (1974-6) to the FA Trophy in 1975, beating Scarborough 4-0. He brushed with Worksop Town and Buxton and needless to say he ended up running a pub in Chesterfield-NO it does not have swing doors and a buffalo's head nailed to the wall.

Tony Kay (below), once the most expensive footballer in the country when Everton bought him in 1962 for £60,000, was banned in 1964 and had his ban lifted in 1973. He went to Spain to avoid prosecution from selling a counterfeit diamonds and was last known to be a groundsman in South-East London.

In 1997 a BBC film "The Fix" told the story.