Gary Swann
British footballer (born 1962)
Gary Swann (born 11 April 1962) is an English former professional footballer.
Career
Born in York, Yorkshire, Swann started his career as a trainee with Hull City. In eight years at Boothferry Park Swann became a regular in the Hull team appearing 221 games for the club, scoring 10 goals, helping the club promotion in both the 1982–83 and 1984-85 seasons.
It was in November 1986 Preston North End boss John McGrath offered City £10,000 to sign Swann. During his time at Deepdale Swann was usually deployed in midfield, becoming an integral member of the Preston team, helping the club to promotion as runners up from the Fourth Division in his first season.
A hard working and often unsung player, Swann also had an uncanny knack of scoring important goals from either his usual midfield position or from full back; his biggest haul of 14 (12 in the league) in 1987–88 season helping keep Preston in the Third Division. Likened to former Liverpool full back Chris Lawler his goalscoring prowess also earned him the nickname "The Ghost" from Preston manager McGrath due to his ability to appear almost unnoticed at the far post to score, something that soon became his trademark. He was also an ever-present in both the 1987–88 and 1989–90 seasons, finishing runner-up in the club's official player of the year awards on both occasions to Bob Atkins and Warren Joyce respectively. In all, Swann played 250 first team games for Preston, scoring 47 goals, quite an achievement in a side that generally hovered around the wrong end of the league table.
At the end of the 1991–92 season, he was released and immediately signed for home town club York City.He helped them to promotion in his first season by scoring the winner in the 2nd leg of their semi final against Bury and then scoring the opening goal in the Third Division play-off final against Crewe Alexandra at Wembley Stadium, a game City won on penalties after drawing 1–1.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gary Swann” as british footballer (born 1962). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british footballer (born 1962). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5526024. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1962, 1982, 1984 and 1986.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gary Swann” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.