[7] When Swan moved up into Belle Isle Middle School, staff member John Bateman spotted his talent and recommended him to Yorkshire Amateurs.
[10] Swan turned professional with Leeds United in August 1984,[11] having impressed those at the club so much as to earn comparisons to John Charles.
[12] He was not utilised by Eddie Gray, but instead made his debut as a forward under Billy Bremner on 14 October 1985, in a Full Members Cup defeat to Manchester City at Maine Road.
[13] He won his first Football League start on 1 January 1986, playing alongside Neil Aspin in a Second Division fixture against Oldham Athletic.
[12] Though he was never consistently in the first XI under Bremner, when new manager Howard Wilkinson was appointed in 1988–89 Swan fell out of the first-team picture completely.
[20] New manager Colin Appleton used Swan in all four playing positions within the first fourteen days of the 1989–90 campaign; his time in goal came when goalkeeper Iain Hesford was injured in a defeat to AFC Bournemouth and had to leave the field at half-time.
[23] Ternent dragged Swan off just fifteen minutes into his first match as manager but calmed the fury of his player when he explained the change was a tactical one.
[27] Swan went public with his desire to leave the club in November 1990 and handed in a transfer request after Ternent refused to use him as a defender rather than an attacker.
[36] A first-team regular alongside defensive partners Neil Aspin and Dean Glover, in the summer of 1992, he helped the club to win the pre-season TNT Tournament.
He was man of the match in the Football League Trophy final victory over Stockport County – despite suffering from a double hernia and being hungover from a secret boozing session the night before.
[37] The season finished on a negative note though, in the second half of the 1993 Second Division play-off final against West Bromwich Albion, with the game still goalless, Swan was sent off after bringing down Bob Taylor – who was through on goal.
[39] Sidelined for a period, recovering from a hernia operation, Swan spent much of the 1993–94 pre-season making visits to the local children's hospital as he was moved by the patients he met there, particularly by a small girl called Lisa who died later that summer.
[43] This was despite Vale's valuation of £350,000 and reported interest from Burnley, and from First Division club's Bolton Wanderers, Leicester City, Notts County, and West Brom.
[45] Swan's problems then took a supernatural bent as the young couple became convinced that their Plymouth home was haunted – the family moved 260 miles (420 km) back to the more friendly surroundings of Stoke.
[46] He got off on the wrong foot with the Argyle fans after the local media pointed out that his goal saving tackle at Vale Park on 19 February 1994 had cost Plymouth promotion (Vale had finished three points ahead of Plymouth, who lost out to Burnley in the playoffs); Shilton also did little to help Swan's cause by appointing him as captain at the expense of fan's favourite Steve Castle.
[54] Swan stalled the move in anticipation of his missing wages from Plymouth and continued to disrupt pre-season friendlies when Warnock called him up due to a developing injury crisis; eventually he negotiated a settlement of £25,000.
Ternent moved Swan back into defence but could only give him eleven starts and six substitute appearances following a combination of suspensions, illness and injury.
[61] A collision with Wycombe Wanderers' Jason Cousins on 20 February 1999 spelt the beginning of the end for Swan's career, as the result of a scan showed he had snapped the cruciate ligament in his right knee.
[67] Swan battled against his own body to play all the pre-season friendlies, including a clash with Manchester United and their star players of David Beckham, Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs, and Paul Scholes.
The surgeon told Swan that "the mess in there is unbelievable... there's no cartilage, there are bits floating around everywhere and it's riddled with arthritis" and warned him that any further matches could see him confined to a wheelchair.
[10] His 'no nonsense' approach was criticised by footballing purists such as Dario Gradi,[71] as Swan's 'crunching tackles' could cause injuries to opposition players.
[81] In May 2009, Swan declared an interest in the vacant position of manager at Port Vale, speaking of his friendships with wealthy Valiants Robbie Williams and Phil Taylor.
[82] As a player, he was a "fully paid-up member of the drink culture", and on one of his many nights out he befriended Williams just before Take That hit the charts, and the pair became firm friends.
[85] In conjunction with Andrew Collomosse, Swan released an autobiography in 2008 entitled Swanny: Confessions of a Lower-League Legend, published by John Blake.