Dane Swan reveals scary Monday morning phone calls from Collingwood president Eddie McGuire

Dane Swan has revealed Collingwood helped him keep several off-field dramas out of the media during his career, but he couldn’t avoid the news when he woke to 100 text messages after one big Grand Final celebration went hilariously wrong.

Dane Swan at the Albion Hotel. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Former Collingwood star Dane Swan endured serious injuries and faced down bigger opponents on the field every week, but some of the scariest moments of his AFL career were unscheduled phone calls from Eddie McGuire.

A missed call from the Magpies president on a Monday morning usually meant something had gone wrong away from the footy field — and Swan was in the gun.

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“A lot of stuff did come out but, to the footy club’s credit, they pushed around a lot of stuff for me, which was nice,” the 2011 Brownlow medallist revealed on his new podcast Scotty & Swanny.

“There was a couple there towards the back end of the career (where the club said), ‘If this makes the media, we won’t be able to save you’, so there was a couple of nervous sleeps when the media was sniffing around.”

Swan said a particularly vivid memory was of the Monday after the 2015 Grand Final, when he had celebrated the end of the season with gusto.

He woke at 8am planning to place a bet on an NFL game then go back to sleep, but everything changed when he picked up his phone.

“I looked at my phone and I had 100 missed calls (and thought) struth, what’s happened here,” he said.

“All the texts and missed calls come up in normal fonts but Ed’s was like five times the size so it was the only one I could see. I thought there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep unless I read this text, so I read it: ‘Call me ASAP’ ... so I’ve prepared myself for the worst.”

Dane Swan in his Albion Hotel. Picture: Alex Coppel

Swan said he couldn’t remember doing anything he shouldn’t have, but still dreaded the call to the president.

“I said, ‘Ed’. He said: ‘Hey mate, have you heard the news?’.

“I was like, ‘Na mate, give it to me’. I thought this was the end of my career.

“He said: ‘Your pub’s burnt down.’ I said: ‘Did I do it?’.

“He said no and I was like, ‘Is that it? Thank f--- for that, I thought it was something bad’. I turned the phone off and had the best eight hours of sleep of my life.”

The Albion Hotel is consumed by fire in October 2015. Picture: Hamish Blair

“I actually did nothing wrong that day, it’s happened a couple of times where I have been in trouble and it’s very very scary.”

Swan had some advice for former teammate Alex Fasolo, who made a video apology to Carlton fans after breaking his arm play-wrestling at an Australia Day party.

“I thought he was held hostage,” Swan said of the video. “I’ve seen Faz wrestle and box, he should not be doing that. He should be staying far clear of any kind of physical contact.”

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