David Layne joined Bradford City for the largest fee in their history and rewarded them with a record goal haul in his first season.

Signed from Swindon for £6,000 – at that time the most cash the club had ever splashed on a player – Layne rewarded his new employers by scoring 34 times in that 1961-1962 league campaign.

Over half a century later, his transfer record may have long since been obliterated but the single-season goal feat remains.

No City striker either before or since has matched the efforts of the man they nicknamed “Bronco” after an American TV western of that period.

But mention the name Bronco Layne and it’s not his scoring exploits that live on. It is what happened soon after he joined Sheffield Wednesday from City that will ensure he is never forgotten.

For many, Layne is not a striker of some repute but a cheat who took a bung to lose a game at Ipswich. That was the only game from the top division to be implicated but there were more, including Park Avenue’s against Bristol Rovers.

Along with several others including an England international, Layne was found guilty of match-fixing and betting against his own team. Convicted of conspiracy to defraud, he was jailed for four months and banned from football for life.

Layne later appealed the suspension and was allowed to return to Hillsborough eight years on. But he never played league football again and his career ended in ignominy.

The damage was done; his reputation tarnished beyond repair; his name forever damned with one of the darkest episodes in domestic football.

The 1960s betting scandal became part of history, a freak event that could surely never happen here again.

Cricket has been riddled with match-fixing cases; snooker also with some very high-profile casualties. Football – in this country at least – had seemingly kept its nose clean from all the corruption elsewhere.

There was the high profile case involving Bruce Grobbelaar, who was cleared along with Wimbledon pair Hans Segers and John Fashanu in 1997.

Two years on, a security guard at Charlton was offered £20,000 to pull the plug on the electrics and disrupt a match.

And more recently a League Two game between Accrington and Bury in 2008 was cast under suspicion after four players were banned for betting on the outcome – three of them having backed the other team to win.

Stanley’s former managing director is currently serving a suspension for a breach of betting rules.

But cases thankfully remain incredibly few and far between. We like to believe in what we see.

That is why this news about potential Far East fixers getting their tentacles into the English game has come as such a bombshell.

Even more so with the Bradford connection after Delroy Facey, the journeyman striker who included a one-month loan with City among his many professional stop-offs, was named as one of those being questioned by police.

I’m sure Albion Sports have dreamed of one day getting name-checked on Sky Sports News. But they could not have possibly imagined the circumstances that would see their name listed on Facey’s CV as his current club.

All publicity may be good publicity according to the old cliché but I’m not sure the Northern Counties East League team will necessarily agree.

“He’s been with us three months and is a cracking lad,” said secretary Jaj Singh. At least it cleared up Facey’s unexplained absence from the Albion bench on Wednesday night.

The developments cast a horrible shadow everywhere. Mud sticks so for a while any game, however low down the football pyramid, will be watched through suspicious eyes.

Supporters will wonder if what they are seeing is real – or if it is somehow being manipulated by a murky betting racket many thousands of miles away.

That may sound ridiculously over the top but the doubts will hover, as they do in other sports that have been heavily affected.

For the 99.99 per cent of players who go about their jobs honestly and with full integrity, it is a deeply unfair stain on their character.

But we should applaud the vigilance of the authorities. Those trying to deceive for their own gain have to be exposed and flushed out.

English football is admired throughout the world for its excitement and its honesty.

Once that reputation goes, it will never be restored. Just ask a certain Bradford City record holder.