THREE readers were on the ball with answers to our soccer puzzle picture (February 15) featuring an 'unknown' team of kids, submitted by John Harvey who found the photo among his late father's effects.
John was curious to know who the team was and when the celebratory shot was snapped. There was a vague clue in the letters WPS on the football shirts. It turns out that they stood for Windle Pilkington School, St Helens, and two of that under-11s line-up have rolled back the seasons to fill in some details.
Alan Morgan (now 62) spotted himself in the front row and says it was his school's Inter-Schools cup-final side of 1949-50. The final was at Hoghton Road, before a game in which Bert Trautmann, the ex-German prisoner of war, who went on to become a world-class goalkeeper, turned out for St Helens Town. Alan, from Avon Road, Billinge, also recognised Malcolm Gee and Alan Clarke among his team-mates.
Choosing to be identified by nickname only, 'Digger' conjures up the full team line-up: Back (left to right) Ward, Roughley, Aitcheson, Tinsley, Clarke, Nelson. Front: Gee, Harrison, Anders, Morgan and Greenhalgh. But it proved to be no celebration -- Windle Pilks losing 2-1 to St Theresa's, Sutton Manor. Several of the soccer kids, however, went on to become pros.
"I'm so glad", adds Digger, "that John Harvey has kept this nostalgic gem. He can now sleep at night, knowing he has rekindled memories from the past".
Brian French, a St Helenian who reports that he's now in exile in Sheffield, played at that time for the rival Windle CE team.
He writes: "We always seemed to be playing either Windle Pilks or Windlehurst, the exception being a big game game at Merton Bank -- the equivalent, for us kids, of going into Europe".
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