ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD

OPINION is divided over the identity of a rugby team's schoolboy mascot from the 1920s . . . two distinct names having popped up.

Regulars may recall how that old Knowsley Road warhorse, Duggie Greenall, provided a flashback photo (January 8) featuring the Lancashire Cup-winning Saints team of 1926,

Prominently featured behind the trophy and wearing one of the player's international caps, was that little mascot, appearing to have been about eight or10 at the time. Had he survived he would now have been around the 80 mark.

First to provide Duggie with an identity was Harold White, a Saints stand-off or centre from the mid-1940s, claiming that the mascot was a relative, Harry Wilson, who died about 10 years ago.

This is somewhat reinforced by Mike McLoughlin from Gillars Green Drive, Eccleston, and Saints' historian Alex Service who also came up with the surname of Wilson.

But Tony Harrison from Millbrook Lane, Eccleston, believes the mascot was a lad named Ballantine (first name Bernard, he thinks) who lived in the Rivington Avenue area of St Helens during the 1940s.

ANYONE prove who's right?

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