London Old Shorehamers’ Football Club

50^th Anniversary Celebration

On Friday 27^th September 2013, I was privileged to attend a reunion of the London OSFC, to celebrate their 50^th Anniversary. The event took place at the Boulevard Brasserie in Covent Garden, London. Attendees were welcomed with a glass of champagne, courtesy of Ron Stean.

I feel really honoured to be there, watching, as some friends had not seen each other for many, many years. There was much reminiscing and swapping of stories going on! A total of 18 footballers made the luncheon and some brought along their partners, adding a touch of glamour to the occasion!

Christopher Wynne welcomed everybody at the start of a sumptuous, three-course lunch. Following lunch, the speeches and presentations took place. Roy Collins read out some statistics and notable top contributors to the OSFC. The Golden Boot for Top Goalscorer was presented to Ron Stean who scored an amazing 258 goals in 241 matches!

Jim Stearns, current Headmaster, gave an update on the College’s current position, including the all-important House results! The final speech was made by Mark Cockburn and his speech can be viewed below.

This was a really enjoyable afternoon and I would like to thank Christopher Wynne for organising the event and for inviting me to be a part of such a special occasion.

Attendees

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Speech made by Mark Cockburn at the OSFC Dinner

“President of the Old Shorehamers’ Association, Headmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Headmaster, thank you for bringing us up to date with the current affairs of the school. It is gratifying that not only academically, but in the sporting arena, the school does so well. Reading “The Shorehamer”, it is always interesting to see the varied facilities that pupils now have.

Of course in 1950s, if you were not into football, cricket or the odd bit of table tennis, there was not a lot else to do. As boarders, we were locked into four walls with an hours freedom on Friday afternoon when we allowed into town. Many of us Seniors of course, headed for Jessies Cafe, where sausage, egg, beans and chips, a cup of tea and a fag was the treat of the week! I suspect that remains the favourite of many an Old Shorehamers of that era, together with cold baked beans on a slice of stale bread under the sheets of course. Surprising what you become good at with practice.

1963 - what a momentous year. January/February being the coldest on record, with snow lying on the ground for many weeks. The musical Summer Holiday starring Cliff Richard receives rave reviews. Charles De Gaulle vetos Britain’s entry into the EEC. Pity he did not succeed. And of course, President John F Kennedy was assassinated. The Beatles released their first Album (Please please me) and Dr Beeching messed up British Rail for ever.

Everton won the football league, Tottenham won the Cup winners cup and Manchester United won the FA cup…….Some things never change. Queens Park Rangers were still struggling in the third division. (Peter, do you know that QPR were founded in 1882 by the Old Boys of the Droop Street Boarding School?).

And the seed of an idea to form a Football club for London Old Shorehamers was planted. The three founding fathers of the club were Messrs Wynne, Stean and Jones.  Both Chris and Ron worked as trainees in Accountancy - Chris with Clyde Dixie’s Practice in the City and Ron in the West End of London.  So clearly both had little to do with their time, and together with Jonesy, who was flogging material to anybody who would see him in the West End, they got together to form the club.

As these three, together with other prospective members, played for proper teams on a Saturday, it was necessary to play on Sunday mornings. The club provisionally joined the bottom division of the Sportsmen Sunday Football league, and had its first game in March of that year.

Well, as you can imagine, an unmitigating disaster. It happened to be the weekend when the clocks went forward, and that, together with a 21^st Birthday party the night before, meant that the game was started with only 7 players! 3 other players were found from guys looking for a game on Clapham Common and finally the game resulted in a loss of 3 goals to nil.

The League officials were sufficiently impressed to admit the club to full membership of the League in September of that year.

I mentioned Clapham Common. The other venues we played included Tooting Bec and Streatham Common and other Public Park pitches, perhaps the most frightening was under the walls of Her Majesty’s Prison, Wormwood Scrubs near White City. Outside the walls I hasten to add, not inside……

You can perhaps imagine these facilities with very little by the way of changing rooms, no hot water, your proper leather footballs played on what could only be described as mud heaps in the freezing cold. Oh to be young again…….NOT! Still, there was always a silver lining. If I recall, matches started at 11.15am which means they more or less finished at about 1.00pm. Washed hands and face in cold water, donned the track suit and off to the nearest pub for a couple of pints before 2pm closing time in those days. Home then for a bath, bit of a roast if you were lucky, a sleep (I will call it that), wake up for the god slot, The Saint, Sunday Night at the London Palladium then bed. Great days!

In those early years, the club went from strength to strength, even developing a reserve team. It had its own magazine named ‘The Rampant’ after the Lion on the Shoreham Crest and also went on tours. Many players travelled quite good distances to get to our South London venues, with David Knight coming up from Shoreham (before I carry on let me tell you that in 1966/7, David played 18 times scoring 10 goals. Where did you get that from Peter? He was a full back with a scything right boot! Not a player to get near if you were the opposition), Peter from Finchley and indeed before Brenda and I took off to Australia for a few years, me from Tring. You have to remember that our cars were not what they are now and of course neither were the roads.

I can remember flogging a Renault Dauphine to Ron Stean for something like 30 quid. I here and now apologise Ron - I did not know that the engine was going to fall out a few days later…… Anyway Ron, you sort of got your own back. When Brenda and I married, I had to sell my lovely MG TC to pay for a few sticks of furniture etc. I bought a Fiat 600 for £18 but the driver’s side finally fell through the floor and I found myself very close to the road! It had to go to the scrap yard, but I wish I had kept the number plate. BAR 18. Not for the monetary value of course.

Apart from the three stalwarts already mentioned, there were many others who contributed to the success of the club. The Bradley Brothers, who collectively played 392 games, David Braint 220 and in the middle years, Graham Grove, Bob Hearn, Richard Herriott and Roger Vernier all played over 100 times, and John Neighbour some 95 times, predominately in the early years.

You have already heard about the top scorers and other playing members, but there were others who contributed a great deal to the foundation and ongoing of the club. Michael Longley was its first Chairman and also played in its initial years scoring 24 goals in 51 matches. A great record for a goalkeeper! Ron was the first Treasurer and Tony Copping the first Captain.

But here Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to make a special mention of Chris Wynne. Chris became the Secretary of the club and has been instrumental in every aspect of the club’s development, its social gatherings, tours and in particular the recruitment of players. No easy task. Chris played 231 times, even getting amongst the goals from time to time.  Chris, on behalf of everybody here, I would like to thank you for all you have done for the OSA in general and the London OSA Football Club in particular.

Of course all good things come to an end. One of the rules of the club was that we should only take our members from Old Shorehamers but gradually other good friends joined us.  In 1965, Shoreham Grammar School had to move from the centre of Shoreham to Worthing, with boarders being accommodated in various houses around the town. The trend away from a Boarding School commenced and finally became a day school only, hence we did not have new old boys who were domiciled in the London area. Not only that, we were all getting older, married, had children, moved abroad etc. etc. and a cold Sunday morning on the commons of South London became far less attractive.  Nevertheless, the club went on for many successful seasons.  In 1974/75, OSFC finished runners up in Division Two and were promoted to Division One for season 1975/76.  Quite an achievement commenced by a few friends from Shoreham.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would once again like to thank Chris for all he has done to put this 50^th Anniversary lunch together. As we get older it is very nice to have fond memories re-kindled the way we have today.

1963, a momentous year indeed. Oh yes, Brenda and I got married in October of that year!

Thank you all”.

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More details on the history of the OSFC can be found here:

Photographs courtesy of Mrs Morgan:

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