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North School Class Index

School Days Index

North School, Wick Football Team 1974- 75

From Rube Bain 27 January 2002
I found an old (and battered) North School football team photograph taken during the season 1974/75 when the North School won the Caithness Championship for the second year in a row (I was in both teams and know I have the first photograph somewhere too if I could just find it!). Could I ask you to include this in your 'Schooldays' photographs, or any other prominent place?!

My abiding memory of that time is the simmering grudge matches between ourselves and the academy school team at that time, and the monumental tussles we had at Bignold park when half their school was let out to watch (as if it mattered)....we gubbed them every time. The Thurso teams came a close second. I notice young Alan Farquhar contributing to your message board and pointing out those times to the 'academy rats' (I'm sure we had a song we used to sing about that too!!)....so if proof were ever needed!!
From left to right:
Back Row: Robbie Johnstone(?), Alan Hurry, Mr Bruce (Headmaster), ???, Raymond Watt (Tattie), Robert Bain (Rube), Alan Farquhar, Mr. Cormack (Janitor), Malcolm Moodie, Trevor Steven?
Front Row: Michael Dufus(?), Charlie Buchan, Peter Gunn, Robin Doull (Dylan), Ian More (Polly)

I may have got a few of the names wrong. The team was unusual in one respect,  and that is that 7 out of the 13 in the squad were from the 6th Year (Alan Farquhar amongst them), and not the 7th (last) year of the North School (as I was, in this particular photo), so they were often playing older boys (including the Academy school) and STILL beat them! I wonder if the hard plastic ball which we used in matches and in training, had anything to do with our success.....it was so hard it hurt your feet when you blootered it, and only a brave soul tried to head it lest they risk brain damage. I can still remember the smell of the creosote used to line the pitch (I think about those games when I'm de-mossing my driveway with Jeyes Fluid!....same smell), the wine coloured shirts us North Schoolers wore (made from nylon and brilliant at producing static discharge when you pulled them over your head), and the peculiar sound that the super hard plastic football made when you kicked it....there was something rolling around inside it, probably a loose ball-bearing. I reckon they were actually metal balls, cleverly painted to look plastic. We kicked butt though.

Note
Anyone with confirmations of names or changes please get in touch with [email protected]  anyone disputing Rubes descriptions of the gubbings to the other teams likewise lets hear your versions.

This in from Philip Reid 27 January 2002  3:36pm
I reckon 3rd from left on the back row is Ian Miller