Skerton Athletic

Transcription

1 Skerton Athletic When this photograph came into my possession I could identify only three people so I enlisted the help of Ken Lockley whose brother Bill Lockley was a member of the Skerton Athletic team. Two days later and Bill had named them all which would suggest that all of us described as old age pensioners have wonderful memories, we just can t remember what happened yesterday. In August 1959 Brian Eddlestone played in the final trial of Morecambe FC at Christie Park for the Whites along with Dickie Danson and Scotty Webb but didn t succeed in deposing Ken Udall as goalkeeper so decided to play for Skerton Athletic instead. Lancaster Amateurs resigned from the league but Downiefield (Overton) and the 5 th Battalion Territorial Army were the newcomers to Division III. Kirkby Lonsdale (Division 3) was the former Casterton Club and Moorside Casuals (Division 2) was the new name of the former Williamsons Cotton Mills and were scheduled to play their games on the Far Moor. In Division II Moorside Casuals immediately withdrew from the league and were closely followed by Division III clubs Grange and Downiefield. Skerton Athletic had been making slow but steady progress in the North Lancs League over a number of years and this season was to be a highlight. Although they lost their second game of the season on Ryelands Park to local rivals Bulk St Annes, 2-4, they would only lose one more league game all season and that would be another home game against Newton Rovers by 1-2. Their away record was outstanding as they won eight out of ten games only drawing with Lindale, 5-5 and Standfast Dyers & Printers, 2-2. As they won Division II by a single point it was only by looking back to their game in early February 1960 when they faced Bulk St Annes again and won an exciting close encounter 1-0 to realise how important that fixture was. Maybe the game of the season though was played in January 1960 on Ryelands Park in a 3 rd round replay of the Senior Challenge Cup against Division I side Cartmel. Skerton had previously travelled to their Furness rivals and earned an impressive 2-2 draw but the replay saw them play a full part in a thrilling encounter that was in doubt right up to the final whistle. Skerton deservedly led 3-2 at halftime but an own goal put Cartmel level early in the second half. With only minutes remaining the scores were level at 4-4 when Taylor burst through and won the game by lobbing the ball over Brian Eddlestone s head from an acute angle.

2 Division II P W D L F A Pts Skerton Athletic Bulk St Annes Royal Albert Hospital Newton Rovers Lansil Lindale Sports Club Lancaster Lads Club Old Boys Reserves Standfast Dyers & Printers Trumacar Heysham Waring & Gillows Skerton Athletic Champions of Division II of the North Lancs League, pictured at their headquarters, the Millstone Hotel, Skerton Back Row (L-R): Middle Row (L-R): Front Row (L-R): Brian Wilson, Cyril Biddle, Colin Sanderson, Bill Lockley, Keith Bradshaw, Norman Booth, Eddie Mattinson, Bill Liver, Norman Muggy Thornton (president and landlord of the Millstone Hotel) Tommy Wilson, Alan Hoyle, Peter Horne, Les Davies, Brian Eddlestone, George Heald, Harold Bradshaw Terry Austin, Ray Gates

3 A wonderful story related to me by Ray Simpson (Mr Memory Man) involved the landlord of the Millstone and was as follows. In season Skerton Athletic met Standfast Dyers & Printers in the final of the Parkinson Collegian Cup on the Giant Axe and were favourites to lift the trophy so the landlord, Norman Muggy Thornton, took some bottles of rum to fill the cup for the anticipated post-game celebrations. In the event Standfast caused a huge upset and won 4-0 so Muggy took the unopened bottles of rum back to the safety of the cellar at the Millstone. Just around the corner from the Millstone Bobby Day was brought up on Aldren s Lane after being evacuated to Lancaster from Barrow in the early 1940 s following the bombing of that town by the Luftwaffe. In May 1960 he brought honour to Lancaster when he won the ABA light-welterweight championship at the Empire Pool, Wembley. Another Lancaster Lads Club boxer, Frankie Taylor, had won the ABA bantamweight title on the same bill and would go to Rome and represent his country at the Olympics. Unfortunately the selectors decided that Bobby would have to fight an eliminator with three other boxers to decide who went to Rome. Many people in Lancaster and indeed in the country as a whole thought that Bobby had been given a raw deal and those feelings have not changed over the past five decades. In 1961 Bobby turned professional and moved to London where he also had a job as a milkman. He delivered milk in Bethnal Green and one of his daily deliveries was to a house in Vallance Road, the home of Violet Kray and her twin boys Reggie and Ronnie. He knew the Kray twins very well because they were also mad about boxing and when he trained at the Thomas A Beckett gym across the river in South London he got to know Charlie Richardson. When Bobby used to train on a Sunday morning down the Old Kent Road he would see Jim Davidson doing a comedy spot in all the pubs down one side of the road and Mike Reid doing the same down the other side of the road. He remembers Lennie Peters of Peters & Lee fame playing the piano in a pub on Bethnal Green Road. Lennie was blind and always played the piano with his coat on because when he took it off someone would steal it. Whenever Alan Spavin and his Preston North End team came to play in London he would always get tickets for Bobby. Alan, of course, was in the same class at the Lancaster Royal Grammar School as Frankie Taylor, Bobby s teammate.

4 November 1959 and Dave Williams prepares his Lancaster Lads Club boxing team of Bobby Day, Frankie Taylor, Tommy Stone and Norman Swales for their fights at the Winter Gardens, Morecambe This old Inn stood on the west side of Main Street, Skerton, near the corner with Aldren s Lane. Its name comes from the nearby Skerton Corn Mill which had stood there since the Middle Ages and was demolished in the 1950 s. First recorded in 1803 it was for many years associated with the Lune Fisheries and the landlord in the early 19 th century was William Carter, succeeded in 1832 by Robert Wilkinson whose well-trained dog Jack helped him harvest vast quantities of fish by driving them into the net. N Thornton was the landlord in 1889 followed by Mrs Mary Thornton in the early 1930 s and Norman Thornton (see photograph) in1960. I am assuming that they were members of the same family. The Millstone Hotel, Skerton

5 Skerton Corn Mill was built in 1754 on the site of an earlier water-mill. The last time the mill worked was during the War. Following that much of the machinery was removed and the building was finally demolished in When the building was demolished hundreds of rats were disturbed and the majority drowned in the River Lune as they tried to escape from the dogs.