Gold cup winners
This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest and most unexpected victories achieved by a Newark football team.
In 1960 players from the Newark Youth League beat a team of budding stars from the Notts Youth League to win the Gold Coast Cup for the first time in more than 25 years.
Mr Peter Wilson, 66, of Queen Street, Balderton, who was 17 at the time, played at right back in the victorious team.
Their opponents turned up at the old Currys ground, now Newark Livestock Market, in a coach with matching tracksuits.
Mr Wilson said the Notts Youth League team was expected to win hands down.
“They really looked the part. We just turned up on our bikes,” said Mr Wilson, who played for Ransome and Marles.
He was marking Ian Storey-Moore, who went on to play for Nottingham Forest, Manchester United and England.
Other members of the team included future Nottingham Forest players Peter Hindley and Henry Newton, who also played for Everton and England Under-23s, and David Pleat, who went on to manage Luton Town, Tottenham Hotspur and Sheffield Wednesday.
Many played for Nottingham Forest colts and Thorneywood Athletic, a nursery team for Forest at the time.
Two of them played for England Schoolboys the previous Saturday.
The Newark team included three players from Ransome and Marles, two from Balderton Old Boys’ Juniors, one from Newark Boys’ Club, one from Southwell, and four from Blidworth Miners’ Welfare.
The team was managed by the late Alan Cousins, the manager of Balderton Old Boys’ Juniors.
Mr Wilson said he tried to get into the team as a goalkeeper and was surprised to be picked as right back.
The trials were at Kelham Hall, at the time Kelham Theological College, against a team of monks.
Mr Wilson remembers being brought fruit on silver platters at half-time, and home-made bread and jam after the game.
Each team in the league had put forward players for the Gold Coast Cup, a knock-out competition between the four youth leagues in the county — the Newark Youth League, the Mansfield Minor League, the Nottingham Boys’ Brigade League, and the Notts Youth League.
In the semi-final Newark defeated a team from the Boys’ Brigade League, which included Alan Birchenall, who went on to play for Sheffield United, Chelsea, Leicester City and England Under-23s. The 5-0 scoreline came as a surprise to Newark, but their goal-scoring form continued in the final.
Within 20 seconds of the start, Willie Boucher of Southwell scored without their opponents touching the ball.
“We weren’t as good footballers as them but we played as a team and worked hard,” Mr Wilson said.
They went on to score two more for a 3-0 win, with Boucher scoring a second.
The Notts players had booked a celebration buffet at The White Hart, Newark, in anticipation of their victory.
They left town straight away in disappointment, leaving the Newark players to eat the banquet. Each of the winning team received a gold medal and a copy of the team photograph.
Mr Wilson said the match was the highlight of his footballing career. He has since tried to find out what happened to the competition but has not been able to.
He went on to play for the Ransome and Marles senior team and represented the club in the preliminary rounds of the FA Cup in the 1962/3 season against Arnold St Mary’s.
The former Grove School pupil worked as an apprentice at Ransome and Marles before working as a site manager at power stations worldwide. He is now retired.
