EDITORIAL 2007
Old habits, like old ways of thinking, die hard. I still watch Southport F.C.s
home games at Haig Avenue.
This is largely due to the fact I can pronounce all
their names and they swear in English and also because it's "my team" as
distinct from a Russian mobster or an Arab sheikh.
I expect these journeymen to
give all they've got and a win on their wages means so much more than a win by
a team with eleven foreigners diving about as though they were in the Victoria
baths.
I usually stand (remember standing?) on the terrace nearest KGV, which, since
the ground was brought up to safety standards, is open to the elements. So
when they let a soft goal in and I turn away so as not to see the opposition
kissing each other, I am looking at the college sports hall which stands
astride the old 1st XV pitch.
Then I look towards Meols Park and there I see the
excellent block of classrooms standing where our beautiful, ramshackle cricket
pavilion stood. On the still enormous playing fields there are a couple
of soccer pitches, their goalposts planted in the middle of the 1st XI square.
By this time I've decided it's time to watch Southport, wiping the odd tear
away, caused by the cold wind on the open terrace, of course.
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Headmaster (Captain of Master's XI) tossing up with John Hyde (Captain of 1st
XI) 1953
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Durham Steele Brocklehurst Baddeley Brown Buckels Johnson Bond
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Burgess Hyde Bracken Marsh (Capt) Smith R Booth N. Harris
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Topping
Shaw
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The reality is that I get great pleasure in knowing that the College is
excellent both academically and as a community which brings the best out of
students.
It is a sadness to me that those students who have sporting skills
mainly play in teams in the town. The sports hall has an excellent modern
gymnasium and it is used to fit in when time allows but there cannot be that
incredible feeling of belonging to a team. Then I remind myself that many lads
in my day hated sport and being pressed in to playing was agony.
It's when I read the College Report and see that the education system has never
stopped changing and will be subject to more politically motivated alteration
in the near future that I wonder how the staff cope as brilliantly a they do.
When I played cricket at Crossens and we were a very successful side, my
captain used to say –'never change a winning game, always change a losing one'.
It still seems to apply whether I'm looking into or out of Haig Avenue and it
allows me to include a couple of my favourite photos.
Alan Bond
Editor
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