REBEL league football in Guernsey is nothing new, so if it returns in September, those running it could do worse than investigate why the original rose and fell in just a few years.
It was a question put this week to Monty Waterman (pictured), who four decades ago ran one of the most successful social league teams the island has seen, F Troop, named after the mildly funny American comedy series of the period and focused on the antics of a cavalry brigade.
On screen, Ken Perry was the main man as Captain Wilton Parmenter. In Guernsey, it was Monty who ran the troop from its social haunt at the Red Lion and very effectively too.
Playing in white shirts, blue shorts and red socks, F Troop won cups and championships first in the Rebel League and, when they tired of the administration antics, they opted to join the GFA affiliated Sunday Soccer League.
Hearing Monty, not a lot seems to have changed in 40 years.
‘I thought it would be better for us [to join the SSL] because the Rebel League had begun to get a slot of stick from the GFA clubs, even though it had changed its name to the Sarnia League.
‘I wasn’t liking the way it was run.
‘We were also getting a lot of hassle from GFA clubs because they didn’t want their players getting injured.
‘We couldn’t get GFA refs because we weren’t affiliated.’
The ‘theirs’ were very tasty players indeed.
Early F Troop sides contained most of the great North under-18 squad of the early 60s, men of the calibre of North and later St Martin’s Muratti stars Colin Loveridge and Alan de Jersey.
Other regulars were Dave Thompson, Keith Rive, John Kenneally, the Cummins brothers, Paddy and Martin, Pat Ferbrache, Freddie Willcocks and Richard Harvey.
Waterman recalls the Rebel League’s roots being in the pub league that in the very early 60s operated from the King George V Field.
His first team were the Purple Harts, a side borne out of the White Hart, and other sides included the E & G, the Swan and Ronez.
‘It started as a kickabout on Sunday mornings.
‘I played for the Harts with the likes of Geoff Cox, Les and Rex Ferbrache and we had Tony Loveridge in goal.
‘An Irishman, Morgan, a real gentleman who worked for the CMC, reffed all our games.’
But pub league turned to Rebel in a short time.
‘Rex Ogier, together with I think, Rex Williams and Royston ‘Bunky’ Le Noury formed the new league,’ said Waterman.
Under its new guise it embraced some of the original pub sides plus teams such a F Troop, the Jamaica, Flouquets, the Piette Hotel.
History is sketchy but Jobbers and the Yacht might also have been involved.
As far as F Troop was concerned, the league enabled them to get two lots of social kicks in a weekend.
Apart from the regular Sunday morning match, the Troop were on show many a Friday night at the Corbet Field during a period when Vale Rec let the ground to raise money for the floodlights.
‘Henry Robin allowed us to rent it – he was very good to us – and we played our [Rebel League] cup finals down there.’
Friday night game over, the Troopers might find themselves talking over the action over a few drinks and a chinese meal in Fountain Street, before meeting up in the Red Lion on a Saturday afternoon.
It was there that the team were given the name F Troop from the TV series which appeared around the time of the football scores.
‘Someone said that bunch of lads you’ve got there are a bunch of comics so why not call them F Troop?’ recalls an obliged Waterman.
The club was born and hung around until the very late 1970s when, after many a title celebration, it folded.
‘We packed up when they all got a little too old for football. By then a lot of the lads had packed it in.’
And so ends the F Troop story but, it seems, the Rebel League one may be about to revived, albeit with a few danger signs.
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