Les Perriam poses in his beloved Muratti cap. (Picture by Daniel Guerin, 0575374)
IT’S a day Graham Skuse wants to forget, while Les Perriam will treasure it as long as he lives. The date was Monday 14 May 1951, the venue the Track, the scoreline: Guernsey 2, Cardiff City 0.
While the GFA’s head of referees was still in short pants back in Cardiff, Perriam, now 84, was scoring either side of half-time to defeat the city’s footballers. Perriam’s goals are historic in that they paved the way for the first and only time the island side has beaten a fully professional league club.
Most of the team that historic day have passed on, but Perriam, the former Northerner winger, remembers the occasion vividly and how Alan Hunter, his inside forward, set him up for one of the goals.
The Cardiff game came 11 days after a historic win for the green-and-whites in the Muratti Vase final over Jersey who, the day before the Bluebirds arrived at the Track, had been thumped 6-1 by the the Second Division side.
A record Muratti crowd of 12,692 watched Ted Malpas’s men beat Jersey and there was at least half that number – reports vary from six to eight thousand – nearly two weeks later as Cardiff arrived in the island.
Perriam, for the injured Harry Falla, was the only change to the Guernsey side who played out of their skins, recalls the hero of the hour.
‘The 11 men played really good and hard,’ said Perriam this week.
‘Nobody could say they [Cardiff] weren’t trying either. I remember Montgomery, their centre half, shouting at them.
‘We had a cracking game.’
The Cardiff side was almost at full strength and very similar to that which had taken them to third spot in the race for promotion to the First Division.
Perriam shot the home side ahead after 13 minutes and added a second on 63.
Cardiff had paid for, in the words of the unnamed match reporter, ‘trying to be far too clever with too much tip-tapping of the ball’.
Cyril Spiers, the Cardiff manager, admitted afterwards that their hosts had been good value for their victory.
‘Guernsey was very different opposition to Jersey, who did not put the same keenness into the game.
‘They [Jersey] didn’t go all out and didn’t tackle so hard as the Guernsey players, which allowed our men to play football.
‘Guernsey went all out to win and played with terrific enthusiasm.
‘I thought your forward line, in particular, played very well, especially the wingers and inside-forwards, Hunter, in particular.’
Hunter, father to former island striker Neil, drew more praise from Spiers, as did Les Collins.
‘The inside-right kept putting the perfect pass through to his winger and if I think Collins had had the same service he would have been the man of the match.’
Spiers made no secret he would have loved to snap up Hunter and Collins, both comfortably good enough to be full-time professionals.
Including Perriam, only four of the Guernsey giantkillers remain alive.
Hunter and Vince Tostevin still live locally, while Bill Farmer, who played professionally for Nottingham Forest, Coventry and Oldham, now lives in Corby.
He vividly remembers their centre-forward ‘Grant, who was a little fella’.
‘I came out to narrow the angle and his shot hit me straight between my eyes.
‘It was terrific header on my part but he just stood there and said ‘‘big head’’.
Farmer, rather oddly, made his Muratti debut in the same team as his uncle and fellow Belgrave, Rolly [Carre], against Alderney in 1948.
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