A QUICK glance at the day’s English football results gave an immediate clue to the pre-war period. Manchester United were in the Second Division losing 2-1 at home to Southampton and in the regionalised Third Division you would come across teams such as Clapton Orient, New Brighton and Gateshead.

They were the heady days of the island’s own Saturday ‘pink’ and thanks to Pete Burtenshaw, who kindly unearthed a Sports Star of 25 September 1937 and kindly passed it to us at the sports desk, it offered us the opportunity to compare writing and presentation styles 70 years on.

Quite how long the Guernsey ‘pink’ lasted is not clear, but the Saturday sports specials kitted out with the day’s football and horse racing results, continued right up until the early 70s and were generally on sale not too long after the referee blew the final whistles around the island, such was the efficiency and urgency of the operation in those dark days long before Gillette Soccer Saturday and Final Score vied for our attention as a way of learning the day’s results and to check the pools.

The year had been a decent year for Guernsey sport which then was dominated even more by football than it is now.

The Muratti Vase was shared after two thrilling draws, but North won the Upton 4-2 and we thrashed them 4-0 in the Star Trophy clash.

Only the Junior Muratti was surrendered south-east and North beat Sherwood Foresters in the Jeremie final.

Sadly, the last pink of September 1937 was not exactly brimming with exciting reports from the top of the Priaulx.

The main footy action was the first Stranger Charity Cup tie

of the season and St Martin’s edged out Sylvans 2-1 who had started the game a man short.

Across the page ran an equally lengthy report on how Bels had beaten the Athletics, who also started with 10, by the odd goal in three in the Jackson Cup.

The description of Tics’ opener was delightfully Mister Chumley Warner-ish.

‘The flag kick was a good one and, after a scrimmage in front of the goal, Masterton made no mistake when he shot the ball and Le Page was obliged to run score the first goal of the match and to give to the lead to the Athletics. This was after 25 minutes of play.’

Elsewhere, in between the football reports, column inches were devoted to a review of the water polo season in which the Nomads won the league and Old Intermedians the cup, which was all very tough on the three Waterman brothers who made Old Amherstians such a force.

‘And now until next July we must say goodbye to polo,’ the story ended tearfully.

But goodbye water polo, hello rugby union.

‘Scrum Half’ penned that while the season had yet to start, the island rugby fraternity had been thoroughly entertained and informed by local sportsman Mr C. F. Grieve.

Part of his lecture was to highlight the differences between rugby and soccer. Glad I missed that one.

There seemed to be a huge slice of stating the obvious in Grieve’s proposals.

For the forwards, he suggested ‘really hard play’.

For the three-quarters, he stressed the importance of getting the ball out to the wing at the earliest opportunity while, shockingly, ‘maintaining a fast forward momentum’. Well they were hardly likely to want to go backwards sir.

Anyway, Scrum Half finished off by suggesting that it had been a ‘very great pleasure to hear this grand little man who had performed on so many world-famous fields’ explain himself so simply to ‘those of us who are mere mud-rakers’.

But back to the football.

Under the headline – Next week’s Football Fixtures, three good games promised – the forthcoming week’s schedule was summed up in five paragraphs.

‘Three of them promise to be good, while the remaining two will be worthwhile.’

Elsewhere, a certain Mark Bright reviewed the GFA handbook and castigated it for being so similar to the previous one.

While stating that it was a vast improvement on its predecessor, which contained 23 errors (the 37-8 edition had just one), he still wasn’t happy.

‘I appear to have paid sixpence for a fixture list for the four GFA Leagues and even these are not correct for the dates heading pages 24 and 27 are palpably wrong!’

I bet he was a referee.

Footnote: Bright wrote that he was happy to see that Rangers footballer S. C. Brown announce his forthcoming marriage to Miss H. Wallbridge.

‘If Brown keeps a home as well as he can keep goal, there should be no trouble in the Brown family in the future.’

The most interesting story of the four broadsheet pages was saved for the last.

‘Guernsey defeated in Cot match’ which immediately provoked visions of men throwing around children’s slatted wooden beds.

But, no, it was football and the story of how a Guernsey XI had lost 2-0 to the Docks and Marines at The Dell.

The Guernsey party was 414 strong and, stated the intro, spent a thoroughly enjoyable time in perfect weather and in the spirit of mutual friendship which always marks the popular event’.

For the record, the Guernsey XI read (2-3-5 formation: D. Mechem (Sylvans); P. H. Bougourd (captain, North), E. H. Sauvage (North); J. McCarthy (Athletics), L. Smith (Rangers), S. O. Wallace (Belgraves); D. Mauger (North), J. A. Martel (Rangers), W. Allen (North), E. J. Brookes (Rangers), W. Crocker (Rangers).

Of that side, only Ernie Sauvage, whose career as a Muratti left-back bridged the Occupation years, survives.

Now a sprightly 89, the old Northerners favourite recalls the game vividly but is unaware of the history of the Cot Trophy.

‘I remember that I broke a player’s arm in a tackle. It upset me a little bit.

‘I was only about 18 or 19 and I felt a bit guilty. I used to go in a bit hard,’ he added.

He proudly recalls attracting the eye of the then Southampton manager.

‘It was one of my highlights when I was interviewed by the Southampton manager Tom Parker and he invited me for a trial.

‘I went into his office. It meant a lot to be interviewed by a manager.’

Nothing, said the legendary full back, came of it and, sadly, it was such a long time ago that nobody seems to know when the Cot Trophy clashes started and finished and, indeed, how they came about.

If you have any information, then please let us know.

Next week, the start of the ‘Great Upton sides’ series which will take us up to this year’s centenary fixture in Jersey.