Canada Trip, 1976

Canada trip, 1976 

Although he had left the school over twelve months earlier, Mr Dan Tranter had done much of the organising for this three-week trip because he was able to use contacts from the ’74 trip. Accompanying him on the 1976 trip were teachers Mr M. O’Brien, who had been responsible for collecting payments made by pupils in school, Mr B. Meehan, Mr E. Brierley, Mr F. Hennessy, and Fr P. Mitcheson, school chaplain. Mr Hennessy’s brother, Brendan, also made the trip. About 30 boys made up the party, including a first-year pupil who was accompanied by his sister and her friend. They were in their 20s and both were nurses. Among the party were several boys who had been on the ’74 trip.  The visit again featured the playing of a number of soccer matches as well as visiting well-known tourist sites, such as Niagara Falls. Some of the matches were reported in local Canadian newspapers and were accompanied with action photographs.

Prior to departure, Mr Tranter and Peter Ryan, a third-year pupil, visited Old Trafford to be presented with Manchester United soccer strips from Les Olive, the club secretary, who was also Peter’s uncle. A strip was also obtained from Liverpool FC who donated a set of their second kit which was white with red trimmings. This was later given to one of the Canadian teams that hosted St Gregory’s. In addition, Stoke City provided a set of their red and white striped kit.

The boys had special crested maroon surf jackets for travel use.

The party flew out to Canada on Sunday 25th July and landed at Toronto Airport. There to meet them was former pupil Peter Selley, now a university student, who was already in North America. After arrival the party travelled to the St Catharine’s and Welland areas, where they were billeted with Canadian families until 4th August. Then they stayed in the Peterborough area from 4th to 9th August. After this, the final stay was in London, from 9th August until 14th August. All of these places were in the huge province of Ontario. The visit coincided with Canada’s staging of the Olympic Games in Montreal, which began on 17th July and ran until 1st August.

The school once again fielded two football teams: the Bantams, which was a senior team and coached by Mr Hennessy, and the Peewees, a younger team taken by Mr Brierley. Both teams had more school team players this time compared to 1974. The Bantams, for instance, included very good players such as Alan Blades, Mark Healey, Martin Burke, Laurence O’Connor and Mike Napier, who added experience and strength to the team. The Bantams wore the Manchester United strip and the Peewees wore the red and white striped shirts of Stoke City. As in 1974, there was an exchange of pennants and badges etc before the kick-offs.

A brief snapshot of the footballing side of the trip can be seen in the following notes, recorded in the form of a diary by Chris Hewitt, one of the senior players. Additional information is provided by Peter Ryan, who played for the Peewees.

26th July

Both sides, Peewees and Bantams, played teams from the St Catharine’s and Welland catchment area. The Peewees won 2-0 and Bantams won 3-0. The diarist made reference to being kicked and hacked every time he got on the ball. (Little did he realise that this was an early sign of things to come. The senior team faced some belligerent and tough-tackling opponents.)

29th July

Played teams from the Niagara Falls area at Oaks Park. Peewees won 3-0: Bantams won 4-0. However, the latter game was marred by a Greg’s player having his leg broken when he was through on goal only to have his legs taken out by the fullback. The injured player was taken to hospital, where it was revealed that he had sustained a hairline fracture of the fibulae, resulting in his leg being put into a plaster cast for the next five weeks.

31st July

The start of a three-day International Tournament arranged by the Heidelberg Club. Teams from Canada, USA, Mexico and St Gregory’s Bantams and Peewees were competing.

31st July

St Gregory’s Bantams v Rochester from New York. Won 3-0 (scorers Blades, Healey and Burke). During the first half of the game, it started ‘bucketing it down together with thunder and lightning around’. The game was played to a finish, but the team’s afternoon fixture against the crack team Chinguacousy, from Toronto, was called off and the tournament suspended until the following morning. Peewees lost their opening game to St Andrew’s 1-3.

1st August

St Gregory’s Bantams v Chinguacousy. Lost 1-4

However, in the afternoon Greg’s played a team from Ottawa and won 5-2.

Peewees won comfortably against Thorold Minor Soccer Club 11-0 before drawing 0-0 in the afternoon with Oakville. Unfortunately, the Peewees’ results were not good enough to qualify for the final stages of the tournament.

3rd August

Played the Heidelberg Bantam team, winning 2-1.

Peewees also beat their hosts 2-1.

4th August

Leaving the Heidelberg Club on this day St Gregory’s were presented with a cup for ‘school sports’.

4th August

Arrived in the Peterborough area.

5th August

Mr Tranter, Mr Brierley and pupils Chris Hewitt and Sean Clarke appeared on the local cable TV station to talk about football, the trip and their experiences.

6th August

Played Peterborough select teams at Beavermead Park, Bantams winning 9-0 and Peewees winning 5-0. The boys were surprised to see a cricket match about to start and were asked to play [cricket] as the local team were short of players. The request was declined as the boys had come to play football.

7th August

Against a Peterborough All-Stars side, Greg’s Peewee team won 4-2 at Beavermead Park and the Bantam team won 2-1, with the winning goal being scored in the last minute.

10th August

Played at Cove Road in London. Peewees won 3-1.

Bantam team v a London Select team. Won 2-1 (scorers O’Connor and Healey) in a really close-fought game.

13th August

Last match – opposition practically the same as a few nights ago. One of Greg’s players was going for a 50-50 ball with their goalkeeper and ended up flat on his back and in serious pain with a broken leg. He was immediately rushed to hospital and the game was abandoned. 

Yet another broken leg, this time on the penultimate day of the tour.

14th August

Return flight to Manchester.

Chris Hewitt, a skilful and widely experienced player, had this to say: “There was a lot of bad feeling and emotion from our side, both players and officials, as to the overall physicality of the Canadians’ play and the standard of refereeing that allowed their players to be over physical in tackling and body impacts.” Chris went on to say: “Over seven years of playing junior football at school and county level, I’ve never seen a player break a leg – we played ten games in Canada and see two breaks in quick succession. Mr Hennessy wasn’t happy with the Canadian rough and targeted hacking of our players in many of the games over here and there was definitely a souring of the tour due to these tactics.”

On occasions Mr Hennessy had to speak to the referees and ask for protection for his players. Years later Mr Hennessy said: “In many ways it was a great trip and experience for our boys and we got so much out of our visit to Canada.”

Peter Selley, who, as a youth team player at Stoke City, played the game to a higher level and was very strong and powerful, was able to ‘put himself about’, as the expression goes. He could give as much as he received, and more.

But there was more to the trip than football. Commenting in 2020, Chris Hewitt had this to say: “The tour for myself was more like a normal holiday with football matches thrown in. There were no civic receptions organised and I was billeted with families that worked during the day, so it was very much a case of entertaining yourself. We did lots of sunbathing, swimming, five-pin bowling, pitch and putt, shopping and visiting ice-cream parlours. The football schedule was quite hectic so we really weren’t that bothered about visiting the major tourist sites as we had done in ’74. The only place I visited was Marineland for a day out. I think most of the older lads had a similar experience in that there were so many games played, we just wanted down time to recover and get over niggling knocks and bruises from those matches played.”

Peter Ryan echoed those words, recalling that the boys largely entertained themselves when not playing football and, on the odd occasion when they visited places of interest, they were taken there by their host family as was the case on a visit to the famous Peterborough Lift Locks.  Commenting in 2020, Peter wrote: “Canada was an amazing experience and very educational. I have always appreciated how lucky we were to have teachers who saw the benefit of organising such trips and who were prepared to put so much work into them.”

Although the school had a long history of organised trips to the continent of Europe and other parts of Britain, the visits to Canada were something special and the boys involved were appreciative of the dedicated teachers whose hard work, planning and preparation enabled them to enjoy such travelling. The boys also appreciated that they were somewhat fortunate and privileged to have had the opportunity to make the trips against the economic conditions and background prevalent at that time. 

And so ended the trip. The return flight to Manchester took off from Toronto Airport on Saturday 14th August, minus Peter Selley who remained in Canada.

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