Liverpool Boys football team holds 60th anniversary reunion

Jan 19 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

They almost filled a great stadium. Now a 60th anniversary reunion is planned for the schoolboy footballers who played in an epic Liverpool final. David Charters reports

PEOPLE didn’t expect much from life in those slow, drab years of shawls and sighs, still pinched by that austerity, which had followed the war like a ghost in the fog.

But on Whit Monday, 1948, the pavements outside the terraced houses shook to the thunder of fast-stepping shoes.

It was a big day for the whole city, but it would be unforgettable for 11 boys – hard, athletic lads, rubbing the first stubble on their chins, as they began turning into men for their last year at school.

Out in the backyards, those boys picked up boots treated with the protective dubbin that also kept the leather supple.

Inside, some parents offered a prayer to the Holy Virgin, standing on the dresser by the webbed speaker in the wireless, usually tuned to the Light Programme, which had recently introduced listeners to Mrs Dale’s Diary.

“Do your best for us all, we’re so proud of you,” said the mums and dads, their devotions by then complete. Their sons had joined them in the parlour, before they all set off. The boys rubbed a final jewel of spit into their boots just in case. God heard more prayers. These put Him in a dilemma. How could He decide which team to support?

Liverpool Boys had reached the final of the English Schools’ Football Association Trophy. Their opponents were Stockport County. The venue was Anfield, home of Liverpool, even then one of the most famous teams in the old First Division.

But before going to the ground, there was a civic reception at the Town Hall, where members of both teams, the whites of Stockport and the reds of Liverpool, were introduced to Lord Mayor Walter Thomas Lancashire.

Then, they were taken to Reece’s restaurant for a meal of mashed potatoes, steak and cauliflower, followed, they think, by apple crumble and custard.

This would have been a feast in those days of rationing and, for the Stockport boys, it came after a breakfast of poached eggs at their local Davenport Hotel.

When breakfast was finished, they were driven by coach to Liverpool, with members of the local education committee filling seats that in the earlier rounds had been taken by mums and dads.

Even so, parents, brothers, sisters, aunties, grannies, grandfathers and friends were in the 4,000-strong Stockport contingent that arrived in the city.

All the talk among them was of Bryan (“Boy”) Brennan, who had scored 31 goals in his team’s eight matches to the final.

He had gained his nickname because supporters habitually referred to him as “the boy Brennan”.

Such matches attracted far bigger crowds than they do today, but nobody anticipated the 40,766, who filed through the turnstiles at Anfield – making it an unbroken record for English schoolboy football.

Now, a 60th anniversary reunion for the players and families of both teams is to be held on April 5 at Edgeley Park, Stockport County’s ground, where 24,000 people watched the 0-0 first leg of the final.

Marcus Heap, 41, a Stockport supporter and football historian, is arranging the event.

The old players will be invited on to the pitch before his team’s Division Two match against Darlington.

Later, there will be a £25 buffet in the VIP lounge and an opportunity to remember those extraordinary matches at Stockport and Anfield.