Jump to content

Inverness Primary School Football in the Sixties


Guest harrysmithno.7

Recommended Posts

Guest harrysmithno.7

From memory there were five teams in the Primary School League in the sixties - Central, Crown, Dalneigh, Hilton and Merkinch.  All games were played over in the Bught on Saturday mornings.  I think we played each other two or three times overall to complete the league.

I played for the Crown and we won the league the year I played.  We were unbeaten during the season , in fact I think we won all our games.  I remember Dalneigh being really good ( they came second ) and our matches against them were always tight.  Last game of the season against them was  5 - 4 to us. I think they played in red and black stripes a bit like the Thistle colours.  We played in red and blue quarters.

Lots of goals and high scoring games were a feature of the competition.  Central were next best  and came in third and I remember Tichie Black played for them -  boy,  he was really good, even then. Central colours were yuckie yellow and marroon as I remember.

Hilton and Merkinch were the easy beats we used to come away having put 7 or 8 goals past them, despite the Merkinch boys threatening to beat you up after the game if you scored or played well.  Never put us out,  made us try even harder!!

Peter Corbett played for Merkinch and was an absolute gentleman on the park and off it.  I do not think they had anyone else that was a decent player in their team at the time.  I think Merkinch played in green and Hilton in yellow.

Happy days!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was never any good at playing the game so never played for the Dalneigh team, but they did indeed wear black and red (a bit ironic that the primary school right at the centre of Caley Land should have Jaggie colours but these were the uniform colours as well!) I left Dalneigh in 1965 and that year's team included John Allison and Brian MacBey, both of whom went on to play in the Highland League. Brian Bremner wasn't a bad player either. Crown had Gordy Fyfe whereas Peter Corbett was maybe a year or so older than us, Titchy a year younger. These colours - black and red for Dalneigh, yellow for Hilton, red and blue for Crown etc - persist to this day in sports strips and uniforms. And yes, it was always a dilemma as to how the Merkinchers would react to a defeat and the same went for their "Paramilitary Wing" the 4th BBs.

In the early-mid 60s, most sports contests had Dalneigh, Crown and Central as the main protagonists and that included swimming galas and the Inter School Sports which we won in 1965 but in which I once again didn't figure because I didn't start figuring in athletics until I was about 14. Whether my eventual emergence as a runner had anything to do with fleeing the Finlays and the Kirkhams on crossing Laurel Avenue on the way home or not... I wouldn't want to comment.  :015:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Our memories are certainly different regarding the merits of our various schools. I remember playing against Crown, Central, Dalneigh, Hilton and High School 2nd eleven for the Merkinch. We came second or third the year I played. The team from the previous year won the competion. I remember lining up against Dalneigh and their teacher wouldn't let Ian "Macca" Mackenzie play unless he removed his plastic beatle wig.Which looked like a very dark brown half football ! "Macca" wouldn't so he didn't play and we fell about laughing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. : Terms of Use : Guidelines : Privacy Policy