QRC old boys celebrate sporting triumphs

What started as a golden anniversary celebration for football quickly grew to include the college’s cricket, track and field and cycling sportsmen over the period 1958-1962. The reunion ceremony “QRC A Sports Legacy” took place in October 2009 at Jaffa Restaurant in the Queen’s Park Oval.

Back then in the 50s, October was the month of Intercol football, and the organisers aptly named the programme “Once A year in October 2009” after calypsonian Lord Cristo’s “Intercol Fever” which went like this: “Once a year in October, Fete fuh for so in Queen’s Park Savannah (repeat), Carnival out ah season, Every man know de reason, Colleges in de city, Fighting for football supremacy.” He was referring to the Intercol battle between first QRC and St Mary’s, and later joined by Fatima College.

“Why only 1959 and why only football?” asked the steering committee comprised of Jones (chairman), Lincoln Phillips, Deryck Murray, Dwight Day, Reynold Howard, Gregor Hinkson and Royce Moore. The footballers were also winners in 1958 and 1962, the cricket team had won cricket intercols in 1959 and 1960 – the first victories long after the late West Indies cricketers Jeffrey Stollmeyer and Gerry Gomez had represented the college.

The track and field athletes were victorious in every inter-school meeting in that era, and are still dominating to the present through the successes of Richard Thompson in the Olympics in China in 2008 and current student, Jehue Gordon, in this year’s Carifta Games; and the college’s cyclist led by Roger Gibbon, dominated opponents from other schools at cycling meetings held throughout the island, most notably in 1961 and 1962.

Most significant is the fact that QRC produced during the 1958-1962 five-year period being celebrated, five of this country’s most outstanding sportsmen of all times: Wendell Mottley and Edwin Skinner – track; Lincoln Phillips – football; Deryck Murray – cricket; and Gibbon, who won more medals than any other local sportsman has during his seven-year reign as Trinidad and Tobago’s and the Caribbean’s premier racing cyclist.

Also of significance is that during this period quite a few QRC sportsmen excelled at more than one sport, such as Victor Gamaldo, an outstanding footballer who represented QRC in football from 1958 to 1962, in cricket from 1960 to 62, and in track and field in 1961 and ’62.

The steering committee launched the plans for the reunion at a brunch last Ash Wednesday and brought to fruition a most memorable function where former Royalians from England, Canada, the United States and the Caribbean, and their supporters, shared a “magical” evening in a setting beautifully decorated by craftsman Gillian Bishop, with delicious food from Jaffa, which was blessed by Murray, a former West Indies wicket keeper/batsman and past president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board, who played both cricket and football for QRC.

In his address, Jones remarked that “no other sport generated youthful exuberance like Intercol Football.” Another speaker, Henley Wooding, cricket captain in 1959, wrote in the beautiful anniversary magazine, about “Mr Lucas, the groundsman in my time at QRC; he had a lonely, thankless job. Long after everyone had left the College precincts it was his lot to prepare the ground for the next day’s events.

He was not particularly given to any conversation… but showed his love for QRC by the manner in which he prepared the wicket on which our First XI played….We all had our day in the sun, the batsmen got some runs, the bowlers some wickets but what was important is that we all grew in our understanding of the Game of Cricket and of the Game that is Life.”

Two of the evening’s finest quotes came from Wendell Mottley – 1959 captain of track and field, who was glad to see so many of his old QRC friends and provoked laughter as he said “unlike good wine none of us is improving with age”.

His observation about the QRC experience which was all about “inclusion” was apt. “We all messed in each other’s pots. As track and field I was invited to go and score on the big cricket board at the Queen’s Park Oval, and travelled with our football team to games. I was a hopeless actor but Minshall made me into an old woman in one of his productions.”

The Olympic medallist and former Minister of Finance proposed a toast to “that dear lady – Queen’s Royal College” which had been undergoing massive renovations for many months but was unveiled in all her former glory, in time for the celebratory period.

In a break from the programme of sporting speakers, Masman extraordinaire Peter Minshall was invited to say a few words. His older brother, the late Marcus Minshall, had been football and cricket captain and Victor Ludorum.

Said Minshall, “I was never going to make it on either the cricket or football team, nor even as a reserve or last resort. Captain of anything was entirely out of the question. I was therefore most certainly not Victor Ludorum material. But as it turned out I would have my own special part to play.”

Attending an Intercol match and seeing St Mary’s with a sea of festive flags and banners of white and blue, whereas over at his college’s end a single solitary royal double blue flag held sway, he saved up his pocket money the next year and prepared a huge banner of dark blue and light blue, and with bright yellow and orange Chinese lacquer enamel, using black for the outline, painted “those immortal, wondrous shining words ‘Queen’s Royal College’.. After all I was Minshall the Younger, the artist and could design and I could draw.”

Minshall ended up in the back of a police van with his banner after he and his QRC tribe staged an improvised football carnival band with iron percussion and song, dancing behind the banner, on their return by train after winning the National Intercol in San Fernando. “We were on our way to the newspaper headquarters to take our victory photo for the front page,” he noted.

Presentations were made to the 1958-1962 QRC sportsmen, including those who had passed on, by former Trinidad and Tobago footballer Carlton “Squeakie” Hinds — “The Prince of Forwards” and former West Indies cricketer Charlie Davis, the first schoolboy to score 1,000 runs in a calendar year.

Tributes were paid to the late Horace Springer, former Games Master 1956-1978 who was like a father to many, a mentor to the majority, a friend to all, and the most ardent supporter the college ever had, and also to other deceased coaches, supportive teachers and student supporters.

The Golden Anniversary celebration will end with a brunch at Harvard Club, Serpentine Road, on Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010.