Pegasus                   5          Tanner 25, 44, Potts 51, 80, Insole 65

Erith & Belvedere   2          Boatwright 6, McCullough 70 

FA Amateur Cup 1st round replay, 14 January 1950 (at Oxford City FC)

 

Continuing the series counting down the 100 most memorable games in our history.  Today, an encounter with Oxbridge Blues and some famous names of the future.

 

Pegasus FC was for a time one of the leading lights of amateur football.  The club was formed as a joint venture of Oxford and Cambridge university football clubs, and founded by Harold Thompson, a professor at St John’s College, Oxford, who at around this time was teaching a young Margaret Roberts (later Thatcher).  At first, members had to be current Oxford or Cambridge University players or to have left the previous year, but this rule was later relaxed.  On 7 January 1950 a Tony Pawson goal earned them a 1-1 draw at Park View, so this was our first away trip of the 50s…

 

DERES OUT OF AMATEUR CUP – PEGASUS SPEED EARNS VICTORY

 

Although they were attacking for the greater part of the match, Erith and Belvedere were beaten 5-2 in the FA Amateur Cup replay with Pegasus at Oxford on Saturday.  Most of the Pegasus goals came through breakaways which caught Deres’ defence on the wrong foot.

 

Erith were the first side to look dangerous with a fast sweeping attack which worried the Pagasus backs and ended in their conceding a corner.  From the kick Deres attacked again, forcing a second corner.

 

After six minutes, with the Pegasus goal still under pressure, Deres were awarded yet another corner from which Boatwright was lucky to score.  His flag-kick, curling in towards the goal, was misjudged by the Pegasus goalkeeper, Brown, who scooped the ball into his own net.

 

The Pegasus wingers, Potts and Pawson, were both extremely fast and by far the most dangerous of the home forwards.  With such fast wingmen, Pegasus were able to swing defence into attack with disconcerting suddenness.  They were also enabled to play eight men in defence and thus adequately smother Erith’s attack.

 

After 25 minutes a defender’s clearance gave Potts possession of the ball.  Racing into the Erith goal area he slipped the ball through to his centre-forward Tanner, who equalised with a left-footed drive that had Collins going the wrong way.

 

Pegasus had an inspired spell after this and their forwards had more of the play than at any time in the game.  Deres’ defence, although in difficulties, kept them from getting within shooting range, however, until a minute before the interval.  Then Tanner raced through the centre after taking a pass from Pawson, and gave Pegasus the lead with a shot from 15 yds.

 

Erith made a determined attempt to equalise at the start of the second half and Brown was rather lucky to reach a header from Faggetter.  A minute later he saved a hard drive from Walker.  In the sixth minute Pegasus forced a corner and in the goalmouth tussle a shot from Potts was deflected past Collins by one of the defenders.

 

Pegasus went further ahead 20 minutes after the interval.  Pawson got in a shot which Collins turned by the post for a corner, and from the flag-kick Insole headed into the net.

 

Erith were still full of fight and doing most of the attacking, but were unable to gain the room for a clear shot at the Pegasus goal.  McCullough scored the best goal of the match for Erith after 25 minutes.  The ball was cleared from a goalmouth scramble and McCullough at left-half pounced on it to flash in a drive from fully 25yds.

 

Ten minutes from time, with Deres still on the attack, Potts again got possession of the ball and after a terrific run down the line cut into the centre to score the home side’s fifth goal.

 

Erith and Belvedere: Lew Collins; Stan White, Pat O’Brien; Harold Gurr, Arthur Warboys, John McCullough; Freddie Boatwright, Dave Walker, Sid Faggetter, John Edgar, Roy Newstead.

 

 

Pegasus didn’t get through the next round, but their great Amateur Cup days were still to come.  They won the trophy twice in the next three seasons, beating Bishop Auckland 2-1 in 1951 and Harwich & Parkeston 6-0 in 1953. 

 

At least two of the team that beat Deres went on to distinguished careers. 

Tony Pawson was an all-round sportsman who played cricket for Kent and played twice for Charlton Athletic, before finding his niche as world champion fly fisherman in 1984! – most notably he was cricket correspondent for The Observer for a decade and wrote several books on cricket, football and fishing.

 

Doug Insole, who scored the fourth goal, played for Corinthian-Casuals in the 1956 Amateur Cup Final, but was a far better cricketer.  He played nine Test matches for England, being vice-captain on the 1956-57 tour of South Africa.  He captained Essex for many years and is among their top ten career scorers with over 20,000 runs.  After his playing days he was chairman of England selectors during the 60s, and later President of MCC.  He incurred the wrath of Geoff Boycott when the latter was dropped after scoring a double century: over 40 years later Boycott said on Test Match Special that Insole should have spelt his name with an A…

 

As for the founder of Pegasus, three decades later Sir Harold Thompson was a major figure in the FA, and its Chairman from 1976-81.  He played a leading role in the sacking of Sir Alf Ramsey as England manager (“handled with brutal insensitivity” as one paper put it), and ensured that Brian Clough never got the England job.  One former FA official said of him, "Sir Harold was a bullying autocrat. He was a b-----d. He treated the staff like s---".  A real charmer then…