Allan Palmer's History of Streatham Ice Hockey.

The Final Bell

At some rinks it is a buzzer, at others a klazon...but at Streatham the end of the period was announced by a bell. It was the bell that was ringing as the puck hit the net that April night in 1953, when many searched in vain for the red light but, crucially, the refs saw a flicker of red before the timekeeper cut the power...and Joe Shack had given Harringay Racers a 6-5 win and two crucial points in the race for championship honours..see the “We are the Champions” section earier. It was the bell that rang to close the final match of the 1953/54 season...but what we did not know was that it also brought hockey at Streatham to an end for five long years. This chapter is a literary bell that brings to a close this affectionate recollection of a great hockey club. One strives to believe that the final page of Streatham’s history has not been written but even the most optimistic must have concerns. True, junior and pee-wee hockey still features at this home of former giants but, as said elsewhere, there is little in SW16 or Streatham Ice Rink to justify the hope that, one day, STREATHAM will feature on an English or, indeed, British senior league fixture lists. I am more whimsical than hurt by this realisation; after all, former Wembley fans have no team to follow and Harringay, Earl’s Court, Richmond and Brighton fans have had their arenas pulled down! No major league team for hockey fans in the nation’s capital. And this is in a town where, once upon a time, up to 30,000 fans would watch hockey on a Saturday night!

Even the development of the London Arena and, latterly, the O2 Arena into a hockey venues have failed to dispel the notion within the media that hockey is provincial sport. It remains to be seen whether the arrival of regular season NHL matches will alter this perception. Naturally, I am grateful for small mercies that there is still some hockey and this is better than when we had no hockey at all but, in London, we need one or (better still) two clubs based in arenas at least as good as Harringay once was...an arena that, even today, would be as good as any of the new arenas, excellent though these may be. The present poor response to hockey in London makes people sceptical that London is not a hockey town and that there is no future there. Of course, this is not true. During much of the history of hockey covered by this book, there would be more fans watching hockey in London on a Saturday night than would be watching many a Second Division soccer match. My very good friend and former Streatham hockey fan, Geoffrey Brown, told me recently that one night in the early fifties he went to Wembley to see Streatham....only to find the HOUSE FULL notices up a good hour before the face-off...so he went to Earl's Court and just scapped in to see their match. Please don't tell me that London isn't a hockey town. In the early seventies very acceptable crowds turned up to see the London Lions despite the fact that their schedule often had them playing at Wembley three times in very short order. London is very open to new ventures although it is sad that a game that has been played in the capital for over a hundred years must now be seen as “new”. But that is the reality and the powers-that-be in hockey have got to recognise this and act accordingly. They must also understand that “intermediate hockey” will not cut it; London needs major league hockey to survive here. An even bigger problem than the relatively simple one of acquiring sponsorship would be the actual development of new arenas; when one considers the monumental farce that attended the building of the the new Wembley Stadium, even a flicker of recognition that we also need a new Wembley Arena would not give rise to much enthusiasm since this would, in all probabiliy, also be just as mishandled. Of course, the successful Olympic bid and the sporting infrastructure that this will necessitate mustneeds include a major new arena...but will hockey see the oppportunity? Don’t bank on it! But without it, a return of hockey as we saw it in the so-called “golden era” will remain a pipe-dream and to take advantage of the innate “tribalism” in the capital (Arsenal/Tottenham or Chelsea/Fulham) more than one arena would be required. But what of Streatham? Well, Streatham is a vastly different suburb from that which supported the local hockey team each side of the last war. Sociologically and culturally it has changed out of all recognition and one wonders if the present demographics of Streatham make it an area in which hockey would flourish. Indeed, someone very close to Streatham hockey club once told me that "if anyone considered rebuilding Streatham Ice Rink, he should save his money and build a new rink somewhere else...like Croydon". He may be right, of course. but even if my head says that the commercially smart thing to do would be to promote hockey in a more propitious area, my heart says that Streatham Ice Rink is where the history and the tradition are to be found; just as Charlton Athletic discovered when they tried to make their move to Selhurst Park only to find that "there's no place like home" at The Valley. With drive and imaginative promotion, using Streatham's glorious past as the spur, I see no reason why Streatham should not, again, be at the top in British hockey. Despite their disadvantages, the Streatham team from an earlier era were top of their league and the future generations should strive to be top of theirs. However, if there is to be a major team in Streatham in the future I would call the club just plain STREATHAM...just as it was in days of yore. This would provide a link with the past in what what would be a new club in a new rink because, according to local information, the present old rink is to be rebuilt either as part of a new commercial development or moved down the High Road to the old bus depot.

Having said that, I must say that although my first love in hockey is for Streatham, I have to hope that hockey continues to thrive in Britain; no hockey, no Streatham! Opinions vary on how this might be achieved and the pros and cons of this argument will go on wherever hockey fans meet. I share many of the aspirations of the BIHA who want the British lad to succeed and for British hockey to be "British". I want that too but I do not see that this will be achieved in a vacuum in which we deny the existence of players who play the game, naturally, better than we do. I want to see more, and better, players in the Britain, even better than those we already have today. I want this in the hope and belief that better players will improve the home bred lad. I want to see better administration, sponsorship and a whole raft of "behind-the-scenes" areas improved upon. And if that means embracing the NHL, so be it! I want the British public, beyond the present hockey aficionado, to learn to love and respect the game that we know to be the best there is. I want the fusion of all of these assets to mould together to produce, in ten, twenty or even fifty years from now, British clubs that will complete in the "International Hockey League" of that time. In much the same way that we do not think it strange that Edmonton or Anaheim or San Jose play host to NHL teams today, I just happen to think that it should not be thought strange that a team from Streatham, predominantly populated with home-grown British talent, could one day play in a major international league of the future. More reasonably. you may feel, there should be no surprise at the prospect of a "Streatham" playing in a future international league when other participants could include the likes of Freiburg or Sparta Praha or Djurgarten...European sides which would have held few terrors for the Streatham team of an earlier era. Mind you, if any of this is going to happen, it had better not take fifty years or there is a fair chance that I shall have to watch from a very lofty perch!

Much, then, needs to be done. We need to appeal to a wider audience and to do this our "product" must improve. This will generate terrestrial TV interest and much needed sponsorship and franchising. Time was when hockey could be seen on Saturday night TV so, why not again? It isn’t as if the BBC, for example, has retained that many sports in it’s jousts with Mr Murdoch! And ITV is not much better! Our adminstrators must be more visionary and professional; the day of the amateur hockey administrator at club and governing body level is over...and if it isn't, it should be! There must be more dialogue and better understanding between the clubs and the BIHA at local level and between the IIHF and NHL internationally. We have a sport which is played, at international level, by more countries than any other team sport except soccer; possibly 40 countries. Yet look at the media coverage hockey gets!

I would love to see Streatham compete at international level again. I saw Streatham play against international teams in the "good old days"; sometimes they were touring sides (Sudbury Wolves) or a league match (Paris) or club teams playing under their national banner (Lethbridge Maple Leafs and Edmonton Mercury's). Streatham were more than a match for these teams; it would be great to see them involved at this level of competition again.

I feel priviledged to have watched hockey in the forties and fifties. They were great days and we saw some great hockey. That era passed all too quickly, brought about largely through rapid changes in social behaviour, together with a poor economic climate. Social changes tend to be permanent and therefore the notion that we could somehow go back to those days is ridiculous. The climate that produced and sustained our hockey at that time has gone for ever...and Streatham is simply a microcosm of the general change. Having said that, I would counter any suggestion that Streatham's involvement in major hockey is merely a pipe-dream by arguing that Streatham must have appeared to be of little consequence to the "big rink" boys back in the thirties, when a rink of less than 2000 capacity took on the major rinks and their enormous resources. Even after the war, when Streatham reduced its ice surface to instal more seats, the capacity was still less than 2500 spectators and yet the club was more than a match for any of the other rinks, although I believe that the big rinks subsidised their less well-off brethren. If this is so, I would then have to say that Streatham repaid their big-rink benefactors by virtue of “Red” Stapleford’s address book full of likely hockey gems. So even if Streatham has to come from the nether regions of the English League to again vie with the best at home and abroad, they will have achieved no more than their forebears. Yes, as I have stated, the climate is different when compared with those days but it was people who moved that earlier mountain and it will be people that will move this one...but it will need people with the heart and determination of those earlier souls to make it happen again. But I have faith that somewhere there are such folks. There will be many who would argue that Streatham did, indeed, have such a man...but circumstances force him prematurely from Streatham and an untimely death from us all. I am refering, of course, to Alec Goldstone. With Ray Shilling and John Rost, Alec Goldstone was the focus for Streatham's rebirth in the early eighties and his enormous energy and enthusiasm for the game (and Streatham) saw the club extremely prominent in it's formative "big league" years. However, I am not convinced that hockey was going the way in which Alec felt happiest as it approached the nineties; I feel that Alec saw hockey as a close "family" game played by, and for the benefit of, aficionados. I harbour an impression that hockey was becoming too commercial for his liking and personality and it is true that Streatham was already in decline, compared with other contemporary clubs, even before his sad resignation from the club. It did not help Streatham at the time that two factions developed in the club which, like most internecine arguments, was more vicious and bloody than most and succeeded in tearing the club apart. Much of the blame for this fell, unfairly in my view, on the then Streatham chairman, John Willett. In his own way, John was no less dedicated to Streatham than Alec Goldstone; his view was that hockey must succeed commercially, as well as on the ice, and it did not help his public persona that along with this perceived accountants view of the game he did not have Alec's charisma and personality. I know that some folk saw Goldstone and Willett as "leaders" of the two factions; this is because one faction was pro-Goldstone and the other was not. This led to the belief that Alec and John were sworn enemies. I do not know how Alec Goldstone viewed this because I never discussed it with him, but I can categorically state that John Willett, far from not liking Alec Goldstone, very much admired him for the work that he had done at Streatham. Naturally, you cannot expect that two such contrasting people would be bosom buddies, but there was no reason why Willett should not admire Alec...and he did. It has to be said that it was John Willett who negotiated the biggest sponsorship deal in Streatham history (the "Wendy" deal) and it was his sheer determination to re-launch the club, after it went out of business in the early nineties. In some ways it is a great pity that Alec and John could not work harmoniously because they had the complementary talents so much needed in today's commercial game and John Willett may feel somewhat aggrieved that he felt forced out of the club that he had done so much to support when new owners took over at Streatham Ice Rink. But new leaders have their own ideas and a perceptions of the people whom they see as carrying through those ideas. Thus, any new owner of Streatham Ice Rink, has every right to make the changes he deems necessary and to instal those people who he sees as the "right men for the job".

It occurs to me that a contrast between the most successful teams in Streatham's history and the least successful is mapped by the eras in which they had their most successful "management" set-up and their least successful. Whatever else he does, a Streatham Rink manager today must recognise the historic legacy that hockey affords his rink and nurture this for the future. He must have as good a team off of the ice as on it and there must be harmony between these two facets of management within the club; rink management and hockey management. Only in this way will everyone be pulling one way...the way forward for a Streatham Hockey Club to repeat the glories of the past.

It was great to have seen the hockey of the 40's and 50's and although, I must be truthful, British hockey does not have, for me, quite the same appeal I still love the game that I first saw over half a century ago. I do not feel that too much should be read into my equivocal view of todays game; cricket is my other great sporting passion and that, too, does not seem to me to be the game that I grew up with. The easy answer is to conclude that I am now in late life and this, together with having lived a life full of differing events and interests, could mean that I am sated in my sporting loves. In any case, perhaps our capacity for excitement dulls over the years. I don't know. But, if I go to Lord's or The Oval... is it just me or ARE there no players today that compare with Denis Compton? I go to football and is it just me who sees mercenaries rather than heroes? Equally, does it then surprise you that I do not see players today such as Hodgins or Zamick; or Betker and Mason. Yes, the game is different and much as I can see that the use of helmets (to take but one difference) has been made with player safety in mind, this development has impacted spectator appeal in that the viewer is now more remote from the game. Plexi adds to this feeling. And, for me, the standard of play rarely compares with that seen in Britain in the mid-twentieth century leagues. I wonder sometimes if it is the combination of these factors and the absence of a major London arena that inhibits the broadcasting media and the press from giving our game the coverage that we feel it deserves but, also, would significantly promote the game to the uninitiated. Mind you, although we had far better coverage of hockey in those days, it was not always friendly and sometimes the articles that one saw came clearly from the editorial instruction..."I don't want to hear about ice hockey unless they are hitting each other with their sticks" school of sports reporting. But, on the other side of the coin, the London evening papers gave hockey excellent coverage as did the photo magazines of the day; I recall excellent articles on Earl Betker and Keith Woodall plus a similar spread on Allan Buchholz, then of Brighton and later with Harringay. During the late forties, there were regular radio broadcasts on the BBC (no IBA in those days) and live TV coverage from the major London rinks (no country-wide TV network, either). Indeed, Stewart McPherson was as much a celebrity for his hockey commentaries as for his chairmanship of "What's My Line?". Also, hockey was much better presented in those days. I would have no trouble believing that Sir Arthur Elvin was spinning in his grave as, from the next life, he witnessed the presentation of the NHL games at Wembley in the early nineties. The mind numbing din that someone seems to feel is an integral part of hockey today just wears me down, I'm afraid. Not only do I not see what synthetic pop music has to do with hockey, I also find it insulting that present day hockey presenters feel that we need this "entertainment" to keep our interest when the green light goes on for a couple of seconds. Old age, I suppose! But old or not, I still like REAL pop music enough to do tolerably well in trivia quizzes on the subject. But, please; everything in it's place and don't ram it down my ears, especially at a hockey game!

Whatever may be my qualms about hockey today, I am still overjoyed that hockey is played and that hockey is enjoyed by a whole new generation of fans. Time was, of course, when many of us thought that we might never see live hockey again in this country. Happily we were wrong. And how! There is more hockey played in Britain today than at any time in history and it is played by many British lads....oh, yes, and girls. too! And let's not forget "Fun Hockey" either. Yes, hockey is alive and well as my Final Bell is ringing to announce the end of this foray into Hockeyland. Such difficulties as the game has will, I am sure, be addressed by hockey's new entrepreneurs and administrators. I just hope that this book will, whilst covering an illustrious past, give encouragement to those great guys trying to promote the game in Britain today. As the "bell" ceases to ring and the players leave the ice, in my mind's eye, just as in a real game, the memories of the "game" in this book flood back as I drop the pen and leave the scene.................

October 1947; first game. Incredible impact. Real theatre. Colour, lights, speed. Skating exhibitions between periods by "well known skaters"; in fact, the best around...Altwegg, Djikstraa, Wyatt (the future Mrs Hardy), Sugden and, of course, Sally Stapleford. Monty makes debut. A certain Mr Zamick makes his bow in England...and to think that he was a fill-in! Stubby Mason makes Wembley debut. Streatham early form not good. Loss to Wembley...Eddie Daoust brilliant. Another home loss to Tigers 1-6. "World" see "encouraging signs", though. Sure enough; Streatham beat Greyhounds at Harringay 7-4. Drysdale hot; skates fast, shoots fast. Nicknamed "Rocket". Inspired by Chuck Turner the lads beat Wembley at the Empire Pool. Monty blanks Tigers for first shut-out. Racers win Cup. Big Bill Glennie the best winger on view. Zamick a revelation, but we hold him scoreless. Only 4-4, though. Racers looking to add National Tournament to Cup victory. Pete Payette nets five out of ten in 10-5 win at Wembley (v. Monarchs). Regals in the cellar; mighty fallen! Streatham neck-and-neck with Racers (how often this was to happen down the years) but Streatham hold on for Tournament win. But against all the odds, Tigers repeat 1946/47 League win. Racers second, Streatham third. Fancy Dan Bobby Lee heads scorers ahead of rookie Zamick. Streatham's Bud McEachern and Dave Miller third and fourth. Odd incident March 10th 1948. Monty collects high-sticking pen; sent to penalty box. Skater George Baillie goes in nets; concedes two during penalty. (Stopping a skater taking goalies penalties a rule change for the better. But maybe we should still make players serve their whole penalties irrespective of goals scored?) Odd result at Wembley as fourth placed Monarchs annihilate Racers 15-0! This after Streatham had turned same trick 8-1. Sad news; Lou Bates retires from Wembley.

October 1948; Streatham v. Panthers, Paddy Ryan nets two and Halverson great. A month later; Monarchs are the visitors...Beach, all animated energy, Anning swift, Mason amazing. All to no avail. Monty blanks them 3-0. Ryan again and a bullet from George Drysdale. Yet another month and the "eat 'em raw" lads now take Tigers having been 0-2 down. Gib great; Paddy and Rocket (again!) hit a brace apiece for the winners. Monty, all boyish charm and enthusiam heads the netmen with an incredible 15.00 average. Injuries. "Red" plays. Gets two assists!! Bud bustles in for three goals. Rangers "poor" in 5-0 loss. Kit; colourful but in poor codition. Pre-war? Early '49. Sudbury Wolves hit town. Too chippy...lose 7-0 to Wembley. "Red" scores v. Panthers. Brodrick debut. Ooo la la; Paris play....or do they? Lose to all and sundry. Then they win! 6-4 v. Rangers. Then Streatham wheel in the cricket scoreboard and beat them 23-3. Bud hits seven! Kenny Campbell...dark and languid. Playing for Rangers but destined for Streatham? Not to be...at least, not yet. Injuries pile up. Vic Niemi goes home. No help from other clubs..."you're too strong!" Rocket hits five v. Lions in 7-3 win. Cool, calm.....and menacing; Art is "Rookie of the Year". Buddy Norm Gustavsen collects too many penalties...and leaves. Hearts fluttering...Johnny Sergnese debut! Racers and Streatham neck-and-neck Racers win 6-2 at Harringay to put the title on ice. Reynolds and Hodgins "All-Star" 'A'; Ryan and Rocket Drysdale 'B'.

New season. Kenny Campbell makes it to Streatham; Monty doesn't! Tall and imperious, Keith Woodall in the nets. Looks good...early shut-out v. Tigers (10-0) Kenny nets three and gets seven assists in 16-2 win v. Lions. Injuries to Art and Kenny...results poor after good start. Racers looking good...as are Zamick led Panthers. Small, energetic stick-handling venom...Chick is in irresistable form. Streatham lose 0-1 to Racers; only a minute from the bell. Keith in great form...but so is Lussier. British game "not tough enough", so Harringay signings Kaye and Miller jump ship. Streatham's own Ukrainian bombshell arrives...Mike Yaschuk; maybe not a Zamick...but then, who is? Back to form; Cup chances blown but tooling up for League assault. Woody great as Tigers outshoot Streatham...but lose! Next night Tigers lose again but suave, urbane Bobby Lee nets his 300th. Streatham win seven straight..win at Wembley v. Monarchs....Keith and Stubby "hot". Now Racers and Monarchs fighting out Cup destination. Racers take it. Streatham take the National Tournament. Red, White and Blues will be battling with Racers and Monarchs for the League title. Before that...round one in the series with Edmonton Mercuries. Streatham win 5-1 in game one. Magical Beach holds up Streatham in first League game. First visit to Harringay...incongrous brick mountain in Green Lanes, N4. Inside...a first impression that never leaves. Magnificent! Racers win 4-1. Streatham soon in fine fettle, though. Yaschuk...snipers instinct. Kenny... radar passes. Art... Laconic, awesome. How could we lose? April....Streatham 3 Monarchs 2, Panthers 3 Streatham 6, Streatham 3 Racers 2. The key enemy dealt with in a week. First trip to Wembley. Like Harringay, incongruous. Centre of a sporting empire in urban, down-town London. Smooth presentation; silver tongued compere. Diners eating watching hockey! How odd!! Precision ice sweeping by the "Boys of the Old Brigade". No Zamboni's in those days.

Next season. New friends. All newcomers except Art. Dipsey doodle Savard. Frenetic Emmanual Frechette...soon to be named "Joe". How could any self-respecting south Londoner call a hockey player "Emmanual"? Tough looking, swarthy Ray Maisoneuve. Here is a face we recognised...Don Callaghan from Wembley. Savard/Pichette a handy twosome. Early season augers well. 4-3 down at Empress Hall; less than a minute to go. "Red" pulls new 'keeper Johnny Craig. Six skaters. Face-off. Rheal wins it. Skates round the pack. Twine bulges behind Dargavel. 4-4. Happy journey home! Empress Hall...so comfortable! Is it really a hockey arena? Old friends still abound elsewhere. Gib great for Tigers; we win 3-1 but "Hutch" keeps them in the game. Lee scores. Stubby still at Wembley with Beach, Rost, Green and Davidson. Chick and Les still with Panthers; they win 2-4 early on but rookie filled Streatham still look better bets for Cup. 7-6 win at Harringay...Savard two and two assists. Rangers, complete with TV jerseys snatch 3-3 draw; Booth and Anning a class act. Canada arrives. We win 3-2. Savard the best forward on the ice. Second place in Cup; poor start to League. Then we trounce Racers 11-3. Gordie Callaghan adds to his back-checking skills with six points. Lull before the storm; Savard is released, injuries at key times and Craigs rush of blood. Best forgotten. Except 13-1 win over America. Henry Hayes returnes to pre-war haunt. A touch of "what might have been"...end of season success at Wembley. We win 9-6. Merv Bregg 5 points and Don four. Final game loss at Earl's Court; wonderful playmaking display by "Boots"; he gets six assists in Rangers 7-3 win.

Enter now the greatest of Streatham's netminders, Earl Betker. Art is here again (of course) with Jack (Leckie), Don (needs no surname) and Vic Fildes... such a lovely mover! Maisie's back. Mac Beaton, Laurie Mitchell and Cliff Ryan join team. Alf Francis looks to be a star. Sadly, illness strikes and Alf has to go home. Speed provided by former top Canadian track athlete, Ken Little. No Red Line. Helps speedsters and accurate passers. The team wins nine sttraight and draws tenth. Don tops the scorers at two points a game. Maisie hitting the net at more than a goal a game. Streatham are big...but picking up too many penalties. Beaton big and aggressive...possibly too aggressive. Don big and aggressive...but controlled. Both good hockey players but only one is a star. You guess! Harringay..."they're hand-picked" says The World. What's more, they'll be the first to beat Streatham. Result? Racers 1 Streatham 6. Art's last goal blast from the blue line says it all...take that (or words to that effect!) However, Racers do lower Streatham colours for first time in SW16...but it's November already! Cup in the bag. "Old Man Joe" hits winner for Racers but big leaguer Tony Licari was the star. Panthers blank us 0-7 in Nottingham but we turn the tables 8-5 the following Wednesday. Gib and Earl give outstanding performances in Tigers 2-1 win by the seaside in early January. Streatham beat America 9-4 in penalty scarred game. League starts...no chance of Cup run-away form this time. All very even. Good start; 6-1 v. Tigers. Then a 5-6 loss at Empress Hall having led all through...a sickener!

Sad death of His Majesty the King postpones our game from 6th February...national mourning. When hockey resumes we beat Rangers 9-4. We whack Racers 8-2 (Don 3) and get a 2-2 at Harringay with both Earl and his Racer counterpart Pete Belanger in terrific form. As Beaton, diminutive Cliff Ryan and Ken Little struggle to repeat Cup form Fildes is injured and Riley joins from Harringay. Rangers head table...can they stay there? Streatham and Racers say "no" Now Art and Maisie hurt; we play Panthers in SW16...and lose. Key loss. Good news...Ken Little finds form and hits three v. Tigers and repeats the feat (in assists) v. Rangers. Can slim, ginger-haired Ken find again the blistering pace of the Autumn Cup? We beat Racers in N4, Little again...hits two. Old Man Joe (still a big-leaguer), all tenacity and canny experience get four points for Racers with big, immaculate Bill Glennie notching three. Starry defender Bill Johnson nets two. Streatham are in front and that, say the wiseacres, is that. But no! Despite another Little brace, Racers win 2-3 in Streatham despite a fiery explosion from volatile Bud McCormick. Rangers complete the debacle with a 9-0 win over us at Empress Hall; "Boots" again...three plus four! With the "monsters" beating each other, wily, experienced Wembley Lions take over and now head the pack...a lead they never lose. A home and away pair of draws (no, not those!) with Lions resolves nothing but a thumping 2-7 loss to Lions at Wembley does. Poisonous finisher Bobby Dennison hits three, "Gorgeous" George collects four assists. Penalties costly (again); another misconduct for Beaton. We finish third and over the whole season, first.

1952/53. "We Are The Champions". Nuff said! For six weeks it looked grim, though. Players came and players went...but soon "Red" had sorted it all out and the rest is history. Every one a star but some did not get all that they deserved. Beatty...a super player. Appleton...a good guy to have around. As the great team dispersed at the end of the season we said goodbye to Earl, Gordie, Don...but heard news of the phenomenal Gordie Knutson, due to join us next term. And so he did. And what a truly beautiful player he turned out to be. Hockey in decline, though. Only five clubs now and queries about the strength of even some of these. Streatham win Cup with Maisie and Knutson as key forwards. Panthers finish bottom but Chick and Les finish no.1 and no.2 in scorers list. Teams are better than individuals, eh? Kilbey tops goalies.. What a switch come the League. Panther squeeze past Streatham to take title. Again, Streatham win the "One League" tourney. So its goodbye season and...goodbye hockey for five long years. No more big parties of fans to speed northwards on the Piccadilly Line to Manor House to see the famous Red, White, and Blues. Now I have to see MY team in exile dressed in yellow and blue...not the same. Never did go back to Wembley ('til the London Lions arrived in ‘73/’74). And then 1959-60. Hockey back in SW16....and the promise of great days again. Maisie and Vic return...new stars Forster and Whittal revive memories of earlier rookie stars. 'Stu' around for a while; coach George Edwards returns from way back...the 1949/50 Championship team. Art back...but in Panthers strip! Kurz at Brighton. What's going on? Hockey OK but not like the "old days" of five years back. Some things stay the same...Streatham top Cup and League but luck out in play-offs. Imrie as good a Brit as you'll see. Parisi stars for Tigers. Good to see Paisley Pirates...time was when Art, 'Stu' and Savard played there. Then...the abyss, until Alec and company put hockey back on the map a long arid twenty years on. A desert in which the only oasis was the London Lions in 1973/74. The rest you know...and the rest dear reader is up to you.

Have fun, enjoy your hockey as I have done and in the hope that Streatham will climb the major league tables again let us speed their progress in our own inimitable way... EAT 'EM RAW!!!!