Football champions of 60 years ago
FIFTY years ago, the boys of Redheugh Junior School football team were feeling just champion.
It was May, 1968 and Owen Aiston was a member of the school’s first XI.
Owen, who today lives in Prudhoe, Northumberland, got in touch to tell us: “I was part of the team which won the Gateshead Schools’ Under-11 league and cup, seeing off Fell Dyke School.
“What was unusual for the time was that the team was coached by a female member of staff, Miss Rosalind Laidlaw.”
If women are part and parcel of the game in 2018 - as fans, players, officials and pundits Miss Laidlaw’s involvement half a century ago was enough to attract the attention of the local and national press.
The team and teacher made the pages of the Gateshead Post - and even the Daily Mirror.
The Mirror reported: “Before she took over the coaching job, Miss Laidlaw had never watched a professional match.”
Rosalind told the newspaper: “The boys, average age 10, always try hard. There are two leagues in Gateshead. We won ours and then played the other league champions for the Town Cup. We won that too.”
Today Owen Aiston retains an involvement in the game - at a high level. He is the current chairman of the English Schools’ Football Association.
Miss Laidlaw would be proud.