Bruntsfield alumni aim to recreate cup-winning photo with player hunt
A photograph of a cup-winning Scottish school football team has kicked off an ambitious quest to reunite the lads for the 50th anniversary of their proud victory.
Former Scottish league goalkeeper David Larter has set himself the challenge of locating all 12 of his Bruntsfield Primary team-mates who raised the School Board Cup aloft with him in 1971.
So far David, who set a club appearance record as the first choice keeper for Montrose FC in the 1990s, has managed to pinpoint half a dozen of the players, with another four left to track down. Two of his exclassmates are known to have died.
On 8 May next year, it will be precisely 50 years since the boys, aided by a brace from the smallest man on the pitch Stuart Smith, defied the odds to defeat a strong Drumbrae Primary side by two goals to one at Warriston and lift the coveted School Board trophy – the first cup Bruntsfield had won in decades.
David, 60, who now lives in York where he runs a toy company with his wife, hopes to mark their historic shot at glory by getting the cup heroes back together at Bruntsfield.
He said: “Out of the 13 boys in the picture, Brian Gordon and John Millar are sadly no longer with us, but I’ve managed to track down six and would love to get up to 11, including myself.
“I just don’t know where to find these other four boys.”
The idea for a reunion came to David by chance after he spotted a photograph of the young cup winners posing alongside their silver spoils on social media. David said: “The catalyst was when this guy put the picture up on the Lost Edinburgh site. It generated a bit of interest and out of that interest, because I like a football reunion, I thought, ‘right, let’s get this started’.
“With the timing of ’71, I thought this will be an ideal opportunity to mark the 50th anniversary. We’ll never have this chance ever again.”
The next step, David says, is to get in touch with the school with an aim to recreate the picture in the playground.