Alderney's day to remember

IF A mailboat had left on time in early 1920, Alderney may now still be waiting for their first Muratti win. The boat in question was called Imperator and it was originally due to leave Alderney a few days before the Muratti final on 29 April 1920.

Two members of the Alderney team, J. Lihou and S. Allen, were due to take this boat to Southampton and sail across the Atlantic to Canada.

Yet twice the sailing of the Imperator was postponed and the next date it was due to sail was the morning after the Muratti.

Lihou and Allen both had time to play against Guernsey and the rest is history.

Lihou scored the only goal of the game and Alderney registered their only victory in the 100 years of the Muratti.

The Guernsey Evening Press on 30 April recorded in its Alderney news column that a number of people left on the Imperator for Southampton, among them a Mr and Mrs S. Allen and a Mr J. Lihou, noting that they were due to take the Mary George from Southampton to Halifax, Nova Scotia to start a new life in Limehouse, Ontario.

These two with the rest of the team received special winners' medals with their names engraved on the back.

Guernsey resident Harry Attewell, a retired gardener, has in his possession one of these medals and a Muratti cap as his father, Harry Attewell snr, was also in the famous 1920 Alderney team.

'Dad used to talk about the time when Alderney beat Guernsey down in Jersey,' said Mr Attewell.

'He was very proud of his cap and medal which, when the time comes, I will pass down to my grandson.'

Although a resident of Guernsey, the senior Attewell qualified to play for Alderney as he was born there, while his father was posted there with the Army before being sent to Guernsey.

In front of a 4,000-strong crowd at Westmount Jersey, Attewell senior played inside left. In the days when the 5-3-2 formation was in fashion, his fellow attackers were Pike, Lihou, Baker and Hammond.

The Guernsey Evening Press noted that Hammond was the pick of the forwards but it was Lihou who proved to be the match winner.

Lihou's goal was a fine individual effort just before half-time.

The Ridunian picked the ball up on the halfway line, beat the Guernsey midfielder, McAvoy, and hit a well-placed shot between the two centre-halves, Le Cheminant and Curtis, that goalkeeper Aubert couldn't reach.

With Pike going off with an injury in the first half and in the days of no substitutes, Alderney were down to 10 men. Facing relentless pressure from the Sarnians throughout the second half, the Alderney team managed to hang on for victory.

The other years when Alderney came close to Muratti success were in 1906, the second of the competition, when they lost 1-0 to Guernsey in a very tight match, and in 1923, when they lost again to the Sarnians, 3-2.

Pre-Second World War, the Muratti rotated every year so that one of the three islands involved was given a bye to the final. After the war, this was changed so that only Jersey and Guernsey had a bye, ensuring that Alderney every year had to play a semi-final.

Since then they have not progressed past this stage.

The closest they have come to reaching a final was in 1954.

Alan Hunter captained Guernsey against an Alderney team that was creating a buzz as possibly the best team to come out of the island since 1920.

The game was played at the Track on 1 April and Alderney took the lead after 20 minutes thanks to a Noel Mignot free kick that deflected off Hunter in the defensive wall, past Jim Murray in goal.

Guernsey equalised midway through the second half.

A Harry Falla shot squeezed under Frank Bond in goal for the Ridunians.

The teams were all-square with two minutes to go until a header from their captain put Guernsey through to the final in which they subsequently beat Jersey 5-3.

The semi-final was also noted for the absence of one Alderney player, Buster Hammond, who was unfortunately laid up with tonsillitis in the Richmond Hotel at the time of the game.

Hammond comes from a family of Alderney Muratti footballers - both his father and uncle also represented Alderney for the famous vase.

Mammond recognised that his island in his day had limited resources with regards to producing a team but that didn't stop them from working hard.

'We're a small island so it is very difficult to make a team but we didn't do too badly, he recalled.

'We trained like mad. If we went down, we went down fit.'

With regard to singling out an Alderney player, Hammond points to Norman Simon, a centre-half who was a real gentleman on and off the pitch.

'He was probably one of the best players we ever had,' said Hammond.

'I remember him playing against Les Collins and he snuffed him out of the game.'