Williams inspires the Corbet Field revolution

IT MUST have been fairly shocking news for 1965. A football revolution was in the air. And as Guernsey prepared to break its winless Muratti run - the team was the front page photograph on the day of the match - a high-profile article revealed that a number of that team were set to move to the bottom-of-the-Priaulx outfit, Vale Rec.

It was a move that, while it did not last long for all those involved, started the ball rolling at the Corbet Field.

Within a decade Vale were dominating the local football scene and continued to do so for much of the 1970s and 80s.

The catalyst for the upheaval was Tony Williams. And this week, back in the island for the release of Frank Cusack's book on the centenary of Muratti finals, Williams, whose company published the tome, recalled just how he and a handful of others launched the football revolution.

Williams had come to Guernsey after demob from the RAF in 1964. His uncle lived in the island and his widowed mother had moved to Guernsey to look after him and started a bed and breakfast.

'I thought I'd come over and try a little island life,' he said.

Williams quickly found his way to Blanche Pierre Lane and became a fixture of one of the most feared St Martin's front lines of all time.

But, with social interaction between players seemingly quite entrenched in 'them and us', he found greater camaraderie outside of BPL.

The Press article and Williams himself, made great play of the fact that the 'English' players came together with the move to Rec.

Williams' big friends in the game were Dave and Bonny Eldridge, also imports, playing for Belgraves.

Others were scattered around the Priaulx League, and most were in, or on the fringes of, the island squad.

'We were all saying to each other ?Come and join us?, so we thought why don't we all go to the bottom team?' said Williams.

'They had a nice ground, they had floodlights and Mr Corbet was a very good man. He wanted to have a good team: he'd done all the hard work on the ground there and that was all that was left.'

Vale had finished bottom of the Priaulx the previous season, failing to win a match.

Eight players formed the basis of the revolution. Williams, Bonny Eldridge and Noel Jeffreys were all playing in the Muratti final that afternoon in 1965.

Dave Eldridge, young Ken Giles, teacher Peter Mellor, Bob Bannister and Allan Hamon completed the set. Former Muratti winger Don Batiste soon joined them.

All were in the side at the start of the following season, apart from Bannister, who had declared himself unavailable, and those players also starred in the Priaulx League play-off which Vale managed to force against St Martin's.

Bonny Eldridge gave the 'all golds' the lead in that match, but Saints fought back to win 3-1 and take the title for the third season in a row.

It would take another seven years for Vale Rec to clinch their first title and break the Saints' historic nine-year run in the process.

Guernsey Press sports writer John Le Poidevin welcomed the development.

A most sociable journalist, 'JLeP' thoroughly approved of the move, particularly subscribing to Williams' thoughts on it.

'At Vale we hope to create better social atmosphere in football, and not only for ourselves. We hope to be able to offer visiting sides social amenities on the ground so that there is the opportunity for a chat about the match over a cup of tea,' said the new Vale captain and coach.

'There is a great challenge in this venture and we are thrilled to bits about the prospects and cannot wait for next season.'

Le Poidevin described the switch as a 'tonic' for the local game.

'If these stars can settle down together and get a team spirit together, with their talent Vale can become the complete club.

'For so long this club has had everything a soccer club could wish fo . . . except soccer talent.'

'But by the end of the season the social life had slowed me down.

'Yet we could have won it. We played Rangers before and somebody missed a penalty.'

That play-off was Williams' final game for the club, and in Guernsey.

He had returned from a match for his old boys' club in the UK to play in it - recovering from a

broken rib, his performance in the big match was criticised as

ineffectual - and that summer he was gone, never to return, to start a journalism and publishing career.

'I think it probably did liven things up,' he said. 'The Priaulx had got into a bit of a rut, though things do change from time to time.'

Current Vale Rec president Tony Blondel said that the impact of the Williams transfers could never be underestimated at the Corbet Field.

'It certainly changed the club around. It changed to a more forward-looking club. Instead of just taking part it became about winning trophies.

And the success the club started to have attracted players.'

Vale at the time did have some very promising young players, including Blondel's brothers Ray and Peter, and they formed the basis of the powerful 70s side.

Blondel believes that such a revolution would be unlikely to happen today.

'I can never see a club getting eight top players - and these were nearly all island players - again in one go,' he said.