Post by Budleigh on Oct 7, 2010 17:56:42 GMT
This story was written by Alec Adrian who has appeared on a number of other threads, most notably in the one showing another book of his ‘Dunkirk Sportsmen’ (the link is at the end of this thread) which gave a wonderful history of his time at Plainmoor in the early 1930’s as a reserve team player.
This following book is the one hinted at in the 'Magpies win the FA Cup' thread and was published in the 1970’s. It is a fictional account of a Devon Third Division team nicknamed ‘The Magpies’ and obviously based on Torquay United. It is a story of a player joining the club before the Second World War then going off to Belgium with his unit, his subsequent involvement at Dunkirk, and then his return to Devon as manager, with the success at Wembley this brings.
It is written very much in the style of the 1940’s and many youngsters may see it as a bit of a ‘Fast Show’ style parody, but it shows the era that Adrian lived in and as the experiences described in Belgium and Dunkirk mirror his own life it would appear that Alec Adrian wrote this as a fantasy scenario that he may well have wished had happened to him.
This is obviously a fictional account but there are also a couple of photos in there of Torquay United interest including a group of four players from the early thirties and a representative team from the ‘Devon Wednesday Senior League’ of the 1935/36 season which played at Bristol against Gloucester, as well as some quite amusing line drawings. There are also some aspects of playing for United that Adrian obviously draws from his experiences at the club and his knowledge of it afterwards especially the draw of the club for players at the time, which ties in with the other thread on how much easier it was to get players to move to Devon in previous decades, even during the 1960’s as mentioned by Frank O’Farrell.
So there we go, the Magpies of South-Devon really did win the FA Cup at Wembley!
The following is the link to ‘Dunkirk Sportsmen' by Alec Adrian which is a true account of his time at Torquay United.
www.torquayfansforum.com/index.cgi?board=tufchistory&action=display&thread=4159
This following book is the one hinted at in the 'Magpies win the FA Cup' thread and was published in the 1970’s. It is a fictional account of a Devon Third Division team nicknamed ‘The Magpies’ and obviously based on Torquay United. It is a story of a player joining the club before the Second World War then going off to Belgium with his unit, his subsequent involvement at Dunkirk, and then his return to Devon as manager, with the success at Wembley this brings.
It is written very much in the style of the 1940’s and many youngsters may see it as a bit of a ‘Fast Show’ style parody, but it shows the era that Adrian lived in and as the experiences described in Belgium and Dunkirk mirror his own life it would appear that Alec Adrian wrote this as a fantasy scenario that he may well have wished had happened to him.
This is obviously a fictional account but there are also a couple of photos in there of Torquay United interest including a group of four players from the early thirties and a representative team from the ‘Devon Wednesday Senior League’ of the 1935/36 season which played at Bristol against Gloucester, as well as some quite amusing line drawings. There are also some aspects of playing for United that Adrian obviously draws from his experiences at the club and his knowledge of it afterwards especially the draw of the club for players at the time, which ties in with the other thread on how much easier it was to get players to move to Devon in previous decades, even during the 1960’s as mentioned by Frank O’Farrell.
So there we go, the Magpies of South-Devon really did win the FA Cup at Wembley!
The following is the link to ‘Dunkirk Sportsmen' by Alec Adrian which is a true account of his time at Torquay United.
www.torquayfansforum.com/index.cgi?board=tufchistory&action=display&thread=4159
That's the sort of yarns kids of my vintage now grew up reading in the fifties and early sixties. I'd never heard of this wonderful book and how apt that the author chose the mighty Tottenham Hotspur as our Final victims.....................now what did he "know"?
