The Bosley shield

A MAGNIFICENT TROPHY trophy remembering a Bourne lad who died in the Great War has been handed over to the Heritage Centre for public display after being used in a local football competition for 80 years.

It was presented to the town in memory of John Albert Victor Bosley, son of Henry and Ellen Bosley, who had been working as a farm hand but decided to emigrate and in 1913, then aged 17, sailed for Australia aboard the steamship Hawkes Bay.

When the war broke out in 1914, he volunteered for military service and after being rejected twice, he was eventually accepted for the army and enlisted at Thomastown near Melbourne, Victoria, on March 16th and was assigned to D Company of the 39th Battalion, the Australian Imperial Force, where he trained as a despatch rider.

Both his father and grandfather had served in the army and there is evidence that Victor felt it was a family duty to join up because he wrote home to his mother: “Somebody must come and fight for you and I would sooner be shot than called a coward.”

Ironically, he was posted back to England for further training at Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire and in the summer of 1916, returned to his home town to visit his mother. The following year he was serving in Belgium with II Anzac Corps and tragically, he was killed during the Battle of Passchendale in October 1917. He was 21 years old.

Victor’s father had been working as a porter at the railway station in Peterborough in 1902 when he was killed by an express train as he was about to uncouple an engine and his mother was married again to Ben Pick and they were living in Bedehouse Bank, Eastgate, Bourne. She suggested to several local football enthusiasts that she would like her son to be remembered with a shield which she would present for an annual competition among boys’ teams from the locality aged under 16 and accordingly, an inaugural meeting was held at the Bull Hotel (now the Burghley Arms) on 25th November 1920. The idea was well received and it was resolved that the trophy would be known as the Victor Bosley Shield and bear the inscription: “Presented by his mother in remembrance of her son who was killed in the Great War, 4th October 1917.”

The clubs competing that year came from Ryhall, Castle Bytham, Corby Glen, South Witham, Billingborough and Dowsby, and Bourne Juniors who became the first winners, the final being played at the Abbey Lawn on 1st September 1921, the team being W Hinson, G Everett, J H Moody, F Rosier, A Dibben, J Sones, T Colman, P Sensicle, N Hinson, F Hinson, A Cropley, J Luesby, A Hemment, R Cropley, T Dewey, C Smith and C Twell.

The competition continued successfully until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 but was suspended until the cessation of hostilities in 1945 when it was revived with Bourne Youth Association winning the trophy for the 1945-46 season from an entry of nine teams.

The shield measures 15 inches wide by 20 inches deep and is made of wood with a beaten copper panel depicting a soccer match in the centre and surrounded by small silver plaques giving the names of the winners from that first year until the final season of presentation in 1999-2000 (Deeping Rangers). Other winners have included Peterborough Lincoln Road Old Boys (1932-33), Morton Juniors (1948-49), Quadring Juniors (1949-50), Folkingham Juniors (1971-72) and Bourne Property Services Junior Football Club (1997-98). It was awarded a total of 66 times but not all of the winners' names are on silver plaques. One or two are on sticky paper, perhaps because funds did not run to the additional expense that year.

The most successful season must have been in 1948-49 when the takings at the final tie between Morton Juniors and Colsterworth Juniors at the Abbey Lawn amounted to almost £57 but as the game ended in a draw, a replay was necessary and this added a further £64 to the grand total of over £121, and after various donations to the finalists and the competing clubs, the money was given to three local hospitals, the Bourne, the Butterfield and Stamford.

Many well known sportsmen began their careers in this competition, among them Eric Houghton, the former Billingborough schoolboy who went on to play for Notts County, Aston Villa and was capped for England, Chris Woods who played for Glasgow Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday and England and Peter Grummitt who was a Nottingham Forest goalkeeper for many seasons.

In more recent years, the competition struggled to survive, always prey to outside influences such as full league programmes, other competitions and a backlog of games caused by inclement weather and the age group was amended from 16 year olds to under 14s in an attempt to encourage more entrants.

The competition continued until the 2000-01 season but the writing was on the wall and it became impossible to carry on because of lack of support and dwindling funds. It was a sad decision particularly for Philip (Ben) Casey of Mill Drove, Bourne, leading member of the organising committee because he is a direct descendent of Victor Bosley who was his great uncle. It was decided that the shield should go to the Heritage Centre in South Street for safe-keeping and public display but there is always the hope that it might be coming back into use. “The competition has never been formally terminated”, he said. "Mothballed might be a better word and there is always the hope that it may be revived in the future and 2017 seems like a good year to mark the centenary of Victor Bosley's death.”

Meanwhile, Victor Bosley is remembered elsewhere because he is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres in Belgium along with 54,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who have no marked graves and his name is also included in the Roll of Honour of Australia at the Memorial War Museum in Canberra and also appears on the war memorial in Bourne.