GOT a message this week from “Curly” Harrison, a former son of Haydock now living in America. It turns out he was an old classmate of mine.

Real name Ken Harrison, he was keenly interested in my picture and piece about the great national-winning Haydock Secondary Modern School soccer team of more than 60 years ago.

He’s keen to get a shot of the team; and I’m doing all I can to obtain him a copy.

“My nickname was Curly ,” writes Ken, “and I played Shylock in the Merchant of Venice, put on by the school. John Larkin (one of the old soccer team) played Antonio and I think a girl called Irene Peppard played Portia.”

Ken saw my recent article on the internet about Cliff Birkett, who became a top-scoring England Schoolboy International and later signed, briefly, for Manchester United.. Ken’s interested in obtaining a list of all his old class members.

“I can remember quite a few. There was Gordon Berry, Eric Westhead, Alf Ashcroft, Tom Tattersall, Eric Smethurst, Ron Stockley, Roy Harrison and his cousin, Eric Harrison.

Sadly, Cliff and his cousin Eric died. And others on his memory list have also passed away.

  • BUT can anyone provide a class-list? If so, please forward it to me so that I can pass it on to Curly who provides his own e-mail address.