COCHRANE CORRY CUP REUNION – SEPTEMBER 2019   

29 August 2019

 

Cast your mind back to 1968 – Harold Wilson was British Prime Minister, the Vietnam War was being waged in Asia, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his I've Been to the Mountaintop speech in Memphis, Tennessee and it was the year the Queen’s Second XI won the Cochrane Corry Cup.

 

Over 50 years on from that famous victory, and 16 months after Queen’s Football Club won the Irish FA Intermediate Cup, its first major silverware outside university football, a call has gone out to members of the illustrious Cochrane Corry Cup winning Queen’s team, to mark their milestone achievement.  

 

Coinciding with a return trip home for former Seconds team captain Danny Rooney (BA English 1967), plans are being made for a special reunion on the evening of Wednesday 25 September.

 

Former Queen’s FC member Brendan Fulton (BA 1967) explains: “Danny has been living in Melbourne Australia for over 40 years and is making a return visit to Belfast in September 2019.

 

“Despite the short time frame, I thought it would a pity to neglect an opportunity to organise an informal get-together of some kind during Danny’s visit.”

 

As always with such alumni events, the main difficulty lies in contacting individuals who, in most cases, graduated 50 years ago and may no longer be in touch with the University. The Development and Alumni Relations Office at Queen’s is currently working on a number of initiatives to try to track down the members of the team to enable Brendan to issue the all-important invitation.  

 

Initiated in 1963, when it was decided that the Border Cup should be confined to teams in the First Division, and a new competition – the Cochrane Corry Cup – was instituted for the Second Division sides.  

 

“The Cochrane Corry Cup was a knock-out competition within the Northern Amateur Football Leagues,” said Brendan. “It was a significant success for Queen’s FC in, for us, a non-academic-world competition.The Club had already established a proud record in inter-varsity football.

 

“It would be wonderful to catch up with former teammates – especially those who are still living locally – and to relive some of the camaraderie of those days of the late 1960s before we all left University and were scattered to the four corners of the globe,” he added. 

 

“This is an inclusive call as there was much interchange of personnel between Firsts, Seconds, Thirds etc. Many, not in the team photo, contributed to the Cup winning and to being runners-up in the league,” concluded Brendan.

 

The team pictured above outside the soon-to-be-demolished Students' Union on the last day of the 1967/8 season are (back row L-R): Ashley Thompson, Brendan Fulton, Les Spence, Tom McGrath, Bobby Duncan and Bobby Mearns; (front row L-R): Alan Roy, Brian Dean, Danny Rooney, Denis Maguire and Trevor Walker.  

 

Former members of the team, or those closely associated with it in 1967/68, who are interested in meeting up on 25 September are asked to contact Brendan Fulton for further details of the event. For more on Queen’s University Association Football Club visit the Club’s website.

 

To submit graduate news items, or for general enquiries about this story, please contact Gerry Power, Communications Officer, Development and Alumni Relations Office, Queen's University Belfast or telephone: +44 (0)28 9097 5321.

 

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