In recording the sports lore of Tavistock for the last half century and more, as requested by the Tavistock Rotary Club, may I say or do so gladly, and trust it does not become too boring or monotonous.

Be forewarned, however, that this historical compilation is being written strictly from a fading memory and, consequently, I am avoiding dates, except a few of which I am certain.

The hope is that you will bear with me in the even I overlook one or more incidents and a lot of names.

And please, pardon me, because I am delving farther back into history than fifty years ago. My reason, of course, is that I lived in Tavistock from 1901 to 1930, with the exception of about one year and a half, when I was employed by the old Traders Bank in Stoney Creek and Winona, and later in Hamilton, where I learned the printing trade.

So, under these circumstances, I recall, as a six-year old boy and on into young manhood, some sports events in "My Favourite Village".

I trust this feeble effort will be accepted with favor by the good citizens and former residents of Tavistock.
     L.W. "Chick" Appel
     Sports Editor,
     Stratford Beacon-Herald

THE FAMILY

While soccer football was the major sport in Tavistock, when my parents, my two sisters and I moved there from Milverton in 1901, it has departed from the scene completely today, as in the case in many towns, villages and hamlets in this neck of Western Ontario.

If I may be pardoned for writing the first person and alluding to my person sports career, may I say I was infected with the "sportitis virus" when I was a youngster of 5 and my father pitched a baseball for my native heath, Milverton. I recall my mother tending store - my dad's harness shop - while he pitched baseball out of town, in Monkton and other centres, on a Saturday afternoon. It was then, sports got into my blood.

For the information of the younger generations and other folks, who did not know my late and ever revered father, who passed away in the 1930, his full name was William Martin Appel. In all modesty I may add that he was Reeve of Tavistock for over ten years in the early 1900's and Warden of Oxford County in 1914.

So that was my brief baptism into sports, and then I really got into it up to my neck in Tavistock, as a Public School pupil, when soccer was in its heyday.

SCHOOL SPORTS

And they had some great soccer teams. They played against, and often won, over, rival teams from much larger centres, such as Toronto, Woodstock, Stratford, Kitchener and Owen Sound.

During my Public and High School days in Tavistock, our Village boasted Perth and Oxford teams, because the boundary line between the two counties is Hope Street, which runs east and west through the centre of it.

The pupils later competed in hockey and baseball too, and while I may be a bit partisan, the Perth team usually won in all of these sports. From the schools, boys emerged to form the bulk of Tavistock's teams in organized sport, such as The Western Football Association. Northern Hockey League, North Oxford Baseball League. Some of the Oxford players in all of these sports were: Bert, Bill, Gord and Fritz Ratz (Adam's sons). Eldon Burn, Charlie "Punch" Matthies, Milt Matthies, Harvey and Clarence Kruspe, Roy and Wally Reynolds, Dan Kreh, Bert Wettlaufer, Pete and Mart Woelfle, Val Stock, Bob Krug and many others whose names do not come to mind.

PLAYERS

On the Perth teams were Bill and Charlie Ratz (Sam's sons). Wilbert "Dandy" Croft and his brother Jack, Stan McDermott, Jim "Scotty" Field, Charlie Weicker, Henry "Mike" Gerhardt, George "Butch" Fred "Fish", Henry "Fin" and Charlie "Jibber" Quehl, Russell "Hoofey" Eckstein, Henry "Ikey" Eckstein, Ernst "Fancy" Seltzer, the Mather brothers "Doc" and "Nubby". George Hanke, Bob Rudy, Carl Loth, Walter Siegner, "Doc" Wilker and so many I just don't recall.

Other Tavistock soccer players were: Fred Case, Charlie, Bill and Walt Kaufman and Roy Pearson of Casssel; "Snowy" Boyden of Wooestock, and Charlie Borthwick, Jack Goodger, Dave McIntosh and Andy Fisher of Stratford.

OWEN SOUND INCIDENT

The junior soccer team so well remembered when I was a teen-ager, was the one of 1909, I believe, which defeated Owen Sound on their home grounds, 3-0 after batttling to a tie in the first game in Tavistock. Our team travelled to Owen Sound for the second game by "Special train", as they called it then, and resorted to some subterfuge, Employed by the Tavistock Branch of the former Western Bank was Gifford King, a Hickson native, who was actually ineligible for junior soccer, because he was older than 21, the age limit. But he was given a close shave and had his face well powdered before hopping the "rattler," and, being of slight build and short, he and the Tavistock team" got away" with it.

After a span of nearly 60 years, we had the pleasure of renewing acquaintances with "Giff" King at a lawn-bowling tournament in Stratford this August, 1967, and the main topic of reminiscing was that memorable junior soccer match in Owen Sound. Now in his 85th year and residing in Woodstock "Giff" remembered the hectic time our players and supporters experienced in getting out of the northern city at the conclusion of the match. So incensed were the Owen Sound fans at the shut-out their team had absorbed, that they actually mobbed the visitors. It was pretty much a case of "Your're on your own", as the Tavistock players grabbed their street clothes and raced for the "special", where they changed from their soccer uniforms.

The Tavistock fans were subjected to the same treatment of "hospitality and afarewell" from the Owen Sound fans, and by the time the train pulled out, hardly a pane of glass in the coaches remained intact.

One thing we did not recall, but "Giff" did, was his suspension by the powers that were in the W.F.A., when he was hauled up on the carpet a meeting in Walkerton, for playing for Tavistock, when he exceeded the junior age limit. Although he was penalized, the result of the match stood as played, and Tavistock was awarded the two-match, home-and-home playoff series.