An anniversary of sorts
June 2014 is here—can it really be forty years ago that Australia played Chile in Berlin on 22 June 1974? It’s a commemoration of sorts for me, as it has been every World Cup since then, in its small way, but the symmetry of the match against Chile has extra piquancy I suppose. I’ll be up in the morning to watch it, don’t worry, and if it ends in a nil all draw as it did in Germany all those years ago, I’ll be the proudest Socceroo fan on earth.
That year I was an eleven year old living in Edinburgh, a homesick Aussie boy trying to understand what on earth the kids at Gracemount Primary School were saying, surprised too that they couldn’t understand me. The first weeks and months went by feeling like a fish out of water at school, a Catholic who had to melt away in the playground shadows as my classmates pelted stones and snowballs at the Micks next door. But by the end of the year, though homesick and ready to come back to Melbourne, I had been warmly embraced by my class and could proudly recite a fair slab of Tam O’ Shanter with the best of them. It was soccer as much as anything that brought us together.
I gradually made a few friends at school. At lunch times, if I wasn’t eating school dinners in the cafeteria—lots of salty soup, mashed potatoes and haggis, huge pitchers of custard with a thick skin on top— I’d skive off with Gordon Finlay who lived over the road beyond the oval. We’d play Subbuteo, a soccer board game, and listen to David Bowie records. ‘Rebel Rebel’ was the latest hit, and all this pop culture was an eye opener to a swat like me from Melbourne who was brought up without a TV—it was the year that Waterloo won the Eurovision song contest, and I’ll never forget the music video of the Stones doing ‘It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll’ inside some kind of plastic tent as the bubbles rose to eventually swamp them.
That Australia made the finals in West Germany was some kind of heaven sent miracle, as it was of course for Scotland, forever in the soccer wilderness despite the passion of the tartan army. I remember the likes of Kenny Dalgleish, Jimmy Johnstone, Billy Bremner, Joe Jordan, Tommy Hutchinson, Denis Law. These were our schoolyard heroes. I remember one day being taken to visit a neighbour in our street, some retired soccer figure who showed me all his trophy cabinets—I didn’t really realise at the time, but it turned out to be John Grieg, the greatest Rangers player of all time.
So with Australia in the World Cup finals, in a group with East and West Germany as well as Chile, I could stand toe to toe with my playground mates Gordon and Stuart and Douglas, share in the camaraderie of the game, commiserate as we were bundled out after the group stage, swap the player cards that I seem to recall we bought in packs of bubble gum and which are now one of my prize keepsakes from that year (and check out the hairstyles!) along with a postcard from Munich and a first day cover of the World Cup stamps that I bought when we went to Germany in July as tourists.
That’s Stuart up the back left with his arms out, and Gordon at the front with his arms folded.
The year came slowly to an end, and life in Australia resumed in 1975. The Christmas card from my classmates they gave me just before we came back to Australia and a black and white photo of the boys in my class became more tenuous aides memoire as the years went by. For a year or so I kept up a correspondence with some of my close friends, but like all long distance relationships this eventually fell away.
In early 1976 my parents received a letter from Stuart Fraser’s stepfather Ronnie. A few of the boys in my class had belonged to the Gracemount Rovers Football Club, and in 1974-5 they had cleared the board of trophies in their comp. As a treat the organisers arranged for the boys to have a weekend in Liverpool to play some teams there and to watch a first division match. On the way back home their bus broke down, and the parents received a phone call late in the evening saying that the organisers were trying to arrange alternative transport back. Near midnight, Stuart’s mum Ada had a call from the police and was told that an articulated lorry carrying 30 tons of paper hit the bus and forced it down an embankment. Stuart was killed on the spot, and another boy died a week later. Ronnie and Stuart’s mum Ada had been married just a week before. ‘I hope you will explain this to your son Andrew in better terms than I have’, Ronnie wrote. I don’t think mum did at the time, but I found the letter later in her things.
So go the Socceroos, as I say with passion every time the World Cup comes round again. And as always I shed a private tear and think of you my lost boys and the dreams we had all those years ago. I hope you’ve got a good possie somewhere in the stands.
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Bryn Cymro 
Hey, just to add, it was my brother David who was the second boy to die. I knew Ronnie and Ada well, really lovely people. I saw Ronnie about two years ago, he was well and chatting away to my son David.
Great to hear from you Andrew. In another quirk of fate my own brother Peter was killed in a car accident in 1983 when we were in our early 20s. So you and I share something we would never have wished to, the pain of losing a brother. My thoughts go out to you and your family over the distance of continents and the chasm of all these years that have passed.
Yeah, I was ill and couldn’t make the trip.
The other lad that died was called
David Phillips.
Dougie Hunter was my next door neighbour.
That accident caused a lot of grief .
Never to be forgotten.
R I P
Thanks for your remembrance Mark.
Hey Bryn, sorry its taken nearly 5 years to respond. I totally lost sight of this blog. I’m sorry to hear about your brother. I was only 8 when David died and wasn’t sure what was happening. Losing family at our age is very hard, I really feel fro you mate. There is a group on Facebook called Gracemount High School (all years) hopefully this link will take you there: https://www.facebook.com/groups/265725686810384/?multi_permalinks=2449138391802425¬if_id=1563781087812614¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic
A lot of my friends were on that bus George Finlayson had just swapped seats with Stuart George is now my brother in-law and says he never takes things for granted I was pals with David as well as Andy Steven who was in a coma but pulled through I’m still friends with a lot of the guys that were on that bus
Hi Bryn,
I don’t know if this will be a duplicate post as I tried to post a little earlier but nothing seems to have come up yet.
I was on the bus that night when Stuart and David died. I was sitting in the back seat and was extremely lucky to escape with just a broken leg considering the lorry ran into the rear of the coach.
My family moved house a few years later and we actually ended up next door neighbours to Ronnie and Ada. They used to go down to the crash site every year on Stuarts anniversary. A nicer two people it would be difficult to imagine and losing Stuart so soon after marrying must’ve been horrific.
I went to Ada’s when I was about 21 and told her all I could remember at that time about the trip to Liverpool and how much Stuart had enjoyed the trip.
Andrew, I notice you’ve posted here too. It’s been a long long time since the accident but I still remember parts of it as clear as day.
At the time we were very young and unable to express grief properly to friends and family of those who lost loved ones that day. I’d like to take this opportunity to express my belated, but sincerely heartfelt sympathies to you and your family. David died a few days after the crash if memory serves. Being a parent and a grandparent now, I can’t begin to imagine how much that must’ve affected you and your parents.
Mark, I remember you were at the Rovers but I didn’t know you were supposed to be on the trip. I nearly didn’t make the trip either. I’d had a lot of work done at the dentist the day before and really didn’t feel like taking a trip anywhere. I think Gordon Wilson and Davie McGill, who both stayed close to me, might’ve helped me reconsider at the time.
I hope you’re all well.
Kenny Toal
Hi , I’m Gordon Wilson, was at Gracemount primary and was in the terrible bus accident. I’m also in this photo. I’m back row 2nd in from left looking over someone’s shoulder.
Stuart was a close friend and knew his mum Ada and Ronnie.
Very sad time , I was 12 the following day 7th April. Regards Gordon
Thanks so much Gordon for the thoughts — hard times, so long ago in our childhood, but wonderful to honour the memory.
So nice to read from you all, brings back a time of life that was difficult for everyone but should not be forgotten. My brother lived for football and that is the small comfort gained from this that he died doing the very thing he loved more than anything. I hope all the survivors have found peace in their lives and is lovely to read some are grandparents now. How time flies! I think about it often and hope that all those involved are doing well in their lives.
Thanks for the update Andrew. The World Cup always brings back these memories – those hard times in our lives are etched in our hearts, and while time doesn’t heal, it brings new hopes and other rewards in life. I hope all your Scots cheer as loudly for the Socceroos in Qatar as I have done for you guys over the years!