Balliol Boys’ Club supports youth activities in Oxford

They recently gave £300 to Barton Youth Club at Headington to replace cookery equipment which was “well past its best-before date”.

Another grant was given to the Windrush Valley Boxing Club at Bampton, near Witney, to buy extra sparring gloves for young boxers keen to improve their fitness.

The Balliol Boys’ Club Association is still active, with 22 members, plus wives, partners and family members attending the 2025 annual meeting and 18 sending their apologies.

The association’s latest 14-page news bulletin is packed with memories and pictures from the past, including letters written by members on active service during the First World War.

Another item recalls the Bridge family from Mill Street, Osney – brothers Richard and John were keen footballers and boxers.

John played in goal and earned the name ‘Bert’, after goalkeeper Bert Trautmann, who made crucial saves to earn Manchester City a 3-1 win in the 1956 FA Cup final despite suffering a broken neck earlier in the match.

Richard had a trial for Arsenal after being spotted by England captain Billy Wright, but was not within the age range for selection.

Len Tombs writes about his love of cricket, which began in the days “when children were told to go outside and play and not come back ‘till teatime”.

He recalled: “Two or three of us would practise batting, or bowling as fast as we could on a rough piece of ground. Others would join in and suddenly, there were enough of us for informal matches to be arranged.”

John Gaisford (Image: Oxford Mail)

Another member, John Gaisford, grew up in Bridge Street, Osney, in a house “with the usual outside toilet and newspaper on string!”

During his childhood in Botley, he enjoyed many ‘tuppenny’ ice creams, played football on the local ‘rec’ and fished at the bottom of Binsey Lane.

As a Balliol boy, he enjoyed football and cricket, in the latter hitting one mighty six – it appears the ball was never recovered!

Like me, many readers will remember his career as an Oxford Mail sports reporter.

The bulletin records: “He bemoaned the fact that nobody took photographs to go alongside his reports and was told to ‘get a camera then’. Take photos he did and his football, rugby and speedway photographs appeared regularly.

“John’s forte was speedway, not an easy sport to capture. He had his own column in the Mail called ‘Pit Stop’.

“In his time as a photographer, the film was developed at home – in the kitchen or the loft and delivered to the Mail offices the same evening, ready for the Mail the next day. None of this new-fangled stuff taking pictures on a phone.”

A photograph he took of Shipton-under-Wychwood cricketers won him a camera and the club £500 from the Cricketer magazine (see lower picture).

As we have recalled, Balliol Boys’ Club was formed in 1907 in an old sweet factory in Littlegate Street. A meeting of “young gentlemen from Balliol College” had decided to start a boys’ club, to be run by undergraduates, in the deprived parish of St Ebbe’s.

The formation of the club had been announced by the curate, the Rev Marks, at the Sunday afternoon service at Holy Trinity Church hall. The club’s history book records that “a surging crowd of boys besieged the premises on the opening night”.