THIS week in Down Memory Lane we follow a Grays football team and the memories of one of its players.

George Healy recently came across his football team photograph which was published in the Thurrock Gazette around May 1953 causing him to seriously reminisce!

George recalls: “I played for a team called the Sherfield Rangers, named because most of the team came from, or close to, Sherfield Road.

“I lived in Exmouth Road (named after the training ship at Grays) which ran eastwards at a right angle from Sherfield Road towards the Echoes (a large detached property once owned by the Seabrooke brewing family and later used by the Grays Co-op), roughly along the line where Seabrooke Rise is today.

The photograph was taken because we had won the league. It was a league which we and a number of like-minded kids (aged about 15) around Thurrock had formed. The only other team I can recall was Connaught Rangers, probably linked to Connaught Avenue.

The photograph was taken on our pitch which was down by the river, where the grain terminal is today. It was flooded in 1953, but once the flood had subsided a layer of whitish dry mud coated the pitch.

Behind us was Jumbo Bridge (an industrial railway leading from the Globe pit to the river last used in the Second World War).

Standing left to right, back row: Frank Beenie, Edwin Megran, Paddy Megran, John Hughes, Bernie Steer, unknown, Michael Moss, Brian Unwin – manager of Unwin’s Motors in Clarence Road. Front row: ? Lobley, George Healy, Derek Lobley, Ross Livermore, Vincent Webb, Dennis Unwin.

After each match we played Paddy Megran would send a report of the match, written in pencil, to the Thurrock Gazette which it always published.”

George would be pleased to hear from the other players, so please contact me through my e-mail address or call me at the museum and I will pass on the information and contacts.