1962

The 1962-63 report described an ‘acute’ situation due to the lack of voluntary workers. This lack lead to the deterioration in standards of behaviour which ultimately undermined the good work the Florrie sought to do. The absence of voluntary works between the hours of 6-7.30pm meant that the club would be forced to close its door to what it described as the ‘problem’ group of 11-14 year olds.

However, the report was not too pessimistic, and celebrated the tremendous range of interests catered for at the club. Special thanks was given to Charlie Taylor, manager of football teams and preserver of good behaviour, and Robin Farmer, a Member of the Management Committee and instrumental in making the Florrie swimmers amongst the best in Liverpool.

The Junior football team travelled to Belfast to play the Castlereagh Youth Association of Northern Ireland, in the first leg of a three cornered contest between Liverpool, Belfast and Glasgow. The weather was so bad that the match had to be abandoned after only ten minutes, and the experience of one of the worst return crossings of the winter made for a memorable weekend!

If anyone doubted the impossibility of running the Club without the help of efficient volunteers they were directed to look to the example of the volunteer football manager, whom amongst shouldering the blame for an unsuccessful team ‘has little control of the playing ability of his lads but is expected to accept the onus when the team is defeated, patch them up when injured, worry himself grey when he sees his lads being beaten, have a skin of steel when he makes an unpopular decision in choice of team, and still buy them coffee in the Canteen on Fridays..’

New for this season was an experimental Wireless Building Group: ‘Several old television sets had been given to the Club and a small group of lads, under a new voluntary helper, began to dismantle them and rebuild one good one together with a small wireless for the Canteen.’

The Adventure Club spent a very cold weekend potholing in North Wales, so cold in fact that they elected to stay down one day, as it was warmer! One of the lads remarked, ‘We might as well be Devils and stay in the Fires of Eternity than be Angels and freeze on the peaceful hills of Wales..’ They again visited the Isle of Arran, but the weather was so bad – rain, snow and hail- that it was suggested they abandon camp and return to the mainland. This was met with severe indignation from the Florrie lads, ‘the idea was greeted with very derisive remarks of a kind not unknown in the Dingle’ who baulked at the mere thought of ‘jacking it in’. The lads showed great fortitude and ingenuity, fashioning lean-tos in a gully from old tarpaulin and tins scavenged from the beach, and made comfortable seats from driftwood and nails out of a ship’s hatch cover.

Trips to Scotland involved a Pioneer Team travelling to Glasgow to play the Garthamloch Boy’s Club for the weekend ‘we got hammered well and truly but as was stated at the Dinner afterwards, ‘Come down over the Border and you’ll soon see what Liverpool football is really like. ..’’

A party of Seniors went on a summer expedition to the continent, the majority of which was spent in Holland.

The Fiesta Club, four years in existence, retained its popularity, at 150 attendances per dance.