The Old Boys Cup

I find Ashbury's football program simultaneously fascinating and intimidating. It seems that no matter what era I happen to be researching for info about the many teams from Ottawa, I come across a mention of Ashbury playing football on some level, whether it's referred to as senior, intermediate, whatever.

Such an occurrence took place again today when, while filling some gaps (and making corrections) to my Carleton history section, I found an article pertaining to the Old Boys Cup.

I would love to record Ashbury's history but it's a daunting task and one for which I don't know where to begin. The school opened in 1891 and it sure seems as though they started playing football the next day.

So for now, we'll settle with Old Boys Cup series, the first installment of which was played in 1945 and is described below, courtesy of The Ottawa Journal.

You can probably mathematically work out the score of the first game of the series. Ashbury defeated Bishop's 5-2 in Lennoxville on October 9th, 1945.

Not that it's particularly relevant, but the other team in the "Little Big Three" was Lower Canada College.

I don't yet know with full certainty how long the two schools played this two-game-total-points series and/or whether it was always for the Cup. The following year, in 1946, Bishop's won 10-5 and while it was referred to as a game for the Old Boys Cup, no mention of another game to generate a two-game total is found (at least at this point).

Then some later recaps of the series will treat it as a total points series but not mention the cup. The trophy is said to be returning to Ashbury in 1953 "after a long absence" so I suspect that a lack of success caused the coverage of the series to be little sparse after that initial 1945 victory.

Ashbury would continue to win it right through to 1960, and again in 1962 and 1963. Bishop's narrowly reclaimed it in 1964 and started a winning streak of their own. Ashbury was only again able to win it in 1969 and at the point the game had become an exhibition contest.

Back to 1945:

Referee Des Bloom ended up coaching Carleton in 1946.

Nowadays, Ashbury is playing in the NCSSAA and sporting a 4-1 record. They will face winless St. Patrick later this week to close out the regular season.