Just Added: 1956 Ashbury Team Photo

About a month ago, I posted a summary of Carleton's 1953 season pulled from the following year's school yearbook. The 1957 Ashbury College yearbook is the source of the images below, now appearing on the BCS Old Boys Cup page.

I believe there is an error in the first name of the third row. "Tiny" Hermann's full name is Charles Bismark Hermann so the "P" was probably intended to be a "B". He is referred to as C.B. Hermann on an earlier page. 

I like the mention of the Old Boys Cup in the photo. Coverage of this trophy, awarded annually for many years to the winner of competition between Ashbury and Bishop's College, is sometimes spotty so it's easy to wonder how big a deal it really was.

Back to Hermann, the image below was also from that same yearbook. It is nor clear if it was taken during a match-up against Bishop's so I didn't include it on Old Boys Cup the page but still thought it needed to be shared. If you're not familiar with Hermann, he played many years with the Rough Riders, was Carleton's first coach when the program began and, apparently, well-liked by his Ashbury players. He's a member of the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame.

Just Added: 1945 Old Boys Cup, Game 1, Ashbury 05, Bishop's 02

The summary of the second game in the home-and-away, total points series between Ashbury College and Bishop's (then) College had been located some time ago, but that of the first game revealed itself today. I also landed a picture of that 1945 team with line-up included.

At the other end of the page, any record of the Old Boy's Cup contest between these two teams I had found only reached 1969 but I managed to find mentions of it again in 1972 and 1976. Evidently it ran a little longer than originally thought so I'll be adding details as I come across them.

Elaborating on the Old Boys Cup

I wrote a post last October about the Old Boys Cup series between Ashbury and Bishop's that ran for a couple of decades. I've decided to create a page dedicated to it after all and it is now available above under the banner image but still under heavy construction.

Pictured below is the 1954 edition of the team which went 8-0 and, of course, won that trophy. 

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.