Former Dundee Lord Provost John Letford was tickled pink at the recent article featuring some of the boys teams he ran many moons ago.
They came from an album he used to compile and which was shown to me by his son Billy.
“Many thanks for your coverage of St Columba’s,” he opened. “It was great.
“The album must be a bit faded now and some of the names may not be all that clear.
“The player shown as Kenny Baird is, in fact, Kenny Brown, who also signed for Dundee United.”
Mike Milne featured in some of the teams under John and he was full of praise for his former manager.
“John had a great football brain and knew just how to get things right,” said Mike.
“Time and again he would pull a masterstroke in a game.
“He signed many, many great players and helped some of them on to pretty good careers in the game.
“I’ve always retained a high regard for John.”
Our final delve into John’s scrapbook is this St Columba’s photo, which must surely be of at least two teams at some sort of function in the mid-to-late 1970s.
John is actually not in this particular photo but, again, there are many in the picture who went on to have healthy careers in the game at senior, junior and local amateur level.
Some of those I can pick out are Dundee FC’s Brian Scrimgeour (fourth from left at back) and official Dave McHardy (back, right), who previously ran the Butterburn Youth Club U/16 team when I played with them.
Second bottom, third from right, is Billy ‘Seagull’ Gallacher, who played for many years with Forfar Athletic, and who I see annually at the Auchterhouse/Glendale reunion golf day.
Sitting immediate front left is Norrie Vannart, who joined me as a team-mate at Douglas Amateurs in the early 1980s, which had Billy McCluskey as manager.
His sizzling 40-yard screamer in our final league game one season against SS Peter and Paul gave us victory in that match.
This allowed us to pip then kingpins Riverside Athletic to the Angus Amateur FA Division One title.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.