SIR – I have enjoyed seeing the old sports photos on the letters page in recent weeks and hope Worcester News readers may be interested in the Spartans football team in the 1960s.

Spartans were so-called because we started with mostly ex-Grammar and King’s lads.

We played on Perdiswell where the changing rooms and the pitches were spartan in nature to say the least.

The 1960/61 team played in the fifth division of the Worcester League on Saturdays.

There was no organised Sunday football allowed in those days.

That year three of the youth teams from the previous year containing some of the best footballers in Worcestershire decided to remain together rather than filter into various senior teams.

The league in its wisdom decided that Barbourne Youth, Pershore Junior Old Boys and St Paul’s Youth would all play against us lesser mortals in the lowest division and work their way to the higher reaches where they really belonged.

Barbourne broke all the Worcester League records that year and we played them in the first game and lost 9-2 (scoring first) and this proved to be an extremely good performance compared with what they and the other two top teams did to us and the other lesser teams during the season.

Essentially, this spoilt the season for the lads who normally played in the lower leagues and after a while I doubt whether the Barbourne lads really enjoyed banging in 30-plus goals virtually every week.

The following season the three ex-youth teams were promoted to a much higher station (Barbourne to division one, I think) and we lower mortals were left to play among our peers.

Happy days.

PETER G GETHING

Worcester