BOB Gray was a talented young footballer whose life was cut short by illness.The schoolboy international died at the age of 16 in 1949 from a rare blood disease.

He was taken to the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, with a cancerous germ in his bloodstream and his condition slowly worsened.

It is believed he contracted the disease when he cut his foot on the beach at Bembridge, Isle of Wight, where he was staying with fellow members of the 1st Oxford company, Boys’ Brigade.

Our interest in him was sparked by two recent references to the Bob Gray Cup, which school teams competed for every year in his memory.

Long-serving Oxford City secretary John Shepperd has provided details of Bob’s short but successful career from his vast collection of archive material.

Bob was the eldest of three sons of Mr and Mrs William Gray, of Edith Road, South Oxford, and excelled at sport.

He was a keen athlete, cricketer and tennis player, but football was his first love. He was said to have started kicking a ball as soon as he could walk, and he was playing for his primary school team by the age of seven.

For two seasons, he captained the South Oxford Secondary School team and led them to victory in many competitions.

During the 1946-7 and 1947-8 seasons, he also captained the Oxford Boys’ teams and took them to the quarter-finals of the English Schools’ Championship Shield.

He gained his first international cap against Wales at Swansea on May 3, 1947. He also played for England against Scotland, Eire and Northern Ireland in the same season.

The following season, he played against Eire and Northern Ireland again.

At the time, he was believed to be the only boy in the history of English schoolboy football to represent his country in three different positions on the football field – centre half, right half and left half.

He also played for Oxford City’s colts and reserve teams and his ambition was to gain a regular place in the first team.

After leaving school, he worked in the surveyor’s office at Radley College and was hoping to train as an architect.

Football remained his focus even in his last few hours of life in hospital, as he relived with his family the many exciting moments he had enjoyed on the field.

He told his father he was going to play football “better than ever before” and when he kicked in bed and his father asked him if he had just taken a penalty kick, a smile spread slowly over Bob’s face.

A large congregation attended his funeral at St Matthew’s Church near his family home and a tribute in our sister paper, The Oxford Times, read: “He was a quiet, unassuming lad without the slightest trace of conceit, a grand sportsman on and off the field.When captaining Oxford Boys, he was an inspiration to the team.”

The only mystery remaining is the whereabouts of the Bob Gray Cup. It was originally known as the Schools’ Knockout Cup, but was renamed in his memory. It was a fitting memorial as South Oxford School had won the cup twice when Bob was captain.

Can anyone tell us what happened to the trophy?

Memory Lane this week

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