Maple celebrates 90 years

The club actually reached this important milestone during 2007, having been founded in the year 1917 by a group of old boys of Queen’s Royal and St Mary’s Colleges.

Football was the main sporting activity in its early years but the club went on to play cricket at the highest local level soon afterwards and also branched off to other disciplines such as Table Tennis, Lawn Tennis and Billiards, earning championships along the way and producing individual champions from time to time.

Maple Club has had the good fortune of having among its membership many nationals who have distinguished themselves in the sporting and academic fields nationally and internationally.

Among them are Dr Aldwyn G Francis, many times Maple president and also Head of the National Football and Cricket Associations; Victor Bruce, first Governor of the Central Bank; and Sir Hugh Wooding, first local Chief Justice. Other prominent club members included Sir Courtnay Hannays, a legal luminary; Ainsworth Harewood former Maple cricketer and also later Governor of the Central Bank; and Professor Courtney Bartholomew, internationally recognised medical researcher.

Listed among Maple’s heroes are Clifford Archibald Roach, the first centurion and double centurion of West Indian cricket; Prior Jones and Lance Pierre, West Indies fast bowlers, Ralph Legall (WI wicket keeper), Andy Ganteaume, who can lay claim to the highest test batting average, and Ellis “Puss” Achong, West Indian slow bowler, maybe the only test player of Chinese heritage.

Over the years Maple won the national cricket championship and also had individual members — Ollie Corbie and others — selected on the national team.

In football Maple lays claim to being the first club with the distinction of an entire front line of JAR “Babsie” Daniel, Clifford A Roach, Sydney de Coteau, Ellis “Puss” Achong and Harold Achong being selected to play for TT. This famous group also included international cricketers Clifford Roach and Ellis “Puss” Achong.

The Malvern football club is the only other club to have gained this distinction several years later.

In later years the Maple midfield line of Conrad Braithwaite, Allan Joseph and Noel Winn became the first club midfield line to be selected en bloc to represent TT. It is now history that in 1965 another Maple midfielder, Sedley Joseph, was elected captain of Trinidad and Tobago’s first World Cup Football squad, a team that included Maple players Lincoln “Tiger” Phillips, now technical director of TT football; Kenny Furlonge, Tyrone “Tank” de Labastide, Andy Aleong and Alvin Corneal.

Maple probably has the longest list of players who have represented TT in football over the years, including current national goalkeeper Clayton Ince.