Lanarkshire
Miners
The Official Gridball Site
The Lanarkshire Story
Originally formed in 1948 as the Ayr Spiders, they changed their name and colours in 1950 to become the Lanarkshire Miners, representing South and West Scotland. The team joined elite Gridball in 1952, reaching the quarter finals in 1953 and 1955. However, it wasn't until 1959 that they threw down a serious title challenge, winning the bronze medal and coupling it with consecutive Cup Final appearances.
Vivienne Havergal. Was out of the team while studying © Linwelly
Lanarkshire Miners
Bronze Medallists 1959
Formed 1948
Colours: Persimmon and Mango
Feeder Teams: Aye Spiders, Lanark Rifles, Hamilton Alumni, Paisley Buddies, Dumbarton Daughters
Bronze Medallists 1959
Cup Runners Up 1959 & 1960
Record Appearances:
Yvonne Prussia 144 {1952-1960}
Record Scorer:
Una Kier {Crosbie} 65 {1952-1958}
Record Victory
11-0 vs Sunderland Wasps {23rd April 1955}
Record Defeat
0-10 at Liverpool Liverbirds {15th March 1952}
Most Goals in a Game
{6} June Walker 11-0 vs Sunderland {23rd April 1955}
{6} Pamela Potter 9-1 vs Berne {17th May 1958}
{6} Eileen March 7-1 vs Croyson {21st May 1960}
Most Goals in a Season
{33} Eileen March {1960}
Season History
1952 First Round
1953 Quarterfinalists
1954 First Round
1955 Quarterfinalists
1956 Second Round
1957 First Round
1958 Second Round
1959 Bronze Medal - Cup Runners Up
1960 Fourth Place - Cup Runners Up
Lanarkshire Team
{25th March 1961}
Coach: Hazel Todd: Age 43: Rated 7: {Star}
Coached Dublin to the 1953 title
Netminder: Susan Rodgers: Age 18: Rated 5: {Excellent}
Lanark debut in place of Prussia in this match
Left Guard: Eleanor Butler: Age 30: Rated 5 {Excellent}
Double Cup Runner Up 1959 & 1960
Right Guard: Nicole Lesch: Age 20: Rated 5 {Excellent}
New signing from Potsdam, German International
Sweeper: Hilary Scoffield: Age 26: Rated 6 {World Class}
Open Cup Runner Up 1959 & 60
Centre: Magda Miller: Age 25: Rated 6 {World Class}
Won the title with Glasgow in 1955
Attacker: Jean Trend: Age 25: Rated 6 {World Class}
Team of the Year 1957 when with Cheshire
Shooter: Eileen March: Age 27: Rated 7 {Star}
Silver Bat 1960
Players of the Year
None
Young Players of the Year
None
Team of the Season
Vivienne Havergal {1959}
Golden Bat
None
Silver Bat
Eileen March {1960}
Bronze Bat
None
Nations Cup Champions
None
International Representatives
Lois Crosbie {Scotland 1958 - 3rd & 1959}
Phyllidia Gilan {Scotland 1958 - 3rd & 1959-1960}
Magda Miller {Scotland 1959-1960}
Una Kier {Scotland 1960}
Sigurbjörg Sveinsdóttir {Iceland 1960}
1961 Team Rating: Excellent
1961 WORLD RANKING: 4
Highest {4} 1961
Unavailable: Vivienne Havergal: Age 25: Rated 7 {Star}
Team of the Year 1959 - Left Guard
Lanarkshire Legend
Lois Crosbie: 116 appearances, 9 goals {1953-1959} - Bronze Medallist 1959, Open Cup Runner Up 1959, Scotland - Nations Cup Bronze Medal 1958
Vivienne Havergal: 64 appearances, 6 goals {1959-1961} - Bronze Medallist 1959, Open Cup Runner Up 1959 &1960
Eileen March: 71 appearances, 57 goals {1958-} - Bronze Medallist 1959, Open Cup Runner Up 1959 & 1960, Silver Bat 1960.
Lois Crosbie
Gridball Bronze Medallist 1959
Open Cup Runner Up 1959
Scottish International and Bronze Medallist 1958
Date and place of Birth: 31st March 1934: Lanark, Scotland
Age: 26
Position: Right Guard
Debut: 1953
Appearances: 116 {1953-1959}
Goals: 9 {1953-1958}
Career: Lanarkshire {1953-1959} Joined Monmouthshire Beacons in 1960 {23 appearances, 9 goals}
{22nd October 1961}
Lanarkshire's one time appearance record holder who was the first to make 100 Miners appearances in 1959. Both Lois and younger sister, Una played Hockey for Lanarkshire Grammar School before joining the Miners in 1950 when the team was set up in Ayr. Lois broke into the team to play alongside her sister in 1953 as the Miners reached the Quarterfinals of the Championship for the first time and established herself as the first choice Right Guard for the remainder of the decade. Her high point in the maroon and persimmon came in 1959 when the Miners came so near to winning their first honours. She and her team mates pushed for the Championship and cup double at one stage before falling between two stools, winning silver in the cup and bronze in the Championship. For Crosbie, she could add those two medals to a Bronze won in Scotland colours in the Nations cup in 1958. Alas, 1959 would prove a swansong for her with the Ayr club, the signing of Anne Iddon from Lancashire signalling the end of Crosbie's time in the number three shirt. Faced with a season on the bench, she reluctantly opted to move to Wales to join the Monmouthshire Beacons. While there, in 1961, she was part of the Scotland team that reached the Nations Cup Final. Away from Gridball, Crosbie is a passionate peace activist and firm teetotaller.
Vivienne Havergal
Gridball Bronze Medallist 1959
Open Cup Runner Up 1959 & 1960
Gridball Team of the Year 1959
Date and place of Birth: 4th May 1935: Skegness, Lincolnshire, England
Age: 25
Position: Left Guard
Debut: March 7th 1953 - For Lindsay vs Newcastle {was sin binned in a 3-0 victory}
Career Appearances: 117 {Lindsay 17 1953} {Plymouth 59 1954-1957} {Leicester 1 1958} {Lanarkshire 64 1959-1961}
Goals: 9 {Plymouth 3 1954-1956} {Lanarkshire 6 1959-1961}
{22nd October 1961}
Vivienne Havergal grew up, literally in a holiday camp, run by her mother in Great Yarmouth, while attending school where her father was a PE teacher. With that sporting vent, Havergal excelled in sport herself. Although initially earmarked for track and field, she turned her attention towards Gridball when she left school, joining the Lindsay Poachers when they made their debut in the Elite Championship in 1953.
Her debut was one of mixed fortunes as the Poachers defeated Newcastle 3-0 but Havergal spent the last twenty minutes in the locker room after being sin binned. She returned from suspension to help the Poachers into the second round, with her performances drawing the attention of the Plymouth Pilgrims, who convinced her that their prospects were brighter than the East coast side.
The Pilgrims were good to their promise, getting out of their group in each of the four years Havergal wore their colours. She scored her first ever goal in a 6-0 win in Belfast in September 1954 and would chip in with a goal in each of the next two seasons. During her time with Plymouth, Vivienne twice reached the quarter finals, establishing herself as a World Class defender in the process. With the Pilgrims unable to get beyond the last eight, Leicester made a bold move to recruit her.
The Vixens were a well regarded side that underachieved in 1957. With Havergal in their defence, they were expected to make a formality of a qualifying tie in Greece against Athens, only to suffer a shock defeat that left Vivenne and her team mates languishing in the junior Championship. Havergal was far too good a player to stay with a team set to play lower division Gridball and before the season was out she'd secured a place north of the border with Lanarkshire.
Her first season in Scotland proved to be her greatest. The Miners enjoyed their greatest season too, making a strong bid to win the Championship and Cup double in the first season of the open cup. Unfortunately they would fall between stools, losing the cup final to Cork and missing out on a place in Supergrid before winning the bronze medal match. Vivienne was the only member of the squad named in the 1959 team of the year. The following year followed a similar pattern as yet again the Miners lost in the Championship Semi Finals and the Cup Final. The Miners failed to make the Play-offs in 1961 but yet again proved great cup fighters, this time losing in the semi finals to Lancashire.
Had Vivienne not been a Gridballer, she had enough talent to have been considered an opera singer. She remains a keen amateur singer and married professional opera singer, Michael Josephs in February 1958. She took time off from Gridball in early 1961 to study Music.
Eileen Georgiana March
Gridball Bronze Medallist 1959
Open Cup Runner Up 1959 & 1960
Silver Bat {33 Goals} {1960}
Date and place of Birth: 4th June 1933: Wandsworth, London, England
Age: 28
Position: Shooter
Gridball Debut: March 3rd 1951 - For Wandsworth vs Stoke {3-5}
Career Appearances: 153 {Wandsworth 42 1951-1953} {West Ham 15 1954-1955} {Montmartre 26 1956-1957} {Lanarkshire 70 1956-1961}
Goals: 61 {Wandsworth 3 1951} {West Ham 2 1954} {Lanarkshire 56 1959-1961}
{23rd September 1961}
Eileen March is the classic case of gamekeeper turned poacher, having spent most of her early career trying to stop shooters as a Left Guard, before switching completely to become a Shooter of great effect herself. She was working in a library in 1950 when she successfully tried out for the Wandsworth Brewers, making her debut on the very first day of Gridball in March 1951. Her career as a Left Guard and later Sweeper was a largely uneventful one, leaving the Brewers in 1954 to cross to East London to join the West Hammers.
Alas her time there was an unpleasant one, being part of the team who famously failed to win a single game, just a year after finishing runners up. March stayed on for a second season but was largely tainted by the Hammers failure, opting to take the opportunity to experience a new lifestyle in Paris with Montmartre in 1956. Eileen spent two seasons in France and while the team weren't pulling up any trees on the court, the players enjoyed an exceptionally high profile off it, as The French Gridball Federation tried desperately to use their foreign legion of players to try and encourage more French players to come through. She was featured, along with team mate, Valerie Squires in a Paris-Match photo shoot in 1957.
Feeling that her career was floundering in France, March accepted the offer to join the ambitious Lanarkshire Miners in Scotland in 1958. The Scots had a promising team, which was demonstrated as they just missed out on the Supergrid play-offs in her first season there in 1958. Finding it hard to nail down a place in defence, Eileen was convinced to play at shooter for the first time in 1959 and showed an instant liking for being the one trying to score the goals rather than prevent them. She hit ten in the 1959 season as the Miners emerged as a force, reaching the Supergrid Semi Finals for the first time, winning the Bronze medal, and also proving a stout cup side, losing the 1959 cup final to Cork in sudden death.
Her greatest personal season came in 1960 when a superb haul of thirty-three goals yet again took the Miners to the Supergrid Semi Finals, this time losing the third placed play-off, and also another cup final, going down 0-2 to her former employers, West Ham. For her efforts, Eileen was awarded the Silver Bat as Elite Gridball's second highest scorer for the season.
With two silver medals, a silver bat and a bronze medal in her trophy cabinet, the twenty-eight year old English woman is desperate to put some gold in her locker. Yet again, it's the Miner's cup exploits that offer the route as, for the third consecutive year, they're in the semi finals and due to travel to Lancashire at the end of the month.
Off court, March has aristocratic blood in her veins, being descended through her father's side from the March baronetcy.
Eileen speaks fluent French and a little Portuguese, both from her time in Paris where she dated a Brazilian racing driver for a time. While there she also worked as a model for Paris-Match. She is 5 feet 9 inches and has natural blonde hair and blue eyes.
March is currently single.