The amateur game experienced a golden period of incredible popularity in post-war Britain. Perhaps this was fuelled by the fact that the nation had been starved of football during the war, as survival and victory took precedence over 22 blokes kicking a ball around a pitch. In a time of austerity, rationing and economic stress, the people had little else to turn to for entertainment and morale other than football. Small remnants of the bygone Corinthian age where players played for the love of the game still remained, and FA Amateur Cup finals pulled as many spectators as the FA Cup final proper. Crowds of 100,000 would rock up to watch teams comprised of school teachers, mailmen, milkmen, bus drivers and the like do battle for the FA Amateur Cup trophy. Consider the fact that today, around that many watch the whole Southern League Premier division in an entire season.

 

Back in the 1940’s, there existed determined individuals who wanted to preserve the spirit of the pre-war amateur football era. One such character was Professor Harold Thompson, later chairman of the FA, who was an inspirational Oxford University teacher in the field of quantum physics and atomic energy. He drew his inspiration from the “good old days” of football, when players were unpaid and worked at cotton mills or down the mines to put food on the table. He was a strong believer in fair play and the Olympian ideals and wanted to create a way to resurrect the classical days of teams like Corinthians and the Casuals while remaining firmly modern. Football by then had largely become a working mans game, so he also wanted to show that both the working class and educated elite could enjoy football. Thompson wanted to prove that the public schools and universities still had something to offer the game. The result, was Pegasus – an amateur team drawn from Oxford and Cambridge University undergraduates, just like the elite university teams from days of old.

 

While many followers of the amateur game will prefer to think of this as a romantic period of being awarded for play with nothing more than a hearty back-slap and a warm fuzzy feeling, the truth is that money did exchange hands for the services of certain players, and therefore there did exist an element of professionalism in the amateur game. The practice was fairly widespread, but it was kept under the table until it was blown open by the media in the 1960’s. Thompson new about this, and ensured that Pegasus remained strictly amateur. The last thing he wanted was for his baby to become a club that claimed to be amateur, but couldn’t look people in the eye while claiming it, like so many others. The manager of Pegasus at one point was future Tottenham Hotspur boss Bill Nicholson, who later quoted that his time coaching university teams like Pegasus shaped and influenced the way he thought throughout his managerial career.

 

Pegasus became popular for playing fluid, passing football and they always had former and current professionals on tap willing to provide coaching or advice. For example, after defeating Arsenal’s reserve side 1-0, the Gunners were so impressed that they sent Joe Mercer and Leslie Compton to coach the team. Pegasus didn’t actually compete in a league, but they did appear in the FA Amateur Cup thanks to some persistence from Thompson. In the 1948-49 edition of the tournament, Pegasus reached the final 8, being eliminated by Bromley in the quarter final. They reached the final at Wembley in 1951, just three years after their foundation, beating Slough, Brentwood, Oxford City and Hendon to face one of the biggest teams in the amateur game, Bishop Auckland, in the last match. 100,000 people were in attendance to witness Pegasus defeat the Northern League champions 2-1 to claim the cup.

 

They were unsuccessful in the 1951-52 edition, crashing out in the second round to Crook Town, but Pegasus were back at Wembley the following year, taking on Harwich and Parkeston from the Eastern Counties League. Pegasus ran rampant and came out with a whopping 6-0 victory with goals from Saunders, Laybourne, Sutcliffe and Carr. That was the last time Pegasus won the competition, despite the fact that by 1954, the club fielded a full team of England amateur internationals. That year, the club toured Hong Kong and their legacy there includes the professional side Hong Kong Pegasus FC, who take their name from the club. But it was the beginning of the end for this Pegasus. A combination of poor FA Amateur Cup results and a lack of quality players turning out for Pegasus led to the club folding in 1963. The death of the club brought about the death of the amateur game which Pegasus fought so hard to protect. It can be said that like their forerunners, Pegusus really belonged in another age.

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Achievements: FA Amateur Cup - Winners x2