Rest In Peace, Gerry Young

Everyone at Corinthian-Casuals was deeply saddened by the news that Gerry Young, our former assistant manager and loyal supporter, passed away this week at the age of 75.

Gerry (pictured above, on the right, with his good friend and fellow Scot, Ronnie McNamara) was an incredibly popular figure at the club, a near ever-present at our home games and someone who could be relied upon to offer stoic words of comfort during the tougher periods for the club. He had seen it all in the game and formed part of a group of former players from his time here in the late Eighties and early Nineties who remained staunch supporters of the team and have become part of the fabric of the club. Sat alongside Larry Ryan, and Ronnie and Rob McNamara, Gerry was a jovial raconteur in the clubhouse after matches, happy to tell younger fans how it had been in our early days in Tolworth.

And he knew that story better than anyone. After all, Gerry was part of the Tolworth FC setup who played at King George’s Field before our amalgamation with them in 1988, and then remained as assistant manager of Corinthian-Casuals after we took over the lease on the ground that summer. He recalled those events in an interview for the Broadway to Brazil podcast a few years ago.

“Tolworth FC took a lease on the pitch here,” he said, “but there was nothing here. There was no clubhouse or anything like that. All it was… was a football pitch, fairly overgrown, with a running track.

“The premise was to obviously develop it, that was our idea. But we didn’t have the finance, nor did we have a very big name. So eventually, having run out of money and not having any means to make any money to upgrade the ground and finish off what we started effectively, there was a connection between the committee of Tolworth and Geoff Harvey, who was involved at Corinthian-Casuals.

“Corinthian-Casuals didn’t have a ground at the time. They were looking for a ground. They approached us, we had a meeting, and we decided that they would come down here. They had a bit more financial backing than we had, and eventually they put money into the club to upgrade the ground. Tolworth went by the way and Corinthian-Casuals took over the lease.”

Gerry had been assistant manager of Tolworth and he kept the same role with Corinthian-Casuals during a vitally important period of our history. When manager Kevin Crouch – who also sadly passed away last month – resigned midway through the 1988/89 season, Young took interim charge of the team before Martin Caller took over until the end of that campaign.

It was a stark period for the club, who struggled for players, leading Gerry to pull on the shirt on two occasions, meaning he also goes down in the Corinthian-Casuals annals as a former player.

“I had to hold things together,” he told Rob Cavallini in Corinthian-Casuals: The First Seventy Years, “so I ended up phoning around people to see who was available. I got the bare eleven and I was the twelfth man! It was a bit surreal as although it was 1-10 we did not play that badly, but every time Cheshunt had a shot, it went in. Afterwards, I put it down to a one-off and we all went in the bar and had a good drink.”

Steve Bangs took over as manager in 1989, ushering in a new era for the club as he made some key signings, but Gerry remained his ever-reliable assistant into the early Nineties.

That loyalty, that consistency of character and dedication to the club, remained throughout the decades that have followed, as Gerry became one of the most recognisable figures at King George’s Arena.

His passing will leave a void in our club that we can never fill. He will be remembered as a generous spirit, a kind soul and a crucial figure in the history of Corinthian-Casuals Football Club.

Words: Dominic Bliss
Image: Stuart Tree