What could be the possible link between the international football teams of Scotland, England and Brazil to Brighouse & Rastrick, Black Dyke and GUS (Footwear) bands?
Not a lot you would have thought — until we came across the news of England's forthcoming 1000th international football fixture.
Amid all the congratulations and reminiscences was a 1988 image of the former Scotland football manger George Burley next to the Rous Cup and the British International Championship Trophy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50340459
The Rous Cup
The Rous Cup was a rather short-lived competition held between 1985 and 1989 — at first between England and Scotland, but then including the likes of Brazil, Columbia and Chile.
Scotland won the first encounter, England the second and Brazil the third. England then won the last two encounters against Columbia and Scotland respectively.
The thing is....
The Rous Cup doesn't half look very much like the trophy that was presented to the Brighouse & Rastrick, Black Dyke and GUS (Footwear) bands that won the equally short lived the Brass Band World Championships between 1968 and 1971.
Missing
That two-handled trophy was a copy of a George II, Paul de Lamerie work; 18 and half inches high and 17 and half inches wide in gilded silver carrying an insurance value of £3,000. On its ornate central cartouche was engraved, 'Champion of the World Challenge Trophy'.
After it was last won in 1971 it went missing...never to be seen again.
And after all these years when people pondered what on earth happened to it, could it possibly have been 're-commissioned' as the Rous Trophy and presented to the winning captains such as Graeme Souness and Peter Shilton instead of Geoffrey Brand and Stanley Boddington?
A coincidence perhaps, but you never know...
