Football Story

Heroes Remember

Football Story

Transcript

One of the officers, his name was Turner, and he was a football player from Calgary, a well-known football player. And, I can’t think of his first name, but someone said, “Hey,” whatever his first name was, “How do you do …” You know how the football players, they line up and there’s somebody behind and you pass the ball back to him. “Just how do you do that?” Something like that. I wasn’t close to that. So, he proceeds to show all of us how you properly do it. So if there were 50 or 70 guys in that canteen, we divided lines and we had two lines with the ball in the centre, you see. And then we threw the ball and then the guy who gets the ball, that whole line starts crashing through the other line. Well, that’s what happened. They crashed through and whoever was on the back side were tumbling and trying to stop them. And they, this crashing line, never stopped. They ran into the bar and smashed out, and smashed tables and chairs and ran into the bar, and all the bottles were smashed on the wall, everything. And the next day, like, no one was angry. We were just having fun. And the next day, I and four other guys were put on charge. And one of those five fellows, I wish I could remember his name, he started speaking up, and saying, “This, this is not, this is not democracy. You cannot charge us for doing, for doing anything wrong.” And something in the word, in ‘democracy’… he kept sticking to it. They tell him to sit down. He said, “This is not, this is not democratic, what you’re doing to us.” And by golly, we were never ever charged. We got off. They had to repair the place themselves.

Description

Mr. Goettler talks about playing football in the mess hall, and getting into trouble.

George Angus Goettler

George Angus Goettler was born in Palmerston, Ontario on October 23rd in 1923. Mr. Goettler’s father had a grocery store where he, his two brothers and his sister worked. He had a second sister who died at a young age. Mr. Goettler served as a wireless operator, radar operator and tail gunner with the 160 Squadron. After completing their tour, Mr. Goettler’s crew was put on a rest tour where they tested aircrafts. After the war, Mr. Goettler returned to the grocery business, running his own store in Palmerston, Ontario.

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