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Whatever happened to the Silver Pheasants trophy?

Oyama High School, under the leadership of coach Clause Bissell, had a great record on the soccer pitch. Their greatest rival was the Mackie Prep School in the Coldstream and in 1943 the Oyama team was victorious, winning the prestigious Silver Pheasants trophy for North Okanagan junior boys soccer supremacy. A few years later this group won the Okanagan Valley senior boys championship.

Winner, Silver Pheasants Cup, 1943

The victorious team, pictured here with its trophy (Silver Pheasants Cup, 1943), included:

Back row L to R: Doug Pothecary, Alf Gatzke, Angus McLaren, Gilbert Arnold, Harley Smith, Ken Taylor, and Claire Sproule.

Front row: Albert Meyers, Nick Shishido, Robert Offerdahl, Kadi Koyama, Ron Taylor, Charles Shaw MacLaren, and Sus Taiji.

A number of the boys were from Winfield (Shishido, Offerdahl, Arnold, Koyama and Taiji). Sus Taiji remembers a number of the Winfield boys riding their bicycles to school which would have kept them ion good shape.

Whatever happened to the Silver Pheasants trophy? Harley Smith thinks it was displayed at the closing ceremony of the Oyama School. The Lake Country Museum would like to acquire it for its historical value. 

1 Comment

  • Liz Ellison at the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives kindly responded to this post regarding the whereabouts of the Silver Pheasant Cup:

    “It was donated to us in 2003 by one of our volunteers who had been a teacher at BX Elementary. It was donated by the Rotary in 1930 and was only to be handed out for ten years. It was handed out until the 1980s. It ended up at BX Elementary because they had won it three times in the last ten years.”

    Thanks Liz! Glad to hear it’s safe and well looked after.

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