Every year for the past decade or so, a few of the graduates of Middle Rd. Public School (now Queen Elizabeth P.S.) and the Port Credit high school have been getting together at Bill Cunningham’s cottage in Muskoka to celebrate the past and, inevitably, to count the missing.
When they gather this year, Cunningham, 80, and the Port Credit alumnae will be raising a glass, or maybe two, to one of the best football players who ever strapped on shoulder pads at the Forrest Ave. building that is now known as Mentor College.
Bobby Cunningham died a month ago at age 79.
Bill Cunningham grew up on Indian Valley Trail while Bobby Cunningham, who was no relation, lived across the road from Riverside Public School where he went to school.
“We met in Sunday school when we were about six because we went to the same church, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian,” recalled Cunningham, who still lives in Port Credit. They were both natural athletes, although Bobby, at around 6 ft. and 175-180 pounds was a lot bigger than Bill, who played quarterback despite his height of 5 ft. 7 and his weight of 140 pounds. It is a “playing weight” he still retains.
“We had two star players, Bobby and Lorne Smith and you could see they were both going places,” said Cunningham, who retired in 1992 after 46 years with Zurich Insurance in Toronto.
Both Bobby Cunningham and Smith went on to play with the Balmy Beach Rugby Club, which was often a tryout league for the CFL in those days.
Sure enough, Cunningham was signed in 1948 by the Montreal Alouettes. He signed with the Als because they offered him $2,500, while the Argos offered just $1,000.
The next year, Cunningham played in the Grey Cup at Varsity Stadium, scoring a touchdown as the Als won. Although he doesn’t remember many details of that game, even though he was at it, Bill Cunningham does remember some of the high school games as if they were played yesterday.
Especially a couple of games in 1944, when Port Credit won the western division of the Toronto District Interscholastic Athletic Association with a stirring victory over Runnymede and then lost a heart-breaker to Vaughan Rd. when a receiver dropped a touchdown pass from Cunningham. “We came within a hair’s breadth,” he said, “which was quite an accomplishment because those other schools had big teams and they were big guys.”
Port Credit was coached by Frank Munro, now 93, who still lives in Clarkson. He was filling in as coach for legendary teacher Wilf Wood who was serving overseas. Port Credit High School would later be renamed for W.J. Wood.
People think that scrounging for football equipment is a relatively modern thing for high schools, but it’s not. “The only thing that matched was our sweaters,” laughed Cunningham, the team’s captain. “We had different helmets and pants and shoulder pads.”
Bobby Cunningham went on to be a golf pro at St. George’s in Etobicoke where his father had once been the pro and, although he never lived in Mississauga again, he taught golf lessons at a number of driving ranges out this way.
Jim Brayley, who played some high school football at Port Credit despite the fact he was so scrawny that, “they couldn’t use me on windy days” remembers the awe that Cunningham inspired with his hard-nosed play on the gridiron.
“He was a hero of mine,” he said of Cunningham who played halfback on both offence and defence. “He was really fast and strong and he had big powerful feet. He could kick the ball a mile,” said Brayley, who became a doctor and delivered the very first baby ever born at Trillium Health Centre (then South Peel Hospital) May 22, 1958 at 6 a.m.
“He had a lot of talent and he was a great kicker,” agrees Bill Cunningham. “He could boot it 50-55 yards every time. I could never understand why, when he turned pro, they never used him as a kicker. He was a big, strong guy. He played the game hard but in a way that was always clean.”
In the 1990s, Cunningham had two hip replacement operations, suffered a pair of strokes and had to have a leg amputated above the knee when gangrene set in.
Although time eventually tackled him from behind, Bobby Cunningham will always remain to a lot of his old high school mates, the golden boy who gave nothing but his best to the game.
“He was a good fellow,” said his old friend Bill. “He was always gung-ho. He was a serious type of football player.”