Another Season Awaits

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Home or away ("here" or "there"), Conval High fans live and die with their team...including Ryan Wilson at right, now a member of the CV varsity.
It was late fall in 1941, and local basketball fans could hardly wait for what might be next...

That spring. legendary Peterborough High coach John Clark had led the Green and White to a pulsating state championship over Lebanon. It was the fifth and final state title for Peterborough, which under Clark and others helped make this the mecca of high school basketball in New Hampshire.


But in the fall, Clark had moved on to become a teacher at Manchester West High School (he’d be back later to PHS, in a different capacity), and a four-year coach from Danielson, Conn., Earl Leach, had assumed responsibility. “Mr. Leach has had his squad out practicing since the first of the month but, like all newcomers, has had to spend considerable time getting acquainted and making the required adjustments, so he is careful not to say much.” wrote the Peterborough Transcript.


Only all-star forward Bobby Gooch, along with all-state honorable mentions Russell Ames and Clarence Brenner, returned from the championship season, but “Coach Leach says that his squad, on the whole, looks pretty good.”



In those days, home games were played at the Peterborough Town House, and home and away games were noted on the printed schedule as “Here” and “There.” Like today, loyal fans followed their team “here” and “there,” but because seating was at capacity most games, “tickets for the coming season have gone on sale and they include admissions for nine home games. Taxes have to be paid on tickets this year so the prices have had to be increased. Season tickets will sell for $2.75 and students $1.25.” 

Wow.


After a slow start in 1941-‘42, Peterborough went 11-6 and earned an invitation by the selection committee to the Class B tournament. Far from the days of the more methodical ways of the NHIAA. The boys, however, lost in the quarter-finals to “a tall, rangy Hampton High outfit” (now Winnacunnet), 36-27.


Once the only winter game around, local fans lived and died with their high school heroes.  George Quimby, renowned sportswriter for the Union Leader, commented in 1940:


“Hysterical feminine tears will fall on wooden seats just as they have in past years when sons and schoolboy sweethearts have gone down in defeat. Men will cry, too. And highly-keyed athletes will shed tears—some in the ecstasy of victory, others in a liquid outburst of frustration—hidden from the public in the sanctity of showers and dressing rooms.”


A lot has changed, but a lot has stayed the same over the years in our region’s hoop heritage. “Here” and “there” may have been replaced by “home” and “away,” and there are many more diversions vying for attention. But some 80 years later, winter still settles in and local basketball fans looking for a warm place of entertainment are still thinking the same thing:


It is late fall in 2023, and they can hardly wait for what might be next…


The 2023-’24 schedule:


CONVAL BOYS


CONVAL GIRLS



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