Alan Horn remembers the rap on the door.
Could he be dreaming?
Outside the Memorial University dorm, the sun has risen but there’s little in the way of activity on this early, sultry Friday morning.
The St. John’s town folk, chances are, are still sleeping off the cobwebs from a rare Thursday Regatta — held in July, no less.
That’s what happens when the Queen of England visits. Even the oldest of traditions are altered.
Back at the university, Horn is fast asleep. He’s a rangy 6-5 striker, described as a “industrious” soccer player, and a member of the Queen’s Park Football Club visiting from Glasgow, Scotland.
Queen’s Park had just steamrolled the Newfoundland competition — 7-0 over Marystown, 5-0 over St. Lawrence and 3-0 over the St. John’s Selects.
It’s 1978, and the games are part of a two-week tour of Canada, organized by the Canadian Soccer Association with friendlies in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, in addition to Newfoundland.
On Thursday night, July 28, on their second-to-last night in Canada, the Scots wrapped things up with a 1-0 win over Canada’s under-20 side in St. John’s.
Newspaper reports indicate some 1,500 were on hand at King George V, most of whom had probably spilled into the park from Quidi Vidi Lake across the street, where Smith Stockley had just won the first of four straight St. John’s Regatta championships.
It was a young Queen’s Park team, Horn says, and they were a disciplined bunch in terms of curfew.
But this was the last weekend of the tour. And, you know, boys will be boys.
So here it is, about 6:30 or so on a Friday morning in the university dorm, and Queen’s Park officials are rapping on the doors.
But wasn’t there no curfew last night, Horn is wondering. What’s the problem?
Except there’s a look of far greater concern on Queen’s Park coach Joe Gilroy’s face.
Seems there’s been an accident, and a couple of the Scots might have been involved.
One by one, Gilroy and Queen’s Park officials knock on dorm room doors. There are three players unaccounted for: Bernie Donnelly, David Ballantyne and David Gillespie.
The hope is maybe they’re still out carousing some place in old St. John’s.
By now, all the Scottish players are awake and fearful for their teammates, but they’re keeping the faith.
Hopes dwindle, however, and are eventually shattered with official word from police: there’s been a car crash. Bernie Donnelly, the 21-year-old star striker, and centre-half David Ballantyne, 22, are dead. David Gillespie is seriously injured.
“Nobody knew,” Horn says today. “By knocking on the doors to see who was in and asleep, there was sort of a process of elimination.
“It was a shock. We didn’t know how to react. I honestly don’t know — even to this day — what I did the next day. It’s a blank.”
According to Telegram reports at the time, a Triumph Spitfire convertible went out of control at the New Cove Road-Portugal Cove Road intersection at around 5:30 a.m. Friday, July 28.
Donnelly and Ballantyne died at the scene, Gillespie was seriously injured, along with 18-year-old local soccer player Craig Stanford, who would have a long road to recovery ahead of him.
The driver, Tony Griffiths, escaped serious injury.
“When you’re on a tour such as that one,” Horn said, “one which ended with such an event, it tends to bond people for a lifetime.
“We all went through it together.”
That was 40 years ago. Horn is 66 now, and made a pretty good living for himself in Canada, after coming to this country one year after travelling here as a visiting soccer player.
An accountant by trade, one of his first files upon arriving in Canada belonged to businessman Ted Rogers. Soon after, Rogers hired Horn. Today, Horn is the president and CEO of Rogers Telecommunications Ltd.
Last week, Horn was back in St. John’s with a $40,000 gift to the Newfoundland and Labrador Soccer Association in memory of his late teammates. The money will be used for minor soccer. As well, the provincial under-13 boys’ and girls’ championships will now be known as the Donnelly-Ballantyne Cup.
“I think both Bernie and David would have been satisfied with giving back to the community,” Horn said last weekend at King George V, “and doing it in a way with kids getting involved with sports … soccer in particular.”
Back in ’78, Queens Park played in Scotland’s second division. They remain the only amateur team which plays in the pro leagues of the United Kingdom.
It’s a club as old as Canada itself — both celebrated 150th birthdays last summer. The Glasgow-based team then was a collection of sorts, from plumbers and pipefitters, to joiners, electricians, students and, in the case of Horn, accountants.
In hindsight, Horn is convinced Donnelly, especially, would have eventually played professionally.
“Bernie was an outstanding player,” he says, “and a larger-than-life character. We were playing in Halifax, up 2-0 at halftime. I thought we weren’t playing that badly, but the coach wasn’t happy. He said something to Bernie, and Bernie answered back, which you don’t do to the coach.
“So, Bernie was benched for the second half. We struggled, but we won 2-1.
“The next day, Bernie was back on the pitch and he answered in the only way that Bernie could, and that was by scoring three goals.
“He was a fantastic player.”
It was Ballantyne’s first year with Queen’s Park, but he still exhibited leadership qualities on and off the field, Horn said.
“His brother, Ian, was on the team as well,” Horn recalls. “That was one of the hardest things the executive had to do, to go tell his brother that David had died.”
While in St. John’s last weekend, Horn visited the site of the accident, right in front of the old Baird property which has been in the news lately. The area is torn up now with road construction.
Forty years is a long time, but not long enough to completely heal old wounds.
“Driving by the site,” Horn says, “it brought a few chills to your spine. These were young lives lost, clearly a tragedy … great careers in front of them.
“It was quite an emotional scene to see it.”
On Saturday morning, July 29, 1978, a memorial service was held in St. John’s for Donnelly and Ballantyne. Challenge Cup games that weekend were postponed.
That afternoon, the team boarded a plane in St. John’s headed for Gander, where it would connect with an overseas flight to Scotland.
On board were the bodies of the two dead soccer players.
“We came as a party,” said coach Gilroy then, “and we’ll return as a party.”
The trip, Horn recalls, was a sombre one. Barely a word was spoken, unlike their final game two nights earlier against the Canadian U20s.
David Gillespie, by the way, had the shutout in that game.
He never played again. But he was the lucky one.
Robin Short is The Telegram’s Sports Editor. He can be reached by email [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @TelyRobinShort
