Schoolboy Heroes.

The occasion was the English Schools Trophy final and Waltham Forest, after a brilliant run of results, found themselves pitting their wits against the best of the north.

Over the two legs, honours were even with a 2-2 aggregate score and in the late 60s, sportsmanship reigned and the trophy was shared between the two sides no extra time, no penalties and certainly no fuss.

One player still involved in the game, albeit on a peripheral level, is former Leyton Orient star Paul Harris.

Harris, who was already on the books at Brisbane Road when the trophy was contested on May 15, 1968, remembers the occasion like it was only yesterday.

It was a fantastic occasion, he recalled. I remember playing the first leg at what was then Walthamstow Avenue in front of more than 10,000 people and it was like nothing on earth.

I played in front of more than 30,000 later in my career, but it never really matched up to that.

Harris, now 45, was a centre back in the side and played alongside former Arsenal and Cambridge player Brendan Batson, now at the Professional Footballers Association, and several others, but only he and Batson ever really made stride in the professional game.

I think then it was different, continued Harris, and although we were a good side, none of us other than perhaps Brendan was shrewd enough to make a living out of the game.

I remember once playing against Brendan when I was at Swansea and he told me that he had sorted out a clause in his contract to be released if a big club came in for him.

Only he could have thought of that. It was unprecedented back then.

The game itself was like no schools cup final one would ever see in the 1990s.

Ten thousand crammed themselves into the Old Avenue ground for the first leg and there was almost the same number up at Maine Road, the home of Manchester City, for the second leg.

The first leg was a tight affair, both sides scoring a goal apiece. Stephen Griggs, who apparently specialised in menacing long throws scored the Forest goal on that night.

But up at Maine Road, Manchester could have won by four clear goals had their finishing been sharper.

In fact it was Forest who took the lead, Batson dropping a ball into the box for Jeffrey Houdoire to slip on to and score.

But that slender lead lasted just eight minutes and a corner by Manchesters Alan Wilson landed perfectly on the head of their skipper Leslie Ormrod who directed it past Gary Grant in the Forest goal.

The Forest boys were then under the cosh for the remainder of the match and it was a testament to their team spirit that they clung on to share the prize.

Harris remembered: It was a pretty hostile atmosphere up there. Our coach had its windows smashed in and it was for many of us our first taste of hooliganism, but all in all it was a brilliant experience, on the field at least.

Waltham Forest had a tricky run to the final and needed a replay in the semi-final against Islington to book their place.

On the way they beat West Essex and Ipswich 6-1 before tighter results against Basildon, Redbridge, Blackheath, Portsmouth and Haringey.

Manchester faced the likes of Rochdale and Sunderland in their run-in and were always favourites to win the trophy, but the green and white wall of shirts that was Waltham Forest stood bravely in their way.

The coach all those years ago was John Edwards and he recalled that his job was made easy by the fact that his players were of the highest quality.

As a team they were remarkable, he said. They gelled like nothing else and their spirit was tremendous.

Harris recalled the same thing. We just seemed to click as a unit, he confirmed. We were just a simple bunch of lads who played the game the only way we knew how without even thinking about it.

If two of us saw the ball coming towards us and had to jump for a header, we would know exactly where the other was and it is very rare that you can get a group of people to understand each other the way we did back then.

Edwards added: They were a credit to the borough and all these years on I suppose they still are.

No other Waltham Forest side has even come close to reaching the final of the English Schools Trophy since that fateful day in 1968.

Even with the likes of Teddy Sheringham and David Beckham in the side, it has always been beyond them.

But perhaps the most surprising thing was the fact that none of these local heroes went on to become bigger names in the beautiful game.

Harris and Batson aside, none of the others cut it as professional footballers.

The captain of the 1968 side, Richard Peacock, played for the Os briefly with Harris and the latter remembers that the same was true of so many other members of the famous squad.

I dont know what it was. I dont think it was harder then. If anything it was easier, he said.

Perhaps they felt they had reached their peak with that final and it was not going to get any better.

Harris himself retired from playing at the relatively young age of 25 after a spate of injuries.

He said: I finished my career at Swansea when they were in what was then the Fourth Division.

There were a lot of kickers about in that league and I was one of them in my younger days, but when it was me that was being kicked rather than the other way around, I suddenly thought hang on a minute and called it a day.

Harris moved into chiropody and dabbled in physiotherapy and is now the club chiropodist at Brisbane Road, as well as helping out on the hospitality side of things.

Ironically, he could have been a cricketer, but that passed him by like a ship in the night.

You could say I was better at cricket than football, he said. I was 12th man at Essex for a while and I even played for England Schoolboys, something I never did in a football shirt.

But it was always going to be football, mainly because of the money, which sounds awful.

Too many of my friends went full on into cricket and went straight to the dole office when they retired and I was dtermined not to be one of them.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.