Lord Mayor’s Oval, 1968 & yesterday; choppers and ambulances.

Official Historian of the Vietnam Football League (1966-71), Stan Middleton has recently sent in some new photos of back then. Stan, a very serious fellow, writes…

“Thought I would send some old footy photos from the VFL in 1967 at the Lord Mayor’s Oval (Ed’s note: now the Dog Track where we play the annual ANZAC Friendship Match) in Vung Tau. I am working on the slides of Peter Carthew who was in our unit back then so they are from his collection.

“In (one of) the photos you will see our air ambulance that we always had at the games for any major injuries from the footy or from rocket or mortar attacks! Injuries from the games were always major as we played very tough and the ground then was rock hard!

“If I come over for the next ANZAC Friendship Match I would expect you will have a similar ambulance on standby for the game! The Swannies must live up to our standards that we set!”

Editor’s Notes: The Swannies are very well serviced by our excellent medical sponsors, International SOS who take great care of us and the opposition. See the attached photo of the ambulance at the match against Cambodia in Saigon in September 2012 (photo, courtesy Adam Martin Images).

Also, note the view of the Lord Mayor’s Oval in 1967 and a close up that was taken yesterday while a soccer(!) match was being played.

Thank you to Peter Carthew for sharing his photos and to Stan Middleton for forwarding them to thevietnamswans.com

*** To see the full library of photos from the VFL (1966-71), click here.