PURE NOSTALGIA In Pure nostalgia on December 12th we recall the story of Exeter Football club's historic tour of Argentina back in 1914 the details have been painstakingly extracted from microfilm of the Express & Echo files of that year by Exeter businessman, former councillor and Sheriff of the City Michael McGahey at the request of a football historian. He had been asked to help because the tour was lead by his grandfather, also Michael McGahey, who was City's chairman at the that time, and who sent back to the Echo detailed accounts of the club's experiences. He must have spent hours with pen and paper in hotel rooms writing those vary readable reports for us. In our first instalment last month we gave his account of how the entire team including chairman and directors were arrested by police in Brazil, taken to jail on a tram, and then released after the police commissioner dropped charges of breaching beach regulations during training. We also quoted his amusing story of how the secretary of an opposing side rushed on the field with a revolver and threatened to shoot the referee after the city goal was allowed - and how the ref had to hide until peace was restored. Tonight we give more extracts from the club chairman McGahey's reports of 1914, in his account of their dramatic voyage home after winning all but the first of their South American games. As they returned from their triumphant and historic tour of Argentina 82 years ago, members of Exeter City FC sailed right into the start of the First World War. Club chairman Michael McGahey, who lead the tour and reported on it for the Echo, said they were returning aboard the new Royal Mail Steamship Alcantara from Rio de Janeiro. The ship was on her maiden voyage and had on board a large amount of gold bullion and a full cargo of frozen beef for Southampton. Mr McGahey, grandfather of his namesake the present Exeter businessman Michael McGahey, wrote: WHEN CITY SAILED IN WATERS OF WAR "The ship was the finest and fastest of the Royal Mail fleet. News of the declaration of war over the ship's wireless about midnight had a most sobering effect. Aboard was a mixed company of English, French, Germans, Brazilians and Argentineans. There was a realisation of the danger in which the ship was placed. She would be a valuable capture for any German cruiser. They could take off the gold and sink her after landing the passengers or sending them into port aboard boats. It was known that there were at least two German warships in the vicinity of Madeira. Accordingly Alcantara steamed at the utmost capacity with all lights out, bring home to the passengers the particular danger in which they all were placed. Madeira was reached safely and every possible ounce of coal was got on board speedily. We set off for Lisbon, which we reached after a night of unlighted steaming. Nineteen German ships lay in the harbour there unable to leave for fear of capture by the British or French Warships. All the English passengers on the German ships transferred to the Alcantara. We then headed for Vigo at full speed. We took on more coal at Vigo and headed for Southampton. Then four funnels of a warship appeared on the horizon. She was fast overhauling us, there was a signalling and a shot passed over us. The lady passengers were hysterical thinking it was a German warship. But when the ship came along side we found it was our own HMS Vindictive with her decks cleared for action. We got instructions from her and steamed away again. Next morning another warship hove in sight and again a shot was sent over us. She proved to be the Klaber from the French navy and when she came along side the French sailors cheered our vessel. Later we had a similar experience with a still bigger French warship." sMr McGahey added that Alcantara was ordered to proceed to the start point which they reached in fog, delighted at the prospect of being so near to Exeter - but they were given fresh instructions to divert around land's end to dock in Liverpool. It was the City's first taste of the 1914 - 1918 war, but for most of the players even greater dangers lay ahead as they joined the various branches of the armed forces for what was to prove a long and ghastly war. EXETER City Football Club's chairman in 1914, local lawyer Michael John McGahey set a pattern of public service that his namesake, the Michael McGahey of today was proud to follow. His son Robert and grandson Michael both followed his example in joining the council. Michael, head of the McGahey's the family firm of high street tobacconists, was a city councillor for twenty years and after that a Devon county councillor for another twenty years, serving as county chairman for two. In 1971 - 1972 he became the last officiating sheriff of Exeter, being present at the last City Assize and Quarter Sessions in the Guildhall in 1972. Mr McGahey, chairman of the West Country Tourism Board told me that he had found it fascinating to read the dispatches his grandfather had sent to the Echo from Argentina back in 1914. Grandfather, who was associated with the city law firm Dunn & Baker, had 11 children, six from his first marriage - his wife died during a flu epidemic - and five from his second. Two of his sons, Robert and Arthur, became partners in Dunn & Baker. Another son, Michael's father Edgar, acquired the tobacconist's business in the high street, which became McGahey's - though he kept the original name of WZ Hall for a time thinking that customers might not be able to pronounce the name McGahey. The shop was lost in the 1942 blitz, and kept going by Edgar McGahey in a Barnfield Road kiosk until the high shop was rebuilt after the war. Grandfather McGahey died in 1944. He was one of the Exeter personalities caricatured by a Sunday Graphic artist in a famous cartoon, which was framed and exhibited in the bar of the Royal Clarence Hotel. Two others in the cartoon were the then owner of the Clarence, Jack Orchard and alderman and solicitor, Fred Cottey.