The mystery of the missing flag: Valley soccer team searching for flag that disappeared two decades ago

Butch Collins hopes that social media might help solve a two-decade-old mystery in the Annapolis Valley soccer community.

It was 2005, and the Paddy’s Pub Soccer Club of the Valley Men’s Master Soccer League was playing a game in a pouring rainstorm on a Sunday night in Kentville. Collins was the team’s “trusted flag guardian” he said, and responsible for transporting the bright orange flag to and from games.

On that night, though, having finished their game, everyone headed home. Collins was halfway from the pitch when he remembered he had left the flag tied to the fence nearby. But when he got back, it was gone.

It had gone missing once before for a week, having been taken as a prank by another team. But they denied involvement this time, and its fate has remained a mystery.

The flag recently came up in conversation, and Collins figures that the reach of social media may help find out what happened, jokingly saying that he has “suffered years of abuse” from his teammates for losing the cherished emblem.

“When it happened, all we had was word of mouth, we talked to people, and figured it was gone,” he said. “But we had a 30-year reunion the other night, and the boys said ‘put it on the internet.’ What’s the worst that could happen?”

Collins is the last original member of team, which is sponsored by the Kentville pub that shares its name. It’s the longest-running men’s master team in the Valley and in the top three in the province in terms of longevity. Collins plays the striker position now.

“They put me up there because I’m 70 years old and can’t run with the rest of the boys,” he said. “I’m the oldest player in the league, I’m just too stupid to quit. I love it so much, it’s great fun.”

The team has won about seven league championships over the years.

“There’s always a rivalry, good soccer, the guys play their hearts out on the field, but when the game is over, it’s over and the teams sit around together and have a beer and a laugh,” Collins said.

He said there has been no word on the flag since it went missing, except everyone now and then when a visiting team asked where it was because it had been such a fixture. Another was made up, “but it doesn’t look like that one, it’s a different flag and not the same quality.”

He said the original – which has a green image of a leprechaun with a soccer ball, the pub’s name and a clover leaf in each corner – cost $600 when it was made.

“We carried it with us everywhere. It’s been in tournaments all over the province, every team in the province knows it. It’s traveled to Massachusetts three times, we’ve gone to Moncton and Fredericton with it. If I forgot to put it up at a game, one of the guys on the other team would ask where it was.”

He said he doesn’t think someone took it because it was a soccer flag. “I think they took a bright orange flag that they think would look cool hanging in their apartment, like a crow grabbing something shiny.

“We always pictured it hanging in a room in an apartment with four or five guys and that at some point someone would come to us and say ‘hey guys, I saw that flag hanging in so-and-so’s apartment.’ But there hasn’t been a whisper.”

Collins posted pictures of the flag and the backstory on Facebook in the hopes it will jog someone’s memory, and has offered a reward for information that leads to its return or to it being returned directly, no matter its condition.

“I have messages from people saying that they remembered the flag and when the team used to travel with it, but no leads yet,” he said.

Until then, the team will continue to play with the newer version and their motto: Paddy’s Pub Soccer Club: a drinking team with a soccer problem.