History will forever record BAA as being the first ever local football club to win the prestigious FA Cup.

Yet, in truth, Bermuda as a whole was the biggest winner on that historical day as the colour barrier would be broken and race relations in sport and society at large would take a turn for the better.

Under the captaincy of George Sousa, now a sprightly 75, BAA defeated Ray Todd?s Southampton Rangers 3-1 in Prospect in 1956.

Both teams had plenty riding on the match and were well aware what was at stake ? FA Cup immortality.

BAA took the lead after 21 minutes when they were awarded a penalty after Rangers? ?keeper Beau Robinson impeded a player off the ball inside the box.

David Thorne took the initial spot-kick, but missed.

The Greens, though, were given a reprieve when the referee awarded the kick to be retaken after Robinson was judged to have moved prior to the kick.

?If a penalty was taken goalkeepers were not allowed to move in those days. If he did move and the penalty was missed, it had to be retaken. But if he scored, the goal was allowed to stand,? Sousa explained.

?The goalkeeper was not allowed to move or wave his hands. And nowadays a ?keeper can pick the ball up and run all around the goal. In my day every third step a ?keeper took they had to bounce the ball and if they didn?t a penalty was awarded.?

That law no longer exists.

Todd also recalled the first-half incident.

?Robinson?s hands fell on Thorne and the referee (Joe Ferreira) turned just in time to see the push,? he said.

Yet Sousa, who played full back, would also break a golden rule that memorable day.

?A captain should never allow the person fouled to take the penalty,? he said. ?Thorne was brought down and I allowed him to take the penalty. The ?keeper saved it but the referee said the he had moved before the ball was kicked.?

Rather than risk having Thorne miss again, Sousa ordered German striker Chris Triantopolous to take the kick instead.

?Thinking quickly I decided not to allow Thorne to retake the kick and instead sent Triantopolous up to take it,? Sousa added.

Needless to say the gifted striker made his good his effort to inch his team closer to cup glory.

?So that?s how Triantopolous scored his penalty that day. And then Thorne went on to score two other goals,? recalled Sousa.

Triantopolous, who worked as a bus boy at Elbow Beach, had represented West Germany at the national youth level before moving to Bermuda. Shortly after the inaugural FA Cup final was played, the striker left the Island for San Francisco where he enlisted in the US army.

Rangers? skipper Todd described marking the German striker as a ?tough? challenge.

?Sometimes it took two of us to mark him at the same time,? he said. ?But unfortunately whenever we did that it created an opening for them to go the wings.

?Triantopolous had very good ball control and tremendous guts and overall BAA had some of the best white footballers on the Island, too many to mention.?

Rangers, however, with the hopes of the Island?s entire black community on their shoulders, refused to go down without a fight. And in the 57th minute of play they drew level with their opponents via a gem of a goal from the boot of Roddie Simons.

?Our goal was to keep working hard because BAA had such a balanced team there were very little gap holes and so we had to mark them man-to-man,? Todd said. ?However, we didn?t quite have the manpower as they did. But we did have some good combinations.?

The joy of Simons? goal, though, would be short-lived as Thorne restored BAA?s lead ten minutes later and then grabbed his second and his team?s third to put the match well and truly beyond Rangers? reach.

?Those guys (Rangers) did not have any clue that we were out running mornings at 5 a.m. and trained every Tuesday and Friday at BAA Field,? Sousa revealed. ?So if we trailed any team in the first half it never bothered us one bit.

?I knew we were going to run Rangers into the ground in the second half. It wasn?t a physical game, we just eventually beat them down. The ball was in their half of the pitch 80 percent of the time. And I don?t think anybody has ever matched the defence we had in those years.?

BAA swept all domestic cup titles in the Bermuda Football Combination (BFC) in 1956.

?We won every trophy in the BFC that year plus the FA Cup,? Sousa added.

If it was any consolation, Rangers exited Prospect knowing they were the first black club ever to appear in the final, having defeated Sandys Boat Club in the semis.

BAA had upset the powerful Key West Rangers - bolstered by the likes of Cal (Bummy) Symonds fresh from a playing stint at Rochdale in the UK - in the semi-final.

?We were wondering at the time whether we would face BAA or Key West,? said Todd. ?But our coach (George Tulloch) did predict that we would meet BAA in the final.

?And so we went into the match thinking we could beat BAA even though they had international players and our ultimate goal was to help break the colour barrier. For us that was a victory in itself, regardless who won the game.?

Still, Todd, now 72, struggled to fathom the historical loss behind closed doors.

?Everything seemed to be based on race and years after that match I still felt as though I had let the black community down,? he lamented. ?I took a lot criticism and heat for that loss.?

Sousa said: ?Rangers achieved just as much as we did on that historical day up in Prospect.?

BAA would make another appearance in the FA Cup final in 1957-58, but were defeated on that occasion by Wellington Rovers.

PHC Zebras would be the first black club to win the showpiece in 1956-57.

Zebras currently hold the record for the most appearances in the final (17) and share the record along with Somerset Trojans for the most wins (nine).

PHC were also the first club to win the FA Cup three years in a row ? a feat only achieved by two other clubs, Social Club Bluebirds and Trojans ? and in 1980 became the first club to win the cup and be relegated into the First Division the same season.

Defending cup holders North Village can draw level with both Zebras and Trojans for the most wins with victory over 2004 champions Dandy Town at the National Sports Centre this Sunday.