SPORTS FLASHBACK 1960: Dutchmen surprise Winnipeg football crowd

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This article was published 14/10/2024 (196 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Steinbach Landmark Dutchmen shut out the West Kildonan Mustangs 18-0 in the 1960 season opener of the Manitoba Intermediate Football League. Both the victory and the score came as a huge surprise to the Winnipeg football crowd, which included Henry Janzen, who had written off the upstart rural team before it even hit the field for league play.

Janzen, who played with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for seven seasons, earning rookie-of-the year, CFL all-star honors and a spot in the CFL Hall of Fame along the way, came out to watch his friend Wilmer Penner and the Landmark Dutchmen practice.

Wilmer Penner, who brought football back to rural Manitoba in the late 1950s and was still at the helm when his team won another league championship decades later, recalls Janzen’s comments prior to that first game in 1960.

Janzen, at the time, pretty well ruled out chances for a viable football program in a community as small as Landmark, which he referred to as “Penner’s folly.” After watching that pre-season practice, the future Winnipeg Blue Bomber star predicted a short run for the Dutchmen in league play.

“They’ll lose the first game 88 to nothing, and we’ll never hear of Landmark again.”

Wilmer had neglected to explain to his friend Henry Landmark players didn’t have all that much time to practice because of farming duties and saved their best for game day.

And what a game day it was to kick off the 1960 season.

In the first quarter, Ray Rosner took a handoff from Penner and ran 18 yards for a touchdown. The Landmark team went ahead 12-0 on a similar play, except instead of running with the ball, Rosner threw it 20 yards downfield to Ron Koop. The third touchdown was the same as the first, with Rosner carrying the ball in from the 25 yard line.

The Dutchmen kickers unfortunately had no success, as they missed all three convert attempts. The misses didn’t matter, for an 18-0 win was still a pretty good way to launch intermediate football in the Southeast.

But the man who was equally adept at executing the “keeper play” and the “sleeper play” continued to prove his doubters wrong, and after three games, people out east were actually pulling out their road maps to find out where Landmark was.

The Manitoba Intermediate Football League champion was to be the host of the national championship that year and it was beginning to look like the Dutchmen may be in it.

After their debut, the Steinbach-Landmark Dutchmen added two more victories over the St James Rams by 19-12 and 13-9 scores.

But then the reality check came in the form of a first meeting with the St Vital Bulldogs. The Bulldogs had six Bomber cuts in the lineup and were by far the best team in the league. They came within three touchdowns of Janzen’s dire prediction. The Bulldogs beat a tired and hurting Dutchmen team by a 69-1 count.

But the lopsided loss did little to dampen Penner’s enthusiasm for the game and for that, local football fans in the 1970s can be thankful.

Henry Janzen, it would appear, may have changed his opinion about rural football teams, lending his name to the championship trophy of the Rural Manitoba Intermediate Football League, which included Steinbach, St Laurent, Stonewall, Ile des Chenes and Landmark and, of course, Wilmer Penner.