The designs of trophies issued to military personnel for sporting achievements have changed over the decades as civilian tastes have changed. Over the years we have looked at a number of trophies issued from the turn of the twentieth century until the 1950s and the designs have varied greatly. By the 1960s and 1970s however tastes had changed even further and there was an increase in the use of plastics. Today we are looking at a particularly colourful example of a trophy issued out in Singapore in 1966 which measures about 6ā high:
This trophy was issued for an inter-services athletics championship, the army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force competing against one another for the trophies. This trophy was for the runners up in the high jump, the design featuring the badges of the three services, a palm tree and tiger (?) to represent Singapore and a small etching of a man doing the high jump:
The trophy is mounted on a black plastic shield with a folding support arm on the back to allow it to be stood up on a mantlepiece:
This is certainly one of the most colourful trophies in my little collection of military sporting souvenirs and it helps to bring the story of military sport I can tell forward another decade.
Tales from the Supply Depot 
Being Tri-service, I’d think these were ordered locally or more likely ‘shop made’ in bulk with only the year, the details of the award and the cartouche of the sport at the bottom being added as required. The details do seem to be in a slightly different font and I’ve seen workshops crank out similar items for sports days, etc.
Ours were always nicely done by whoever was best at it at the time, but the machinists section had cnc milling machines that could have cranked out plaques like this by the hundred if they had to.
Plexiglass and paint have NATO numbers and morale comes first to the higher ups š