Lands of hope and glory

The Methodist chapel marked Harvest Festival in much the same way as it may have done for each of its 130 years. Safely gathered in, numbers six or seven times the normal, folk from many a mile returned wistfully to the Lands of their fathers.

Across the road on the stone walled and oft-windswept cricket ground, about the same ripe years as the chapel and every bit as loved, Coundon and Heighington contested the T G Denham Memorial Cup final.

By attending one, we stumbled upon the other, arrived in time to find Coundon wanting 40 to win with nine wickets and 20 overs in hand and with Bulldog Billy Teesdale foursquare at square leg.

"You can go away for a start," said the umpire, approximately and with customary good grace. Someone had rescued a solitary St George's flag. The congregation, it has to be said, was very much smaller than it had been in that harvest homely chapel.

Officially High Lands and Low Lands, and not a lot of either, it's a former colliery community in west Durham with about 40 houses, a chapel, a village hall and two cricket teams.

Gilbert Denham - groundsman, gentleman, secretary, treasurer, opening bat and founder of the second team - was one of those wonderful men without whom village cricket couldn't survive.

It's said of him that on one occasion during a Lands match he felt unwell, blamed a bad pie, continued playing and only later discovered that he'd suffered an angina attack. Mind, it's added, he was back again the following week.

"He served this club for years and years and more years," said Carroll Simpson, Lands' present chairman. "Unfortunately there aren't men like T G Denham around any more."

Further evidence of changing times, a couple of weeks back they'd prepared the wicket in the morning as usual, left the stumps in place and discovered that someone had driven a car onto the pitch and stolen them.

"I wouldn't care but they were new ones," said Carroll, at 66 still the second team wicketkeeper. The previous day he'd taken a leg side catch against Raby II. "I don't want to boast," he said, "but it won us the match."

Trevor Denham, the great man's nephew - now in Cheshire, formerly a fireman in Bishop Auckland - had both led the harvest festival and was to present the trophies at the end of the match. Gilbert had been born and raised in Lands, he said, only strayed when after the war he was invited to work at Dorman Long at Redcar on condition that he played cricket for the works team.

"He thought nothing about them and soon came back," said Trevor.

Chiefly through brothers Aidan and Anthony Tait, Coundon's batsmen reaped what their bowlers had sown.

Aidan, known as Gammy - "I used to have very skinny legs," he almost explained - was out for 70. Chasing 140, they won by eight wickets.

The presentations were courteous, timeless, impeccably observed. "My Uncle Gilbert would have been very proud," said Trevor. "It maybe wasn't a cup final ground then, but it's worthy of one now."

None hurried homeward. It was village cricket's final fling before winter and woolly cardigans set in - the last of the summer wine, and each drop savoured to the end.

Bulldog Billy offered a lift a few miles back along the road - "That'll be a tenner," he said - announced that he'd been invited to join the test match panel and that his beloved Evenwood Cricket Club had won ten trophies this season. The second bit was true.

It was coincidence that, next day, Kevin Richardson should send the club's annual report. "The first team under the captaincy of Billy Teesdale won two cup competitions," it said.

This is young Billy, 21-year-old Thomas William and not Peter William, infinitely older. The seconds, captained by 23-year-old Chris Coatsworth, had won the league and three trophies, the under 18s had another three trophies and the under 13s the RS Pratt Cup, their first ever.

Amid all that success, and that scantly acknowledged dedication, the club's Welfare Ground facilities have deteriorated - and repeatedly and systematically been vandalised - to a point where they are beyond repair.

Grant aid has thus far proved unforthcoming, the trustees apparently unwilling to offer a sufficiently long lease.

Kevin insists they remain committed. "What's the alternative? We all go to West Auckland and the vandals have rule over the Welfare Ground? Unfortunately, we're getting nowhere."

BACKTRACK BRIEFS...

Though support remains apathetic, Easington Colliery FC are clearly a big draw. Last Saturday's Northern Alliance cup match with Ashington Colliers ended 5-5 after 90 minutes, 9-9 after extra time. Rich seams.

Easington committee member Paul Atkin points out that the nine was just one fewer than they'd scored all season - and wonders if it's a record for senior football.

Two goals up in 13 minutes, Easington appeared to be coasting. By half-time they were 3-2 down. After 55 minutes they led 4-3, went 5-4 behind, equalised in the last minute.

The east Durham side scored early in extra time, went 7-6 and then 9-8 down, again levelled as the referee looked at his watch. They lost 3-2 on penalties.

"It was the craziest game I've ever seen," says club secretary Alan Purvis. "It was like the Alamo at the back, all attack and no defence. You'd have thought it was the last football match ever."

The two sides meet twice more in the next fortnight. "My money," says Alan, "is on a couple of goalless draws."

Though Paul Atkin has extensive records, he has been unable to discover if 9-9 breaks any of them. Neither have we.

The Football League has had two 6-6 draws - Leicester v Arsenal in 1930, Charlton v Middlesbrough 30 years later - while Newcastle United fans also recall a 6-6, against Tranmere, in one of the more improbably named cups.

Boro's second division match at Charlton was on October 22 1960. Brian Clough scored a hat-trick, England youth international Ron Burbeck two and Derek McLean the sixth. The crowd was barely 10,000.

Ray Robertson noted in his match report that, en route to The Valley, he'd passed circus posters for The Greatest Show on Earth. "I'll wager that any football fan would give up a couple of ringside seats for the privilege of being in the three shilling end for this match," he added.

The fans were ecstatic, Clough was furious. "If we score seven next week, do we get both points?" he demanded in the dressing room.

In his autobiography, he spoke of something "sinister" about the game, a suspicion he voiced to a senior Middlesbrough director - though no action was taken.

There were also rumours of a dressing room punch-up with a team-mate. A few months later he was transferred to Sunderland.

Following Darlington's ever-so gallant failure at Reading on Tuesday evening, Quakers fan Richard Jones rings not just to confirm that Reading's third goal was a blatant hand ball - "It was like he was putting it in with a bucket" - but that he'd cried for the first time at a football ground. "A hotel's part of the stadium. Two pints of John Smith's Smooth, £7."

Tuesday's salute to the remarkable Sharon Gayter - the new women's world record holder from Lands End to John o' Groats - prompts a note from Colin Briggs at the BBC in Newcastle. Colin had made a couple of films about the Guisborough lass, now 42, a few years back.

One was on the West Highland Way, when a cameraman called Spikey Partridge - something to do with his hair, apparently - was assigned to follow Sharon on his mountain bike.

Since it's the near-equivalent of four marathons, most people take a week or so over it. Sharon completed it in 21 hours.

"She trotted along quite happily chatting away to the camera with little throwaway lines like: 'The first 26 miles were a bit tricky because I forgot my torch, but the next 26 were fine when I found my rhythm."

What a really nice, self-effacing lady, says Colin - "and what talent and iron will beneath the surface."

The absolute need to be in John o' Groats last Friday night meant that we missed the presentations at Crook Golf Club from the final event of the Kevin Cooper appeal.

The former manager of Crook Town Over 40s is a long-time multiple sclerosis sufferer, flies to Amsterdam on October 3 for pioneering (and contentious) stem cell treatment.

Crook folk have raised almost the entire cost in three and a half months. "It's fantastic, just unbelievable," says Kevin. "I don't know how to thank everyone for the way they've rallied round."

The golf day was won by another familiar face around those parts - long serving former Crook Town player Tony Butterfield.

The Arngrove Northern League magazine reports that league newcomers Stokesley Sports Club include brothers Rocky and Sonny Andrews - named by their boxing-mad father after former world heavyweight champions Rocky Marciano and Sonny Liston. So what of Muhammad Ali, the former Cassius Clay? Cassie, it's explained, is their sister.

A couple of readers have expressed perhaps justifiable surprise at the column's failure to mention Great Ayton's CC's remarkable triumph in the NYSD League top division.

It should therefore be recorded that, on bumping yesterday into one of the players in the pub, we asked him if it had been a good party. It had.

"The Sunday afternoon game finished just after four o'clock, so I rang our lass and said I wouldn't be long. I strolled into the house at half past seven next morning."