Sculpture marks the time West Auckland won the 'World Cup'

AS football fever grips the nation, today’s Object of the Week commemorates one of the region’s most unlikely sporting triumphs.

The amazing feat in question is West Auckland FC’s unlikely victory in what has become known as the first World Cup.

And the object which was built as a centenary celebration of the achievement is a statue on the village green which also reflects the mining heritage of the area.

The story of how the club, made up largely of miners, won the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy in 1909 and again in 1911, beating the mighty Juventus in the final, is well known.

But the idea behind the statue is perhaps less familiar.

The creation is made up of two one-and-a-quarter scale bronze figures atop a plinth made with stone from local quarry Dunhouse.

Its sculptor, Nigel Boonham, admitted he knew little about either football or mining before he started, both of which he wanted to incorporate in the piece.

He said: “I wanted the statue to be a bit ambiguous, meaning different things as you looked at it from different places.”

Both figures, one standing, his leg raised to boot the ball, the other lying prone at his feet, share the same face, modelled on the man in the front of the 1909 West Auckland team photo.

The horizontal figure is modelled to look both like a miner, chipping away at the coal seam, and a goalkeeper diving for the ball.

Both would have worn flat caps and shorts.

The standing figure’s raised foot connecting with the ball is at the same height as the roof of the coal seam in the West Auckland Colliery pit.

The idea for a statue was first mooted by a group of businessmen, club officials, councillors and residents

It took four years and £167,374 to realise the dream, missing the actual centenary date, but there was huge pride when the sculpture celebrating the remarkable achievement of those hardy miners-turned unlikely global victors was unveiled in October 2013.

The drizzle failed to dampen the delight of the hundred or so residents and officials who gathered around the statue for its unveiling on a drizzly Saturday afternoon atop a stone base.

The unveiling of the statue in West Auckland

It was officially unveiled by actor Tim Healy, who played the part of Charlie Hogg In the 1982 film A Captain’s Tale, the story of West’s win, former Newcastle United owner and North-East entrepreneur Sir John Hall, and ex-England international David Ticer Thomas, whose same-named grandfather captained West Auckland in the 1909 final.

Mr Thomas junior, who enjoyed a professional playing career for numerous teams, including Middlesbrough, said his grandfather would have been proud.

“My grandfather died when I was 13 but he told me the story, he was very proud of it and I think he would have loved this statue,” he said.

Watching the unveiling was Lord Lieutenant Sue Snowdon who said: “What these men did epitomises the trait of County Durham, determination.”

County councillors Rob Yorke and Andy Turner, who led the project, said the statue was worth the wait.

* And in case you don’t know the story, here’s a brief summary of the story behind the West Auckland World Cup:

WEST AUCKLAND WIN THE WORLD CUP.

JOHN Wotherspoon, commercial director of Lipton Teas, said the story of West Auckland FC and their “folk heroes” should never be forgotten.

Sir Thomas Lipton, founder of Liptons, was an entrepreneur and philanthropist, and in 1909 he agreed with Italian King Victor Emmanuel III to put on an international football tournament in Turin.

Invitations were sent to all the football associations in the world, but the English FA refused to send a team, so the amateurs of West Auckland FC were invited (the story that they were mistaken for Woolwich Arsenal is sadly untrue).

The miners scraped together every penny that they could to fund the trip, travelling by train from Darlington to London, then by boat to France before another rail journey to Turin.

On April 11, they beat German side Stutggarter Sportfreunde 2-0, a scoreline they replicated the following day over Swiss outfit FC Winterthur in the final.

In 1911 West Auckland returned to Italy, albeit with only three of the 1909 squad members remaining, where they retained the trophy by beating FC Zurich 2-0 before hammering the hosts Juventus 6-1 in the April 12 final.

On a side note, had Pickles the dog not found the Jules Rimet Trophy stolen while England hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1966, West’s trophy was to have been used as a substitute.

The West trophy was itself stolen in 1994, a replica replacing it at West Auckland Working Men’s Club.

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