Dr Graeme Forster's career in local league football revisited

Born in Quebec, to the west of Durham City, where he still lives, “the Doc”, as he was inevitably known, had some ability as a football player and made a single appearance for a Durham County Youth side which included players like Terry Fenwick (Crystal Palace, QPR, and Spurs), Micky Hazard (Spurs, Chelsea and Portsmouth), and Billy Askew (Boro and Hull City).

Graeme Forster pictured at his Metaltech works at Delves Lane near Consett in 2006However, it was as a manager that he made his name, and he told a recent meeting of our Sporting Memories group, at Heritage Park, Bishop Auckland, about his career.

He started with the village team of Hamsteels and bought the team’s ground before Evenwood chairman Gordon Nicholson, free from the Northern League after 24 years as its no-nonsense secretary, persuaded him to go to Evenwood.

He was immediately asked: "How did you get on with Gordon?"

Mike Amos interviews Dr Graeme Forster at the Sporting Memories group"Great," he replied, "because I was as straight as he was."

When signing players, the Doc had a rule of his own. "If their first question was 'How much?' I didn't want to know,” he said.

In eight years at Evenwood, his signings included ex-England Eric Gates, former Newcastle United and Middlesbrough full back Irving Nattrass, and Sunderland man Paul Atkinson. His ability to get players to work together was a major reason that Evenwood remained in the Northern League, albeit in Division Two.

Several of the Doc's transfers had been made late at night at the Tuxedo Princess, a floating night club on the Tyne, where Graeme admitted he spent too much of his time.

To assist in raising money at Evenwood, Graeme persuaded Langley Park greyhound trainer Jean Taylor to register a greyhound as Evenwood Town and raffle a year’s ownership towards club funds. Its winning debut came on a windy night at Brough Park stadium in January 1993.

Graeme said: "The greyhound idea was an improvement on ham, I mean people soon get sick of winning ham."

After eight years with Evenwood, he moved down the road to West Auckland, where in the 1998-99 season, the club had a thrilling and historic run in the FA Cup.

In Qualifying Round 1, they beat Rossington Main 5-0 at home with Gary Innes, 2 (one a penalty), Paul Adamson, Jonathan Milroy and Danny Mellanby scoring.

After a 1-1 draw at Chester-le-Street in Qualifying Round 2, they beat the Cestrians 2-0 at home with strikes from Andy Sinclair and Paul Stout.

In Qualifying Round 3 they blew away Unibond outfit Hyde United 2-0 at home with Gorman and Adamson their scorers.

Qualifying Round 4 was a tough trip to Kings Lynn who were in the Southern League. Graeme said: "Stuart Alderson called me into a meeting and explained that as we were so close to Round 1, and it was the club's biggest game in the FA Cup for 36 years that they should travel down the day before the game and stay overnight.”

It paid dividends as 38-year-old Paul Adamson scored his 10th goal of the season to give West a 1-0 win. For the first time in 37 years, West were in the 1st Round proper of the famous competition.

The only disappointment was their draw: a 640-mile round trip to Yeovil. Graeme was known to say: "Having worked our socks off we get a tie like that."

Yeovil, who were in the Football Conference, were three rungs and 50 places above West Auckland in the football pyramid. Not only that but they were the most famous of all the FA Cup giant-killers and had reached the competition proper 45 times and had beaten 15 Football League clubs, including a star-studded First Division Sunderland team with Len Shackleton in 1949.

However, West took the lead through Jonathan Milroy after only nine minutes, and then good work by Milroy and Gary Hornsby set up Paul Adamson to make it 2-0 on 35 minutes.

Patmore pulled one back for the home team straight away so it was 2-1 in West's favour at half time.

The second half was a right old battle but with 90 minutes gone, West still held their one goal lead. But referee Mr RG Beeby added four extra minutes in which Yeovil equalised through Hannigan.

Graeme, who should have been delivering a lecture in Brazil, told reporters: "I certainly would rather be here, I'll probably do a samba on the coach on the way home. A draw is still a good result and they will get a culture shock when they come to our ground."

It was a raw November night when the teams took the field at West Auckland for the replay. The ground erupted just after the hour mark when Jonathan Milroy scored from 15 yards. The clock ticked on: could West hold on this time?

Unfortunately not, as Dale hit an equaliser with only 18 minutes to go.

The match ended 1-1 but West lost 5-3 on penalties.

Graeme then moved to Tow Law in the post-Peter Quigley era. He had a story about the hooligan Tow Law supporters called “The Misfits”. He said: "We were playing away in the Vase in the Manchester area and won 1-0 with a header from Darren Darwent. The Misfits who were behind the goal went berserk, but someone got a photo of them and it appeared on the front cover of next year’s Rothmans Football Year Book.”

Crook manager Alan Oliver, left, and assistant Graeme Forster, right, on the touchline against Bury Town in the FA Vase

Graeme's next port of call was to the Millfield in Crook where he was the assistant manager to Alan Oliver, with Jonathan Milroy and Danny Mellanby again in his side. Once more cup fever erupted as Graeme and Alan took the Black and Ambers to the quarter-final of the FA Vase in 2005-6. Bury Town, and their goalkeeper, who had a blinder, were the stumbling block to further progress in the Vase as Crook went out 1-0 at home.

Today, the Doc will be found either at St James’s Park, Newcastle, at the racecourse, or at Esh Winning football club where his duties include everything from chips to designing the new club badge.

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