Armstrong's a sight for sore eyes

The 60-year-old retired chartered surveyor simply didn't see it coming.

It happened in Saturday's Durham County League game between Shildon Railway II and Etherley II when strong winds blew the half ton screen down on top of him - and John admits he's lucky to be alive.

"It got me between the shoulders.

"If I'd been six inches smaller it would have been my head.

"When I crawled out from beneath the bloody thing I didn't realise I'd broken my ankle and after a while carried on playing.

"I just didn't know what the hell had hit me.

"You expect occasionally to be hit by a bat or the ball but not wiped out by the sight screen." John, who'd cycled the five miles from his home in Etherley - near Bishop Auckland - to play for the village side, was among several fielders who'd moved the sight screen at a Shildon batsman's request.

"The others had moved away waiting for play to resume and I was a few yards infield when it came after me.

"Everyone saw it coming except me.

"I could see everyone shouting something at me but the words were drowned out by the gale.

"I could never have imagined that they were warning me about a low flying sight screen.

"I understand that it was damaged, too, because the wind just whistles across the ground at Shildon.

"Everyone thought it was hilarious, but I'm in absolute agony now." Though badly shaken he batted with a runner - "I must have been concussed, I didn't know what to do" - and after a couple of pain killing pints cycled home again.

The break was diagnosed two days later. He'd broken the same ankle in a walking accident last November.

Shildon official Peter Dargue said the sight screen had escaped unscathed. "Unfortunately John didn't.

"It's a shame because he loves his cricket and rolls up with all his gear on his bike like a pack mule.

"It was blowing a gale on Saturday.

"The screen on one of the ground is protected by a privet hedge but there's nothing to stop the wind on the other." Etherley captain Danny Hinge said John, formerly with Wittonle-Wear, had offered to play when they were short. "We're short every match so he's played every game.

"I see him almost every day running or cycling past our house.

"In fitness terms he puts the rest of us to shame. We hope he'll be back." The flattened fielder, leg in pot, still hopes to play again this season - and insists he won't be putting the wind up anyone by threatening legal action.

"Even in the clubhouse people were talking about me suing.

They don't understand any more, they just expect you to milk the situation.

"My wife's not very keen on me playing again after this, but you're a long time finished.

"It's sport, it happens, I'll be back." Carol Armstrong said she thought her husband totally insane.

"I just hope he doesn't end up crippled." Etherley lost.

England's original goal hero

FOLLOWING Tuesday's hat trick of Owen goals, the following day's list of England's all-time leading scorers intrigued Howard Chadwick in Newton Aycliffe.

Sir Bobby Charlton is top with 49 in 106 appearances, followed by Gary Lineker with 48 in 80. In eighth place sat Vivian Woodward, with the remarkable strike rate of 29 goals in 23 England appearances.

Viv la difference? Who on earth, asks Howard, was he?

Better known as Jack, Woodward was born in Clacton in 1879 and played for the town's first team at 16. He joined Spurs in 1902, scoring the club's first ever Football League goal six years later.

In 1909, doubtless without need of agents or improper inducements, he crossed London to sign for Chelsea.

Woodward also won 40 amateur international caps over the same period, scoring eight in the 15-0 thrashing of France in 1908 ? but that appears to have been an amateur game, too.

Contemporary journalists described him as "a wizard with magic in his boots" and "as lean and fast as a greyhound." He served in the Middlesex Regiment during World War I, ran a dairy in Frinton thereafter but died, aged 74, a "forgotten and tragically lonely figure." Many years later Viv Woodward, otherwise Viv Who, was named among the Football League's all-time top 100.

HIGH flying referee Dave Roberts, on the Albany Northern League just last year, has landed his biggest ever game - the Indian derby between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, before an expected 120,000 crowd in Calcutta.

"I'm told it's a passionate affair akin to Celtic v Rangers or Fenerbache v Galatasaray, " says 41-year-old Dave, who now works for Sky TV in Singapore.

"They reckon the locals don't like refereeing it, so they went for a foreign ref instead." Formerly Sky Sports' man in the North-East and a qualified pilot, he is probably best remembered for flying assistants Andy Hodgson and Graham Leatherland from Teesside to Newcastle for the August 2002 game between Newcastle Blue Star and Tow Law.

The airport's half a mile from Blue Star's ground. Dave charged them the usual mileage rate - by road.

Mohun Bagan rang bells - Crook Town's principal opponents on that improbable Crook's tour in May 1976. There were 100,000 in for that one, too: they like their football in Calcutta.

AIDED by the Intrepid Tegestologist, the Stokesley Stockbroker has a question: "If there are 12 teams in the Scottish Premier League (which there are), how do they come to play 38 games?" We out it to the omniscient Mr John Briggs whose reply has, in turn, been forwarded to the Stockbroker but is far too troublesome to be accommodated beneath this humble roof.

John's summary must suffice: "How the human brain has the capacity to complicate something simple."

PROOF that Cleveland Constabulary really is on the ball again, the force's first seven-a-side tournament for nine years kicks off on Norton and Stockton Ancients' astroturf tomorrow.

The ten-man squads include the Soccer SOCOS - that's the scene of crime officers, apparently - Bowesfield Wednesday (the computer crime unit) and K9+1, the dog section.

Middlesbrough CID's intelligence unit has for some reason entered itself as the Babble Dogs; former Boro midfielder Charlie Bell plays for Coulby Newham, where he's now a neighbourhood inspector.

It's organised by Det Chief Insp Ray Morton, manager of the Ancient's Arngrove Northern League side, who's quick to address the issue of who's guarding the streets when 140 pollisses are playing football.

"The answer," he says, "is those that didn't enter."

THE Over 40s League celebrates 40 uniquely successful years a week tomorrow. Suitably silver, there seem to be an awful lot of presentations.

Among the recipients is Doug Grant, who once scored five hat tricks in a season for Shildon and won a colour television for every one, and former England amateur international Dave "Jock" Rutherford, still hovering (he says) on the right side of 60.

There's also an "oldest supporter" award for 85-year-old Peggy Harker of the Rams Head at Langley Park, who once threatened to sort out dear old Kip Watson - walking sticks at ten paces - who's a year or two older.

The Rams will also be represented by Caroline Moralee, the team manager's wife, who'll be making some of the presentations and has tried to find a frock fit for the festivities.

Though something was finally borne home from the MetroCentre, it was found to have a hole in the back. The suppliers checked in Belfast and finally found another in Chester, from where it's being sent by special delivery.

Kip's impressed. "Nothing, " he says, "is too good for our silver jubilee."

BRITAIN'S best known baritone Sir Thomas Allen - Seaham lad and Sunderland fan - has been proving that he's rather better at singing than football.

Sir Thomas, known to have had the Sunderland score ticktacked from back stage during moments of grand opera, appears at the Royal Opera House this week in an improbable production of Rossini's Il Turco - largely set on a beach.

At the end of the first scene he's supposed to rise from his sun chair, walk to centre stage and gently kick a beach ball into the wings.

Unfortunately, the Great Man sliced his shot in the manner of Sunderland 2003-04, the ball ending among in the orchestra pit. "It came from on high," says a flautist with the wind up. "We were taken a bit by surprise."

JUST a penny at the time, that 1926-27 Boro v Chelsea programme we mentioned a couple of weeks back has sold at auction for £760 - five times the estimated price.

"There were two people in the room virtually hitting each other over the head to get it. I think they were both Chelsea fans," reports John Wilson of Middlesbrough based Methusaleh.

A solid gold, Fattorini hall marked Boro directors' badge from the 1960s fetched £200. "It might be gold," says John, "but anything involving Chelsea these days is just about priceless."

And finally...

ALMOST everyone knew that Shamrock Rovers (Backtrack, May 31) play their football in Dublin's fair city.

Fred Alderton in Peterlee today invites readers to name the first player to score ? and the first to miss ? in English professional football's first competitive penalty shoot-out.

We're on the spot again on Tuesday.

Published: 03/06/2005