A MOLE surfaces. Have you heard, he asks - incorrigibly, irresistibly - about the long-retired cricketer whose wicket on his third team comeback was bagged by a 39-year-old mother of four, and who in his second match dislocated his finger in two places?

Thirds degree, the matter is put to the poor chap in question.

"What, " he says, "your snout didn't tell you that I was stumped by a 6ft 6in one-legged wicketkeeper as well?" He is Russell Muse, last in the news 21 years ago when the Sunday People learned that his honeymoon was being spent on a cricket tour and ran the headline "Wife shares honeymoon with 106 men." William Shakespeare, a few hundred years earlier, wrote in Henry V of a Muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention, the tabloid translation being that you couldn't make it up.

It's true, for all that, every word . . .

For three years in the 1980s, Russell was Whitburn's first team captain in the Durham Senior League, his claim to fame that he once caught and bowled Richie Richardson, the great West Indian.

Eight years after his official retirement, he was persuaded once more to play the whites man. "I think it must have been when I was drunk in the clubhouse one night, " admits the 46-yearold Sunderland insurance company owner.

The first match was against neighbours Boldon, Sarah Barnes ? the league's only woman player ? the most effective in the Boldon book.

"I'd faced her for five overs and hadn't got the ball off the square, " Russell readily recalls.

"I thought after a while that I'd get down the wicket and show her who was boss and that's exactly what we found out.

"The ball that was destined for the boundary didn't even touch the edge of my bat and suddenly I was scrambling back to the crease." That's where St John Usher, the 6ft 6in one-legged wicketkeeper, came in.

"He literally hopped up to the stumps as I scuttled back, we all ended up in a heap and I was out, stumped and undignified, for 11." Sarah, who also plays for Northumberland Ladies, claimed 4-15. "Russell did get a bit frustrated, " she admits. "I saw him coming and thought to myself that he wasn't going to get away with it. Fortunately he didn't.

"I really only play in the men's league to improve my own game, because the ball comes at you a lot harder.

There's a fear factor, being bowled by a woman, but most of them are very good about it." On Monday, Russell's second comeback game, the thirds played at Chester-le-Street.

He hit an undefeated 32 out of 58 ("they're not the best team in the world") but severely dislocated his finger in trying subsequently to take a catch.

"Five hours in casualty and no tea, " he grumbles.

Byron Longstaff, Boldon's first team vice-captain, insists that maiden overs are the third team's secret weapon.

"Sarah doesn't bowl with any great pace, just seam up and right on the spot." A bit like the Demon Donkey Dropper of Eryholme, we suggest.

"Who?" asks Byron, disappointingly, but adds that she's a nice girl who fits in really well. "A lot of it is in the mind; you just don't want to get bowled by a woman." St John Usher, a doctor, is thought to have lost a leg as a result of childhood illness.

"He takes a step on his good leg then hops on to his bad one but it's incredibly effective, " says Byron. "He can be down the wicket in three paces." The once bright Muse now contemplates a second retirement.

"I don't know if I'm going to do a Frank Sinatra, it'll depend on what the hospital says.

"All I know is that I don't ever again want to play against a woman."

Backtrack Briefs....

FORMER top footballer Malcolm Dawes is set to miss tomorrow's FA Cup final ? so that he can watch his son Mark, 24, in a national boxing final instead.

One Dawes opens . . .

Malcolm, famed as the man who replaced Pele at New York Cosmos, was a cultured defender who made more than 400 Football League appearances at Aldershot, Hartlepool and Workington.

Mark has already beaten the northern, Midlands and London champions on the way to the ABA Novices showdown at Knottingley, West Yorkshire.

Where's he get it from?

"That's what I'd like to know, " says Malcolm, 61.

Mark, who didn't start boxing until he was 17 and also reached last year's ABA final, insists he's a lot different from his father.

"I'm much more fiery for one thing, my dad was too nice for his own good.

"Friends and family were always on at me to become a footballer like him, but although I was competitive, I wasn't really interested in any sport until I took up boxing.

"My parents were mortified at first, especially my mam, who thought it was barbaric as mams do, but now they love it and support me everywhere." Mark fights for the South Durham Boxing Club, based in Fishburn - a couple of miles from his parents' home in Sedgefield.

"It looks like his final will be right in the middle of the Cup final, but there's no doubt where I'd rather be, " says Malcolm.

"I think Mark probably got tired of people ramming my football career down his throat, but now he's doing very well on his own.

"He's very dedicated, very strong, has a good punch and runs for miles." Beaten last year by the Royal Marines champion, tomorrow he faces the Army's top man - "I think the military must be out to get me" - and hopes next year to turn professional.

"There's nothing left for me at amateur level, I'm not going to make the Olympics. Like my dad, I could be a professional sportsman at last."

STILL in the ring, former ABA black sheep Paul Hodgson ? secretary of Spennymoor boxing academy - is gradually being returned to officialdom's fold.

Though once they seemed in opposite corners, NorthEast ABA secretary Ron Harvey has just had Hodgy away to Norway, where he acted as a team representative in a tournament.

It was held, reports Hodgy, on a distant island with 4,000 people and rather more elks, where the temperature was sub-zero, a half of beer was £6 and the hotel was heartbreaking.

"I think, " he muses, "that it was Ron Harvey's idea of revenge."

NOW that he's in the Premiership at last, Sunderland manager Mick McCarthy also finds himself in the "3am" column in the Mirror ? "spotted in the Kingfisher restaurant in Wakefield, Yorkshire, " report the early birds, breathlessly.

McCarthy seems unlikely to be changing his careful Yorkshire ways, however.

The Kingfisher is a chippy.

Shildon Railway clinched the Durham Alliance League title against Brandon Prince Bishop on Monday night, the familiar figure of Phil Owers still keeping canny between the sticks.

Fifty a couple of weeks back, the old eminence grise made 114 Football League appearances for Darlington and a couple apiece for Hartlepool and Gillingham.

"He's as good as ever, incredibly agile, " says Railway secretary Alan Morland.

Marking its own fiftieth anniversary, the club - forever Shildon BR - has enjoyed a truly golden season, winning the league and cup double and three other trophies. That one was the Washington Aged People's Cup is, of course, entirely coincidental.

STILL trying to get themselves out of that damn great hole in the penalty area, Tow Law FC hold their awards evening in the clubhouse tomorrow night ? hirsute supporter "Darlo" Dave Henderson offering an additional attraction by having his head shaved.

"He's being transformed from ZZ Top to Kojak, " says assista-secretary Steve Moralee. Hair today and gone tomorrow, sponsorship towards club coffers would greatly be appreciated.

OLD rope as usual, Tuesday's column wondered about "Sgt Twine" - in Middlesbrough's allconquering second division team in 1926-27.

Frank Twine, says the Bearded Wonder, was a London-born right back who made 52 Boro appearances before moving to Aldershot, Reading and, ultimately, Caernarvon United.

And finally...

TUESDAY'S question on the Co Durham village team for which the great Raich Carter and George Camsell both played - it was Esh Winning - stirred memories for 83-year-old Bill Hedley in Kelloe.

"I first watched Raich at Roker Park in 1926, sitting on my dad's shoulder, " he recalls. "He was without doubt the greatest player I've ever seen." Don Clarke knew, too, and also wondered why Warne and Muralitharan hadn't been added to the cricketers who've taken 1,000 first-class wickets and are still playing in England.

We meant Englishqualified cricketers and still can't add Andrew Caddick ? 953 victims before the start of the season and quite a lot thereafter.

"Twelve of the buggers against us, " grumbles Durham County scorer Brian Hunt, affably.

Martin Birtle in Billingham today recalls the 1962-63 MCC tour to Australia, inviting readers to suggest why team manager the Duke of Norfolk returned suddenly and secretly half way through.

We return, huggermugger, on Tuesday.

Published: 20/05/2005