Friday's column supposed McGillycuddy Reeks to have been a character in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, and was so helplessly off the scent that the nose for news may incurably have become congested.

McGillycuddy reeks, it may be recalled, was the horse which changed the delightful Don Enrico Incisa - the Middleham trainer who died ten days ago - from a gentlemanly Don Quixote to someone the Racing Post obituarist could describe as man who "turned inexperienced horses into prolific money spinners."

The truth of the matter is explained by Northallerton solicitor Stephen Woodall, in whose company we spent a convivial evening at the Thirsk meeting on Saturday.

McGillycuddy Reeks, suggests m'learned friend - correctly - is a mountain range in Co Kerry, including Ireland's highest, Carranotohill, at 3,414 feet. There are a canny few peat bogs, too.

The McGillycuddys are the local clan, derived from the Gaelic meaning "devotee of St Mochuda". The McGillycuddy of the Reeks is the clan chieftain.

Any suggested connection with Sir Walter Scott is simply absurd, as Don Enrico would doubtless have pointed out.

Stephen Woodall, coincidentally, was in the Reeks foothills just two weeks ago. "They were still covered in snow," he reports.

At Thirsk Races last Saturday evening, it was cold enough for it, an' all.

Little warmer, or drier, at Shildon on Saturday afternoon where in hitting a last game hat-trick former Darlington forward Lee Ellison, now 32, suggested what a very good player he might have been if a stone or so lighter.

The real point of this paragraph, however, is to record that faithful Shildon servant Charlie Walton, 12 years at the club, has a throuoghly deserved benefit against Ashington tomorrow (7 30pm.)

Ray Robertson, for 33 years a Northern Echo fixture in the Middlesbrough press box, has been honoured at the inaugural dinner of Boro's Former Players' Association - a 600 ticket sell-out.

"It was a total surprise, I was absolutely stunned," says Ray, now 73 and still striding the North Yorkshire moors.

Gordon Jones, who made a record 528 league and cup appearances for the club, says they wanted to recognise someone outside the club. "Ray was the unanimous first choice. It reflected the respect we all had for him over the years,.

"The players could trust him because he never broke a confidence."

Coundon lad originally, Ray covered Bishop Auckland and Crook in their Wembley heyday before moving, free transfer, to the Echo's Middlesbrough office.

Today, he reckons, the press gang is much more constrained. "In the old days a reporter could form a personal rapport and close friendship with a player.

"Football is big business now, dominated by press conferences and with personal initiative restricted."

Ray, who also helped organise several players' testimonials, recalled that his first season at Ayresome Park coincided with Brian Clough's last - and that press and players travelled together by train.

"Though we were often in the same compartment, Clough was such a forceful character that for the first six months I hardly dared speak, but later I got on well with him.

"He was such a complex man that many people didn't see his caring side."

Gordon Jones, now 62, picked up the night's other major trophy. "I knew about his but not my own and was sworn to secrecy," says Ray. "Gordon knew about mine but not his own. It was a double con."

The FA Cup final escape committee (and Scotch Pie Fest) has again been drawing up plans for its May 21 mercy dash. Quoted £54 for the cheapest standard class day return from Darlington to Edinburgh, canny convenor Peter Sixsmith asked about tickets to Glasgow. That'll be £23 - change at Edinburgh - they said. Ineluctably, the committee meets in Glasgow instead.

Whatever happened, we asked a couple of columns back, to Stockton lad Alan Monkhouse - nine goals in 21 Newcastle United appearances between 1953-55 but barely heard of since?

Ron Langston from Washington begins the answer. After a short spell with York City, he says, Monkhouse spent several seasons sand dancing in South Shields' Simonside Hall days.

"A penalty kick specialist, one of the most consistent spot kickers in the North-East," noted the programme profile for the 1957 game with Consett.

It was also when the semi-professional North Eastern League folded and when Shields spent a disorinetated 1957-58 in a Midland League which included Ashington, Blyth and Horden as well as Peterborough, Gainsborough Trinity and Skegness.

Ron's most treasured memory, however, is of something which happened before the match. "Several of the opposition were wearing the fancy new, low slung continental boots.

"Alan borrowed a pair of scissors off the trainer and hacked his Co-op best down to size. It somehow didn't look quite the same."

Even before Darlington's result on Saturday, club chairman Stewart Davies was lunching last Thursday with a prospective buyer - said to have plenty of money to spend. (You read it here first.)

The horrendous year of the crater almost behind them, Tow Law have elected Sandra Gordon as chairman - just the third woman to hold the position in the Northern League's 116 year history.

Sandra, whose son Sam was the Lawyers' mascot in the 1998 FA Vase final at Wembley, succeeds long serving Harry Hodgson who returned to office for a year and found himself almost literally thrown into the deep end.

"Everyone's looking forward to her keeping us in order," says Steve Moralee, the club's assistant secretary. "We don't yet know if she wants to be chairman, chairperson or chair, but we'll happily fall in line."

Funded by the Coal Authority, further pitch drainage work takes place at the Ironworks Road ground in the summer, in the hope that the club can return in 2005-06.

Despite a late escape from relegation, Steve's looking upwards - as usually they do at Tow Law. "If the season only depended on the form table over the last six games, the Lawyers would be top."

While recently departed Hartlepool United manager Neale Cooper continued to be linked with Dunfermline, Pars' historian Dave Munday - Darlington lad originally - not only reveals that the club's new manager is Jim Leishman but that Leishmaniosis is a parasitic disease transmitted by a species of sand fly. It was named after Glasgow surgeon Sir William Leishman. Not the same bug at all, then.

...and finally

THE first man to score a goal in the Premiership (Backtrack, May 5) was Brian Deane - then with Sheffield United, now with Sunderland (and as Paul Dobson in Bishop Auckland points out, the club's oldest ever debutant.)

What we really meant to seek, however, was the identity of the first goalkeeper to score in the Premiership - and the answer to that one on Friday.

Published: 10/05/2005