Golden memories for Bishops

Bishop Auckland 2 Hendon 0, FA Amateur Cup final at Wembley, the golden age never more brilliantly burnished.

It was the first of Bishops' unique hat-trick of Wembley victories, each watched by 100,000 spectators. For the Two Blues, the greatest amateur side in football history, the sun seemed never to set on the Empire Stadium.

Derek Lewin appeared in all three finals, scored both goals in 1955, was again on the mark in 1956 and 1957, commuted from St Anne's in Lancashire with Harry Sharratt, no less legendary, in the trans-Pennine passenger seat.

Now just days from his 75th birthday, the five times capped amateur international has been a member of Lancashire FA since 1972, a national FA Council member since 1991, continues to care enthusiastically and articulately for the game and particularly for its grass roots.

"The biggest bugbear in football is the Premier League, they take a lot of convincing that football starts in the parks," he said.

"Because they bring in a lot of the wealth, they believe they should control a lot of the wealth. I don't believe that at all."

Near retirement age, he also awaits with interest the review of the FA being undertaken by Lord Burns, Hetton-le-Hole lad ennobled.

"There's massive wastage of time at the FA, 37 committees I think, but how do you overcome it without having some autocrat there to decide policy? It just wouldn't work."

He'd played as an amateur for Oldham Athletic when the great George Hardwick was manager; agreed 30 bob a week expenses on Athletic's insistence that he had to have something, and signed for Bishop Auckland because he believed they offered more chance of honours than an ageing Oldham outfit.

The 1955 Wembley programme described him as a salesman in his father's bacon importing business, which may have been over-egging things a little: whatever else young Lewin brought home, it was rarely the bacon.

"My father was a football nut. He just told me to go and play," he says. "All I did at work was get paid; the company could quite easily have done without me, no worrying about that."

He signed for Bishop Auckland on December 21 1954, made his debut on Christmas Day, the initial agreement to play for Bishops in the Amateur Cup and Oldham in the Second Division challenged when the Northern league side reached the FA Cup third round, drawn away to Ipswich Town, also in Division Two. Blessed decision, he chose the Bishops.

In his first few games he'd been pretty useless, he supposes. Portman Road proved the turning point.

There wasn't a manager, or anything much approaching one, the usual tactical advice coming from a market trader called Charlie Wright who inevitably advised the team to kick their opponents before they, in turn, were kicked.

Derek had on the Ipswich occasion been approached on the train south by Jack Sowerby, the trainer, who gently suggested that his start had been inauspicious "I'd like you to have a good game at Ipswich," added Jack, courteously.

His man obliged, good as gold, Bishop Auckland sensationally winning 2-1. "Thank you very much," said Jack as the train thundered back north, and then happily changed the subject.

The team is unforgettable yet, endlessly extolled, tripped untiring by men who never saw them play.

There was Sharratt, the 90 minute extrovert who'd build snowmen on his goal line and sign for anybody (says Derek) so long as he got his picture in the paper.

There was Jimmy Nimmins, the Consett iron worker who'd do shifts on Saturday morning; Corbett Cresswell, insuperable in central defence; Bobby Hardisty, the local shopkeeper's son who may have been the greatest of them all.

"He was probably the best attacking player I've ever seen, could pass a ball 50 or 60 yards into the stride of a running team mate," says Derek.

"Defensively he might have been a bit weaker, but there was always Cresswell, Nimmins or Dave Marshall to cover for him.

There was also Seamus O'Connell, the Carlisle cattle dealer, but more of that remarkable fellow in a moment.

Whether those rich talents went wholly unrewarded, whether rather more went into those Stanley Matthews boots than a two blue Bri-nylon stocking, has been the subject of a half century debate.

Derek insists that money wasn't, as it were, a consideration.

"You must never think that it was important. My father's business was the second biggest of its kind in the country and he looked after me.

"If I needed new training kit, or boots, I bought them and gave the club the bill. When I stayed at the Castle Hotel, always room eight on Friday nights, everything went on the tab. The club paid for everything like that."

The journey took two and a quarter hours - "There may not have been motorways, but there wasn't so much traffic, either" - usually followed by a Friday evening game of snooker and a warm-up and a coffee in Rossi's the following morning.

Before the Hendon match, 50 years ago tonight, they stayed in the Great Eastern Hotel, full breakfasted, got the coach to Wembley. "We were half way there when Tommy Stewart, the captain, asked me if I'd take the penalties.

"It seemed a funny time to ask, but I took them ever since."

Though he was basically right footed, both his goals were scored with the left. "I hadn't realised that until I saw a video two or three years ago. It shows how poor they were."

Each triumph was followed by an open top bus from Darlington station, escorted by the town band from Cabin Gate, hailed as heroes along the high street and greeted euphorically at the teeming town hall.

"It maybe took six months for North-East folk to accept me, but after that they were wonderful."

says Derek. "They were just so genuinely pleased to see you, and not just when you had the Amateur Cup in one hand."

The hat-trick complete - "We were never blase, we never expected to do what we did" - he left the Bishops to spend more time with family and with family firm, made a single Football League appearance for Accrington Stanley, played his football in Lancashire.

Few memories compare, however, with the afternoon of April 16 1955. It was the start of something very big indeed.

KEITH Belton in Stockton points out that Seamus O'Connell's photograph appears twice in the 1955-56 FA Year Book - and in extraordinary circumstances.

He's in Bishop Auckland's triumphant team picture, of course - but also lines up with the last Chelsea side to win the top division, 50 years ago this month.

"It's absolutely unbelievable, can never have happened before or since," says Keith, not unreasonably.

O'Connell, who'd scored twice in three Middlesbrough appearances in 1953, retained his amateur status at Stamford Bridge - hitting 11 goals in 16 matches.

"He was great in the air, an incredibly hard hitter of a dead ball and always seemed to be in the right place," says Derek Lewin.

Amazingly, however, the cattle man never played for Chelsea again, shunning the other man's grass for the more familiar pastures of the Northern League.

"You have to wonder why," says Keith.

Now 75, O'Connell has long lived in Spain. "We've tried to get him to one of our reunions," says Derek. "Unfortunately he doesn't seem to want to know."

WE'D caught up with Derek Lewin at Lancashire FA's impressive headquarters in Leyland, either side of a conference table beneath which his docile dog Rusty periodically begged biscuits.

It was while there that something quite extraordinary happened, a millions-to-one chance, serendipity squared.

More of that, and of the referee they called the Preston Strangler, when the column returns on Tuesday.

ANOTHER Amateur Cup reunion, Whitby Town's 1964 finalists gather on April 24 - still anxious to hear from Brian O'Connor, now in Darlington, who played in the quarter-final.

Organiser Martin Hart is on 01947 601599.

And finally...

THE first Football League club to get floodlights (Backtrack, April 12) was Swindon Town, in 1951. The last was Chesterfield. Steve Mann also adds a ninth - Brian Talbot - to the list of post-1966 England internationals whose surname begins and ends with the same letter.

Ahead of the weekend's semis, Brian Shaw in Shildon today invites readers to name the three sides who've lost the most FA Cup finals - seven apiece. More winners and losers on Tuesday.

Published: 15/04/2005