VERY little in our giant Christmas crossword stumped our winner Colin Gray - which is as it should be - as he is the groundsman at Stockton Cricket Club.

For Colin, 58, it was his second success - he won in 2001 and was pulled out from nearly 100 completed grids again this year.

"I drank the last bottle of champagne on holiday in Scotland and I'll take this one with us to Eskdale when we go this year," he said, cradling his prize of a magnum.

"Being a cricket groundsman, you can have to take your holidays in March or September."

Colin grew up in Toft Hill, where his mother Freda still lives, and after studying agriculture he stumbled into groundsmanship at the former Bakelite factory, in Newton Aycliffe, near Darlington.

After tending its sports grounds for three years, he moved to Feethams at Darlington in the days when Cyril Knowles was the football club manager.

"I remember when Darlington knocked Middlesbrough out of the FA Cup in 1985," he says. "We had volunteers come down at six o'clock in the morning to shift four inches of snow.

"It was the best day in my groundsman life - although Ian Botham scoring his last 100 here at Stockton comes pretty close."

He has been groundsman at Stockton since 1987, preparing the wicket for the club's 120 matches a season.

Being one of the leading out-grounds in the district, Stockton often hosts a match for Durham County Cricket Club - and Colin has just learned that Stockton has been awarded a game this May.

"He'll be up at five and I won't see him until 11 at night," says Linda, his wife. "There'll be all the cleaning and painting of the buildings and moving the stands in," says Colin.

"You want the ground to look its best. I remember the first time they played a county game here in 1992 - they whitewashed my glasses afterwards!"

Fortunately, Colin was clear-sighted enough over Christmas to complete the 700-odd clues in our Champagne Crossword, which we believe is the largest to be published in a newspaper in the country.

Numbers 255 Down (lowering of social standards - declasse) and 315 Down (American of Japanese descent - nisei) caused him the most difficulty, but with the help of a thesaurus and the Internet he pulled through.

"I was glad I was out working," says Linda, who is head cook at Allison House in Thornaby, a home for Alzheimer's sufferers.

"I had to cook their Christmas dinner, so I left him there rumbling and grumbling and rattling on."

Because of the size of the crossword, it is impossible to print all the answers here. However, we would be delighted to post a copy out if you send your address to Crossword Answers, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF. Alternatively, they are all on The Northern Echo's website at http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/crossword.htm