SAM Bartram was a Boldon collier, played at wing half for England schoolboys, had an unsuccessful trial for Reading after marching south to escape the depression, scored a hat-trick on his centre forward debut for Easington Colliery and became one of football's greatest and most colourful goalkeepers.

We remember him well, a green-jerseyed figure in a 1950s Chix bubble gum album.

"His showmanship has endeared him to Charlton fans, who claim that he is the number one English goalkeeper, " it said on the back of the card.

"Athletic without Bartram, " the card added, "is like Laurel without Hardy."

At Charlton, forever happy Valley, he still holds every record - including the club's oldest player, at 42. He made 623 appearances, 579 in the Football League, and in 22 years missed just 16 League games without once being dropped.

They said perpetually that he was the best goalkeeper never to be capped by England, and though he was 40 when he had his final trial, Frank Swift and Ted Ditchburn still kept a move ahead.

Only now, however - 23 years after his sudden death - is a permanent memorial planned at the Valley to the immortal Sam Bartram, to mark the south London club's centenary.

Among its backers is veteran broadcaster John Motson, who still remembers Sam playing in the first match to which his father took him. "Sam was flamboyant to say the least, " says Motty.

"His trademark was to run out of the penalty area, take off his cap to reveal his red hair, and head the ball clear. He was a oneclub man who wanted to share his personality with the fans."

Coincidentally, a new book on Sam's remarkable life and times will also appear next summer. It's Mike Blake, his biographer, who turns to the Backtrack column for help.

"The story of his Football League career is so extraordinary it seems a shame not properly to document his time in the NorthEast, " says Mike. "I'm trying to tie bits and pieces together but it's proving very frustrating. I'd love to find out more."

Sam was born in Simonside, South Shields, in 1914, moved to North Road in Boldon when his dad got a job down the pit, followed him into the descending cage after leaving school at 14.

He played for both Sunderland and Co Durham schools, preferred wing half to centre forward, earned three half crowns when playing for North Shields in the North Eastern League, a few bob in the boot at Easington and probably nothing at all when back home with Boldon Villa.

It was at Boldon that Sam first donned the polo-necked jumper, after the regular goalkeeper was injured in a local cup final - and among the crowd was the younger brother of Jimmy Seed, Charlton's Whitburn-born manager. "If you're ever short, I know a canny keeper, " he reported.

Soon Jimmy Seed was short.

Though Sam conceded eight goals in his first two reserve team matches, Seed saw the growth potential at once.

With Sam's reassuring figure behind them, Charlton rose from third to first division in successive seasons and were runners-up the following season.

The rest is Addicks' legend, not least the foggy day in London town when his whereabouts were for some time shrouded in mystery.

Charlton played Chelsea, Sam content that play was concentrated at their opponents' end.

"Time passed and I made several advances towards the edge of the penalty area, peering through the murk but could still see nothing, " he recalled in his 1956 autobiography. "The Chelsea defence were clearly being run off their feet."

Some time later, a policeman loomed out of the fog in front of him. "What on earth are you doing here?" he said. "The game was stopped 15 minutes ago."

When finally he groped his way to the dressing room, he recalled, the rest of the team was already out of the bath - but still wetting themselves laughing.

He retired in 1956, became manager of York City then Luton Town, remained in the south and is buried, alongside his motherin-law, in Plot B114 of Harpenden cemetery. Three years ago, beneath the headline "Grave indifference", its neglected condition came to the attention of Observer sports writer Kevin Mitchell.

The stone was split and leaning, the grave unkempt - "an undignified resting place for a fine footballer, " wrote Mitchell.

Former colleagues on the People, where Sam had become a sports reporter, tried to persuade the FA to finance repairs.

Though they enlisted the willing support of Frank Pattison, former FA vice-chairman and still Durham FA president, still nothing happened.

"When I asked the FA for their version of events, answer came there bugger all, " wrote Mitchell, a little colloquially.

Eventually, the repairs were paid for by a well-known NorthEast footballer on condition that he remain anonymous.

Charlton Athletic also seemed reluctant to honour their heroes.

When the club returned to the Valley in 1992, it took four years to restore the identity of the Jimmy Seed Stand, named after another north Durham man who found lasting fame in the south.

Now fans are being invited to fund the £25,000, nine feet high bronze likeness which next June will take its place in front of the west stand.

Club spokesman Richard Mulligan reports that all is going well.

"I don't think there's any doubt that Sam Bartram is our all-time great, though the remarkable thing is that most of our supporters have never seen him play."

Other Charlton heroes, he reckons, include Keith Peacock - father of the former Newcastle United player and now Athletic's assistant manager more than 40 years after his debut - Eddie Firmani, John Hewie and Robert Lee, also familiar at Newcastle.

Mike Blake, meanwhile, feels deadlines pressing. "I'm desperate to find out more about his early days or anyone with stories, " he says.

We'll pass on any information or anecdotes. Sam Bartram, clown prince of custodians, deserves a fitting memorial.

SSPEAKING of Charlton and of athleticism, a couple of beers on Tuesday night with 45-yearold John Charlton - Jack's lad and formerly his youth team coach at Newcastle.

Similarly a centre half, John spent 14 years playing in Australia. Any good? "Brilliant, " he said.

Recently appointed manager of Peterlee in the Albany Northern League, he hopes to change the fortunes of a side leaking goals and finding it difficult to sign players.

With just nine men at Newcastle Benfield Saints last Saturday, they'd to play the secretary and the physio up front and, unsurprisingly lost 6-0.

Didn't he fancy a game himself, then? "I'm not that brilliant, " said John.

MMEMORY had suggested that Sam Bartram was number 46 out of 48 in the Chix bubble gum gallery. He wasn't, he was 45 - coincidentally alongside former Sunderland and Newcastle inside forward Ivor Broadis, who'd featured in Tuesday's column.

"Probably the subject of more transfers than any other player, " it said on the back of the card, though Ivor only ever had four.

John Briggs, who owns the set, also disputes the claim in Tuesday's column that Broadis - born Ivan - became Ivor after someone misread his handwriting on a contract.

"According to an official Sunderland publication a few years back, he chose the name himself because he thought Ivan sounded too Russian.

"It was the era of the Cold War, was it not?"

NNO mistaking Hurricane Ivan, which tore through the Cayman islands in the autumn and has prompted a Christmas change of plan for tax exile and former Middlesbrough favourite Bill Gates, 60.

While things get back to normal at Grand Cayman, Bill - Ferryhill lad, originally - is spending a month on an island off Hawaii with his wife, Judith.

"I'm just looking out of the window watching the turtles, " he reports. "You have to learn to adapt."

BACK where he began, Harry Smurthwaite's funeral on Wednesday overflowed Shildon Methodist church and almost filled the forecourt, too.

We heard how as a Bishop Auckland Grammar School boy he'd excel at anything in which a ball was involved.

And how as a man he was a teacher both by nature and by profession and as a father he was without equal Somewhere out the back, the column stood next to Stewart Alderson, whom Harry had taught at Copeland Lane school in West Auckland and who made his Newcastle United debut in 1966.

"When I got to the dressing room that day, there was a telegram from Harry wishing me well, " recalled Stewart. "It was the only one I got and I still have it. Lovely man, Harry."

As last Friday's column recorded, Harry died on the 11th green at Barnard Castle Golf Club, aged 68.

Though adept at many sports, his great love was cricket - finally hanging up his boots just last year after many years as a player, and later secretary, at Bishop Auckland.

We sang Guide Me Oh Thou Great Jehovah, listened to the moving rhyme about Autumn Rain, heard the familiar verses from Ecclesiastes, which begin: "For everything there is a season. . . ." For Harry, the greatest season of all was the cricket season. A lovely man, Harry.

And finally...

the two Willington FC managers in the 1970s who respectively also managed Sunderland and Middlesbrough (Backtrack, December 7) were Alan Durban and Malcolm Allison.

Addicks revisited, readers are today invited to name two post-war Charlton managers who were also successful managers of North East clubs.

The column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 10/11/2004