Seaton comes in from cold

It was 1992, Durham II spending - if not necessarily enjoying - a day by the seaside and Dickie for once playing seconds fiddle.

"He wasn't best pleased, and at one stage brought them off because he was so cold, " remembers Marjorie Ellwood.

Umpire Bird, she adds, was a bit fussy about the type of tea he drank, as well.

By way of compensation, however, the Bird man of Barnsley found the home-made cakes and scones greatly to his taste. "He went home with a doggy bag, " recalls the incomparable Beardless Wonder, who also remembers that it was the sole Durham appearance of Eugene Antoine, a triallist from the sun-blessed Windward Islands.

Frozen fingers barely able to hold the ball, Antoine took 1-80 and was never heard of again.

The Seaton Carew weather was little less hospitable when Durham had made their first team debut there, a one-day friendly against Lancashire on August 15, 1991 with a gale-force wind blowing off the North Sea.

"In truth I hardly noticed it, " says Marjorie. "What do they expect at Seaton; it's part of the scenery, as it were."

Her thoughts on that and much else - "I know lots of people say Seaton Carew is the coldest place on earth, but I've been much colder at Marske" - are in Marjorie's reprise of Seaton memories, compiled to mark the club's 175th anniversary.

Her husband Ray, who died from a form of dementia in 2002, was a long-serving player, captain, committee member and NYSD League umpire. Their son Brian was first team captain at 23.

Marjorie, a 64-year-old retired teacher, lists among her myriad club duties that of cricket development manager - "I don't think the ECB people believe you do anything unless you have a title; how do they think we've lasted 175 years without developing cricket?" - and has to some amusement just been named Clubman of the Year.

"I've always been a bit of a tomboy, " she says, "but it's the first time I've been mistaken for a feller."

The book's dedicated to her husband - "in memory of our shared passion" - whom she met at Hartlepool's Park Drive ground and for which club she shared "a sort of schizophrenic allegiance" ever since.

Far from the familiar exhumation of long-interred statistics, it's a largely anecdotal account of cricket brought in from the cold, backed by scores of Marjorie's own photographs, a couple of her poems and even one of her paintings.

She also did the design and typesetting and spent hours among the minute books, noting particularly the number of times that moles poked their unwelcome heads above the secretarial surface - ten shillings voted to the mowdy man, Mr Cockburn of Thorpe Thewles - and the club's ever-unsuccessful attempts to gain entry into the NYSD top division.

It hasn't always been female friendly, either, though in March 1951 the club agreed to fund a ladies' toilet.

"Mr H Waller undertook to provide some corrugated sheets, " noted the minute book, "while Mr R H Lewis agreed to obtain a suitable door."

On another occasion while scoring, she pointed out a "delicate problem" to a club official and was advised that it would be OK if, quickly, she went behind the score box.

"I get a little bit uppity about these things, " Marjorie admits. "I don't like being allowed to make the tea and not much else."

A cricket enthusiast since childhood games where the beach huts once stood on Seaton sea front, she now spends much of her spare time helping the club.

Another memory is of Michael Gough senior, familiar Hartlepool sports shop owner and esteemed club cricketer, who as a youngster "would always try to cadge bread crusts, or anything else going free."

No offence, Mike's stocking the book. It's also available, only a fiver plus postage, from Atkinson Print, 10/11 Lower Church Street, Hartlepool TS24 7DJ.

THE much-feared gentlemen of the Durham FA disciplinary commission have a soft centre after all, we learn.

Hearing on Monday evening a misconduct allegation against a club official - who for this purpose had best remain nameless - the DFA panel were surprised to discover that a witness for the defence was just nine years old and even more surprised when the awe-struck little lad broke down in tears.

Ever resourceful, the chairman - "the old feller, " said the bairn, ungratefully - pulled a tube of mints from his pocket and at once cooled the fevered brow.

"I never got a mint, " said another club official also present.

"You should have cried then, " said the little lad.

The case was found not proven.

EVER on the ball, Ray Simpson points out that Steve Pickering of Dunston Fed scored against Pickering of North Yorkshire in the FA Vase on Tuesday night and wonders how many players have similarly ill-rewarded their namesakes. Did Jermaine Darlington ever score against the Quakers, Alan Sunderland against the latter-day Black Cats or George Oldham against the Latics? Examples much welcomed.

WHILE Liverpool mourns Emlyn Hughes, the club's oldest former player - 90-year-old goalkeeper and Co Durham miner Alf Hobson - also died earlier this year. He was 90.

Though the news had hitherto passed the column by he would have been delighted to be remembered, says Susan Herbert, Alf 's daughter.

"He still had his Liverpool blazer with the Liver bird on, still looked out for their scores, still was very proud to be thought of as a Liverpool player."

Born in Langley Park, Alf played for Ferryhill and Shildon in the Northern League - and for the league side - before signing for Liverpool in 1936.

He made 27 competitive appearances before joining Chester, returned for another 172 wartime matches and played his last game for the Reds in a 1946 FA Cup tie against Bolton.

Football career over, he returned to the pits - largely at Fencehouses - and lived in West Rainton, near Durham.

Alf 's wife, also 90, died four months before him. "He just couldn't live without her; he gave up, " says Susan.

Liverpool TV was planning an interview when he died. The club broadcast a match day tribute and sent a red and white wreath. Alf Hobson's funeral, inevitably, was to the strains of You'll Never Walk Alone.

FIRST time in years, we were unable to attend Evenwood Cricket Club's annual extravaganza last Saturday - regrettable because there was much to present.

The first team, under 18s and under 15s all won their leagues, the firsts also won the league cup and were in another final and the junior sides had further triumphs.

Wicketkeeper/batsman Chris Peareth, known for some reason as Young Meeky, was named players' player, most improved senior and sportsman of the year; Durham County League secretary Roy Coates made the presentations and a speech described - for some reason in inverted commas - as brief.

The report's from club official John Teesdale. "Apart from getting the beers in and paying £17 for a ticket, " he says, "you weren't missed at all."

THE old palindromes' act takes a final bow: after much research, Tom Purvis in Sunderland provides the last two players for a truly reversible XI. A 1988 World Cup publication lists Garla Lawal, capped three times for Nigeria, and 23-year-old Yugoslav international Dragan Ciric - magic Dragan, no doubt - who'd appeared four times for his country. "Both players were in midfield and adept at pushing up and dropping back, " says Tom. They were, he adds, politically correct, an' all.

Ups and Downes for Eeles

A MENTION in the "Memories" slot last Friday prompts a call from former England amateur boxer John Eeles - it had been 40 years to the day since his international debut at the Royal Albert Hall.

John, then an 18-year-old Shildon lad, was junior ABA champion and unbeaten for three years. Joseph Grudzien, his Polish opponent, had won Olympic gold in Tokyo in his previous fight.

"Reg Gutteridge, the commentator, said I was in over my head. Junior ABA against Olympic champion said it all really, " recalls John, but the following morning's Northern Echo reckoned the youngster due "special praise" after a tenacious points defeat.

"If the English always fought like that, the international scene would have a different look, " we added.

That day's paper also reported that new Sunderland manager George Hardwick had made five changes in his first team selection, that Darlington had turned down a transfer bid for centre forward Jimmy Lawton and that world middleweight champion Emile Griffith had been lunching at the Commons with political heavyweight Bessie Braddock.

John Eeles' progress back to the dressing room had been arrested by the inarguable arm of Terry Downes, the British middleweight champion.

"He just grabbed me, sat me on his knee and despite my trainer trying to get me back for a shower insisted I watch the next two fights with him, " he recalls.

"When I finally got back to the dressing room, Mickey Duff was waiting to try to persuade me to turn professional."

He never did, continued at Shildon wagon works, represented British Railways at boxing, cricket and football and after 11 further England fights - six others prevented by injury - retired at 21.

"I loved my football and I was getting married. I had to choose between marriage and professional boxing, " he says.

He returned to the ring at 24, reached the ABA semi-finals but again retired soon afterwards with 101 wins in 113 fights.

These days he lives in Ferryhill, works in Darlington, stocks the cabinet with golf rather than boxing trophies and is said also to be a mean darts and doms player at Eldon Lane club.

Nothing, however, will compare with his England debut - a night of ups and Downes.

And finally...

The former Premiership footballer with a national day named after him in Bermuda (Backtrack, Novermber 23) is Shaun Goater - June 21.

Keith Bond in Brompton-on-Swale today invites readers to name the honour which former Tranmere, West Brom and Aston Villa goal-keeper Jim Cumbes won in 1974.

Safe hands, the column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 26/11/2004