Crowe no fan of sporting hero tag

"I'm part and parcel of an organisation called United Heroes but I've had an education, albeit an elementary one, and I know I'm not a hero, " says Charlie.

"I would say Sir Francis Drake or Winston Churchill were heroes, not footballers. I made the point to Shepherd (the United chairman) and I got checked for it.

"I suppose it's the way they do things now, but we were ordinary working lads and we'd sharp have been reminded if we'd ever supposed it any other way." The wholly admirable Mr Crowe, paid £20 at his prodigious peak and described in one of Paul Joannou's United histories as "tenacious and hard working, a left half who never gave up the challenge", is very far from the embittered old pro of popular perception, however.

"I've made far too many friends ever to be resentful. It was still £1000 a year and it was enough to buy my house, which was more than a lot of lads could do." He played in the era of Milburn and Mitchell, of Keeble and Broadis, speaks affectionately of them all with the possible exception of some time skipper Jimmy Scoular, hewn from the Scottish coalfields but galvanised on the Tyne.

"Jimmy was a tremendous footballer, great passer of the ball, but the effing and blinding was terrible, you know, especially with families about.

"Mitchell and Milburn, the quiet men, finally went to Stan Seymour in 1955 and suggested that someone else should be club captain while Jimmy remained captain on the field. They asked me to do it; I've never been so proud.

"I just wish Ivor Broadis could have been sitting in that chair to tell you all about Jimmy Scoular." A week before the big birthday and they're putting central heating into his flat near the Four Lane Ends Metro station on North Tyneside. "It's like Casey's court in here, " says Charlie, cheerfully, his wife Ruth - "married for yonks, " he says - shopping in the city in order to keep out of the road.

None of the fancy Crowe's Nest stuff, it's plain number 14; none of the stardom's standoffishness, he's brewing tea for the plumbers.

He was born in Byker, spotted playing for Byker and Heaton Youth Centre, signed for £10 ("me dad got that"), travelled in on the trolley bus, made 178 Football League appearances, played in the 1951 and 1955 FA Cup finals and once wrote a book called Crowe Among the Magpies and remains rather fond of the title.

"Even now it takes him an hour to walk down Northumberland Street, " wrote former United vice-chairman Peter Mallinger in the foreword.

Impeccably hand written, other memories are recorded in yellow backed exercise books (stamped HMSO) or in scrapbooks redolent of derring-do and of dubbin, of honest endeavour and of Oxo.

Another book is simply labelled "Anecdotes 1-28" and includes the perhaps apocryphal story of the cup final team complaining that the band got a bigger bonus than they did.

"The band played better than you did, " said Stan Seymour.

He'd arrived at St James Park on the same day as the youthful Milburn, declined a bite of his pie ? "it was wartime, you never knew what was in them" ? and remained his close friend thereafter.

Other team-mates included Joe Harvey ("if ever there was a hero among footballers, it was Joe), big Frank Brennan ("monster of a man, ate the ground") and little Ernie Taylor, a giant of 5ft 4in.

Then there was Bobby Mitchell, outside left, forever Bobby Dazzler. "I'm not being boastful but I could have found Bobby Mitchell at St James Park in the dark. He just invited service, always knew where to be.

Marvellous man, Mitch." Released by manager Dugald Livingstone - "a nutcase, wanted us to climb ropes. I told him I'd climb it if it made me tackle or head the ball better" - he spent a season with Mansfield before returning to Tyneside.

A qualified FA coach - "I still get coaching stuff from the FA though I haven't done anything for yonks" - he was offered in 1967 the head coach's job at Zamelek, the Arsenal of Egypt he reckons, until the Six Day War shot down his ambition.

His friend Kenneth Wolstenholme sent his coaching qualifications to the Australian FA where, unacknowledged, they probably remain.

Instead he did some scouting, coached in schools, ran a pub, worked for the Ministry, became an expert bridge player until his partner died ? "I was the rash one, he was the steadying influence" - walks every day, plays snooker on Wednesdays, still does talk-ins, watches both United and his 15-year-old great grandson Jamie, who could be the next Crowe in high places.

"He's such an honest lad, if he gets stuck in he can make it, so long as he's not spoiled by coaching.

"I've been in coaching and I've seen the error of my ways. If you've got it, you've got it; if you haven't, you haven't.

"I suppose I'm a bit disenchanted, but it's not the game like I used to play it. It's all about pace and getting high balls into the 18 yard box and there's no discipline in there, just elbows flying all over the place.

"I agree with Brian Clough. If God had wanted us to play high balls all the time, he'd have planted grass in the sky." Nor was he much taken about what happened to Sir Bobby Robson. "They should have given him a job or something, it was bloody awful what happened.

"When he came we were really struggling and he did a terrific job. I've a lot of distaste for what happened; it was a very underhand trick." The crack's been scuttling along for 90 minutes, the house now quiet, the plumbers somewhere getting their pints. "Tell you what, " says the impending birthday boy, "how do you fancy a pint?"

SO ONWARD to Benton Conservative Club, Charlie ? still their darling - greeted perpetually en route. "It's not as bad as Northumberland Street, " he says, though he's a bit apprehensive about the venue.

"My dad used to play war with me even for drinking in the Liberal Club. He was terribly staunch Labour, me dad." It's a huge and friendly place.

Union Jack somnolent outside, Daily Express stationary in the paper rack, pictures of Churchill and of John Major unsmiling on the walls.

Why no remembrance of the Blessed Margaret, we ask the steward. "No women allowed in the bar, " he says, deadpan.

It's snooker day ? every day is snooker day at Benton Conservative Club ? and there between games is 77-year-old Alf Nolan, still the only man alive to have won English amateur titles at both billiards and snooker and winner of more CIU national titles than many men have had pints of Federation.

Once warden of a hostel for the mentally handicapped in Newton Aycliffe, still president of Darlington Mechanics Institute - "we only have 27 members, I don't think anyone else wants the job" - Alf 's been upstairs since 11am, practising in pursuit of perfection.

"I had to come down, its freezation, " he says. "It's like being a concert pianist, you have to look after your hands. It doesn't stop me talking, mind." It's the veterans' league, against Ashington or someone, Alf playing off a billiards handicap of minus 244. Even at their age, says another chap getting his pipe, there are players who'll lie about their experience in order to fiddle their handicap.

"You'd think they'd have a conscience by the time they turn 70, " he adds.

Alf recalls paying a tanner to watch Charlie Crowe at St James's - "No you never, " says Charlie - and then is up for it, upstairs for it, yet again.

"I'm still just 77, " says Alf, genially. "There's a canny few frames in me yet."

AMONG those in attendance when that same night we held forth to Durham Referees' Society was veteran whistler Jim Smart - Kelloe lad - and with a copy of the 1951 FA Cup final souvenir brochure about his person.

Newcastle v Blackpool, price one shilling.

Skipper Joe Harvey, neatly caricatured, thought that his team ("black and white vertical stripes, black knickers") the best cup winning prospect for years.

Charlie Crowe, who'd scored in the quarter-final replay against Bristol Rovers, was described as a rival to Billy Wright for all the work he got through - "a keen tackler and also aggressive in the attack." Though Stanley Matthews was reckoned "the greatest player in modern football", Harvey's confidence was well placed. Jackie Milburn's goals gave United a 2-0 victory.

THE draw at Notts County notwithstanding, Darlington fans still had the beating of the railway system on Tuesday.

Asked £42 for a day return to Nottingham, the Quaker cognoscenti instead booked in advance to Newark (£19.50) and thence to Nottingham (£3.60), thus almost halving the cost of their night out. The ever-loyal Richard Jones is impressed. "We spent the change on beer."

ANOTHER bit of folklore for our friends at Norton and Stockton Ancients FC, reduced to ten men in the 47th minute of last Saturday's match with South Shields when goalkeeper Stephen Gill was sent off for offensive language on the say-so of a dutiful linesman.

Trouble was, Gill and everyone else swore blind he'd never opened his mouth and that the culprit was a bloke behind the goal.

Trailing 4-0 at the time, the Ancients finally lost 5-4 ? "We should play with ten men more often, " says team manager Ray Morton - and were little comforted by the ref 's post-match admission that it was mistaken identity after all.

Foul and abusive? "Just utterly speechless, " says Ray.

TOMORROW'S first Albany Northern League meeting between Billingham Synthonia and Newcastle Benfield Saints ? newly promoted to the top division - may (as Martin Birtle points out) represent the most important clash of Saints and Synners since the Book of Revelation. They're first and second in the league; the outcome could be positively cataclysmic

And finally...

THE only man to manage three different sides to victory in major Wembley finals (Backtrack, October 19) is Ron Atkinson - Man United in the FA Cup, Sheffield Wednesday (1991) and Aston Villa (1994) in the League Cup.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today invites readers to name the club with which Peter Shilton made his 1,000th senior appearance.

The column doesn't now appear until November 2.

Published: 22/10/2004