The sick alligator

"Can you not do anything about the Red Alligator?" he at once enquires.

Named after Denys's legendary 1968 Grand National winner, the Alligator is a pub at South Church, just half a mile from his farm and stables, and has long been his local.

Once one of south Durham's leading pubs, it is now distinctly among the also rans, however.

"It used to be a smashing little place and obviously I have a special affection for it," says Denys, 78. "There must have been five or six landlords in the past year or so and you can't blame them. No one's had chance to make a go of it; it's quite sad, what's happened."

Then owned by Vaux, the pub was converted from the former Crown and Anchor and opened in December 1973. Denys, Red Alligator's owner Jack Manners and jockey Brian Fletcher - now sheep farming and pony breeding in Wales - joined the horse as chief guests. The first landlord, appropriately, was called Brian Dobbin.

After several years under the Pubmaster banner, ownership switched to Burton-based Punch Taverns at the end of last year. A 10.30am visit on Sunday found all the curtains closed, weeds growing around the entrance and car park and a sign saying "No Sunday lunch."

A spokesman for Punch Taverns said they were "liaising with the licensees" to make a success of the pub. "We are looking into ways of turning the pub into a fantastic facility for the community."

The column's watering of cricket's grassroots continued on Thursday evening with the Walsh Cup final - Silton v Ingleby Cross v the capricious weather.

"Walsh" was the late Norman Walsh, still affectionately remembered on Teesside as a post-war professional wrestler who became world champion and frequently fought The Ghoul - he of the guillotine garrotte - and reckoned, like Norman, to have been a lovely feller.

(Tell that to the Hartlepool tricoteuses who'd sit at ringside at the Engineers Club, throwing balls of knitting wool at the old Ghoul.)

Norman then had the Dog and Gun at Knayton, between Northallerton and Thirsk and in the parish of Leake, either side of the A19. It was at Leake cricket ground that his widow Lottie, 84, waited patiently to present the trophy, the sheep having been shifted onto the football field, instead.

Lottie doesn't think much of modern wrestlers. "They're just muscle-bound and for many of them the biggest muscle is between the ears," she once told the column.

The Dog and Gun, incidentally, may be the only pub in Britain to have a Subbuteo league. Since North Riding FA chief executive Mark Jarvis was also on the boundary - mown, not marked - we wondered if they should be affiliated.

"Good idea, we're trying to promote mini-soccer," said Mark.

Silton fielded, on a high after winning the Northallerton-based Granindon Cup the previous evening after six unsuccessful finals. Ingleby smote, swatted and swathed and were all out for 65.

Silton had barely started their reply, 20-1, when the long threatened rain arrived. Since few in Leake - or indeed anywhere else in Britain - understand the Duckworth-Lewis method, they played instead by the "What's a little wet to a water rat" method until the grass roots became not so much watered as submerged and the teams adjourned for pork pie and pleasantries to the Wheatsheaf in Borrowby. They will begin all over again a week on Thursday.

Tomorrow's the annual village show, when they will hope for sunnier climes. Only then will they be running round Borrowby with the cup.

Friday's piece on village cricket at Slingsby, near Malton, prompted several readers to recall Slingsby Aviation - they of the Firefly - in nearby Kirkbymoorside.

Remarkably, however, the world renowned glider manufacturer wasn't named after the village. It was founded before the war by Fred Slingsby from Scarborough - known to his friends as Sling - who in 1933 was designing and selling gliders for £45, complete.

Sling didn't even have a drawing board to go back to, preferring to work on the dining room table at home. "We never got a proper meal," his wife (who answered to Fluff) once complained.

One reader recalls urbane former Tyne Tees Television reporter Rod Griffith taking a press trip on a Slingsby Sailplane and begging, with as much on-air dignity as he could muster, to be brought back down to earth.

Whether or not Fred Slingby played village cricket, we have been wholly unable to discover.

Still on village cricket in North Yorkshire, our friends in Sessay lost their National Village Cup quarter-final to neighbours Sheriff Hutton Bridge on Sunday, the Trills for once unable to make Sessay bounce with health.

Almost all Hartlepool United's 1991 promotion winning side will be reunited on Sunday, August 8 in a match officially to open Horden CW's spanking new facilities.

Behind it is Horden lad Brian Honour, an all time Pool favourite, who has persuaded all the team except goalkeeper Kevin Poole - still with Bolton Wanderers - to get together again.

"I can't guarantee what they'll play like, mind, hair lines and waist lines have changed a bit since then," says Brian, now manager of Bishop Auckland.

The side was mid-table at the turn of the year when team manager Cyril Knowles became ill and was replaced by Alan Murray, who'd been commercial manager.

"You'd never have put money on what happened," says Brian, 40.

"Cyril was the sergeant-major type but under Alan things were much more relaxed and it worked. We didn't really know anything about him, except that he'd once measured us for new suits."

Those reuniting include left back Rob McKinnon, who became a Scottish international, and Joe Allon, Paul Baker and Paul Dalton who all moved on for substantial fees. For many it will be their first meeting since Honour's testimonial in 1995.

"I get a little bit envious watching the Masters on Sky," says Brian.

"Why can't they have that sort of thing for Hartlepool and Darlington?"

The £120,000 changing, hospitality and administration complex beneath the stand has transformed the Albany Northern League club. The match, preceded by a brass band concert, is attracting widespread interest.

"I got 20 tickets at the weekend and they went like wildfire. My dad played there and our John, our Alan and our Ray played there. There'd be a near capacity crowd if they just let all the Honours in Horden in."

The new facilities have thrown up just one small problem - the bell in the referee's room.

"We've had to change it," says club secretary Rob Jones. "It sounded like there was an ice cream man outside."

And finally...

THE Englishman who played against Liverpool in both FA and European Cup finals (Backtrack, July 23) was Laurie Cunningham - as a sub for Wimbledon in 1988 and for Real Madrid in 1981.

Among those who cracked it, Newcastle United programme editor Paul Tully today invites readers to name the only five Magpies to appear in the Premiership whose surname has begun with the letter 'r'.

Black and white and read all over, the column returns on Friday.

Published: 27/07/2004