Bill's the big noise at Thunder

It's Friday afternoon, half past three. Catterick's decamping for the weekend, jumping the juke box and braying hell out of the bandit.

Conversation's a bit difficult, harder still when a train pulls in and damn near impossible when there's one either side, a sort of stereophonic pound.

Midgley, something of a big noise himself, appears hardly to notice, nor to worry that a sparrow could swim breast stroke in the amount of cold coffee that's still swilling around on the uncleared table.

He's 62, seems the most agreeable of chaps, insists that appearances can be deceptive. "My wife knows to keep out of my way when Gateshead Thunder lose," he says.

Sadly, Gateshead Thunder Rugby League club lose almost every week - a Thor point, as it were. In an area of Magpie mania, Bill Midgley is now chairman and chief emissary, the Tyneside equivalent of selling Brown Ale at a bar-mitzvah.

In the sporting world, at any rate, he is better known as the former chairman of Durham County Cricket Club, a post from which he had suddenly and dramatically resigned exactly a year earlier.

Though his twin aims of financial stability and attracting Test cricket had been achieved - "we'd almost to batter the door down," he says - some members seemed unsympathetic, others antagonistic, to what he was trying to do. Did he feel they were ungrateful?

"I don't think they should have been grateful; if you expect gratitude you'll become disillusioned very quickly. The problem was that some members weren't very responsive to change, what was right in 1990 wasn't right in 2003 and less still in 2005-06, which was where we were trying to look.

"I had taken the club as far as I could with the structure that was in place."

Particularly he had been criticised for a proposal to allow non-members into the members' lounge and for allowing a health club to be built, in exchange for a new stand, alongside the Riverside Ground at Chester-le-Street.

"Unfortunately there were members who were more worried about how many chips there were on a plate than securing the financial future of the club," he says.

Though invited, he had never returned to the Riverside since the day he left. "I didn't want to start wrangling with the members. A minority are totally unjustified in their expectations for the club, they have to accept that the financial structure must change.

"I think the board have now taken that on board, but there are still those who see it as a large village cricket club. It can't be, it's a business."

The 16 03 to London crosses with the 16 07 to Glasgow Central. The train of thought goes speeding away with them.

He was born in 1942 in Kirkby Stephen, where his father was in the army, moved to Huddersfield when hostilities ceased, watched Huddersfield Town and Huddersfield RL club on alternate Saturdays. His favourite, he says, was the one most successful at the time.

His own playing career was in rugby union, prop and hooker - "it was a more social game". His job was with the Midland Bank, for whose national side he played alongside Barry John and Willie John McBride. ("He was called Bill in those days.")

A month's absence with a dislocated shoulder and broken collar bone led to hard words from the Midland Bankers - "they wouldn't have said anything if it had been Willie John McBride with a broken collar bone" - the warnings direr yet when they discovered he'd played a single Rugby League game, for Batley.

Though he appeared on the programme as A Triallist ("it might have been A N Other") the bank manager smelled a rat and saw red. "I think they said it was incompatible with my position," Midgley recalls.

"Batley wasn't a very glamorous club but I was asked if I would play and I suppose I was flattered. We all have egos, don't we?

"The game was very hard, very fast. In union the ball's out of play a lot. In league it isn't, the ball's going all the time. Wherever you play, you're always involved."

Instead he returned to Harrogate RUFC, alongside England fly half Roger Shackleton and Geoff Young of Wales. "We had a very good side," he remembers. "If I have a regret it's that it was 30 years too early. They'd have been a premier league club now."

After moving north to become assistant general manager of the Newcastle Building Society he played until three months short of his 40th birthday for Whitley Bay based Rockliffe Park. The end came unexpectedly.

"In my next to last game, against North Shields, I kicked one of their players. The referee knew me and said he'd have sent me off if he hadn't.

"I thought if I was getting caught kicking people, it was time to hang up my boots."

The boots remain, suspended, in his garage. "I'd still like to put them on, have a run out on a rugby pitch, and then I see the size of the players...."

The 16 36 takes off for Manchester Airport, another platoon of squaddies arrives exuberantly. His wife rings. "I'm still in Darlington," he tells her, though she might suppose it were a bull ring instead.

He became the building society's chief executive, retired at 56 to head the North East Chamber of Commerce and is now into a two year role as president of the British Chambers of Commerce. He is also chairman of Century Radio ("they keep asking me what I think of their music") and holds several other key positions.

The invitation to take the Thunderdome hot seat - it's Gateshead International Stadium the rest of the time - arrived, perhaps unexpectedly, in May. Though results continue to disappoint, he remains well struck, for all that.

They haven't won for 25 games, won precious few at all, but were much encouraged by a 24-40 defeat two weeks ago at the hands of league leaders Barrow, in which Thunder ran in five tries.

"I get quite passionate about it," he confesses. "I was bouncing up and down on the touchline saying one or two things about the referee."

Referees, he adds with a little grin, are always against them. "I've never known one who was on our side."

As with Durham County Cricket Club, he can identify room for improvement. "I'm sorry they've had such a disappointing start to the season. There's some undoubted talent there, but some of the lads like Peng should be performing more consistently now. It should be past the promising stage."

He hopes to apply similar principles at Thunder. "It's got to be run as a business. We don't owe anyone a penny but we mustn't spend what we haven't got. We need to build up our income to ensure we can play in the future.

"The lads still get very down when they're beaten, I'd be very disappointed if they didn't. Realistically there aren't going to be many wins this season, but I'd love one or two for the supporters."

The five o'clock train for Newcastle has arrived. As probably they say at Gateshead Thunder, everything comes to him who waits.

Hard times in a not so super league

If ever there's been a case of try, try, try again, it's been getting Rugby League up and running in Gateshead.

The first big match was in 1934 when Great Britain retained the Ashes by beating Australia 19-14 at Gateshead FC's old Redheugh Stadium, watched by a 15,576 crowd.

Four years later, the Newcastle club spent a season at the White City Stadium at the Gateshead end of Scotswood Bridge, but never re-formed after the war.

Gateshead council attracted several top games to the International Stadium in the 1980s, helped form an academy and in 1999 Gateshead was granted a Super League franchise. Gateshead Thunder was born and has spent much of the time under a cloud.

First season gates averaged 3,700 but the club lost an estimated £700,000 and folded after an alliance with Hull Sharks.

Thunder rolled again in 2001, finished third bottom of the Northern Ford Premiership and the following season managed just a single point, against Featherstone Rovers.

Mark IV by that time, the club returned to National Division Two last year but life proved little less difficult, a supporters group taking control.

This year there's been just a single draw, Thunderdome crowds are down to 300. Bill Midgley's realistic.

"You never say never, but I don't think we're going back to the Super League, are we?"

Backtrack briefs

Sessay Cricket Club, friends from the dim and distant, are in the quarter-final of the National Village Cup. The Times gave them half a page on Tuesday.

The lads from the single street hamlet near Thirsk reached the Lord's final in 1976, full of Tills and Flintoffs when Freddie was barely a figment, losing narrowly to Troon, from Cornwall.

The top five batsmen in Sunday's last ball win over Warkworth, Northumberland, were all sons of 1976 finalists. More Tills, more Flintoffs; proper village cricket.

Though its relevance may only now be appreciated by budgerigar breeders, Sessay also produced one of cricket's great T-shirts. "Till makes Sessay bounce with health," it said

Clearly it still does; more of them shortly.

Following the untimely death of Amos - a baby ostrich - fabled philanthropist and former four minute miler Brooks Mileson reports that Amos Too, another of the breed, is growing up fast at a zoo near Doncaster. "He even has a harem," says Brooks. Chance....

Doubtless inspired by Jermaine Darlington's impending move from Milton Keynes Whatnot to Watford, Arnold Alton in Heighington proposes a North-East XI - a team of footballers past and present with the same names as places in the region. Subs included, though Matty Appleby's stretching it a bit.

Mark Prudhoe (Darlington), Matty Appleby (Darlo), Ray Blackhall (Newcastle), Jim Blyth (Soutrhamtpon), Jim Scarborough (Darlington), Ian Crook (Norwich), Jermaine Darlington, Don Walker (Boro), Alan Sunderland (Arsenal), Frank Stapleton (Arsenal), Warren Barton (Newcastle). Subs: Ian Bearpark (g/k, Bristol Rovers), Alan York (Bradford), Dennis Durham (Hull), Ted Helmsley (Sheffield United), Peter Billingham (Walsall.)

For Northern Echo purposes, of course, the "North-East" includes much of the old North Riding. Perhaps beginning with the much travelled Laurie Sheffield or former England international Geoff Bradford, anyone want to name a Tyke team to take us on?

A reminder that, following the tragic death of Shildon footballer Lee Hainsworth in a road accident, Shildon take on a Newcastle United XI tonight (7pm) for the Lee Hainsworth Shield, sponsored by his old employers, Calsonic. A week tomorrow they're at home to the Notts County first team, also in Lee's memory.

After winning four golds and a bronze in the 2003 British Masters track cycling championships, the indestructible Steve Davies reports a less glittering haul from last weekend's event: he only took three golds, a silver and a bronze.

Steve, a 52-year-old insurance broker in Darlington, won the sprint, the pursuit and the 15km scratch, came second in the 500m time trial and third in the 15km points race.

In May he won the national circuit race championship for the third time in four years. Still in the saddle, he's now training hard for the world championships in September.

and finally . . .

The oldest first-time manager of a Football League club (Backtrack, July 14) was 62-year-old Joe Fagan at Liverpool, promoted via the boot room in 1974.

Brian Shaw (again) today seeks the identity of the English League club to boast an all-seater stadium.

Sitting comfortably? The column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 16/07/2004