New meaning to "old Bill", Bill Smith played his regular weekly game of football on Monday - a couple of days after his 80th birthday.

"I just wish I could get a game more often," he said. "I still play up front, there's plenty of time to go into defence when you're older."

Among his teammates is former Darlington and Hull City winger Steve Holbrook, a bit bairn of 51. "Bill's just incredible, we make absolutely no allowances for his age," he says.

"I talk about him at reunions at Hull and people won't believe me. There can't be anyone older anywhere who's still playing football each week."

Regular opponent Charlie Greenhoff reckons it's like playing against a little ferret. "He still scores goals from all sorts of acute angles, one he got last week was extraordinary. He just never seems to tire."

The column had also recorded Bill's 70th birthday, acknowledged the celebratory strippergram - "Julie from Trimdon Colliery" - noted that with the buxom young lady at his side, Bill asked folk if they'd met the wife.

"You got me into trouble at home," he says.

He'd played local league football since he was 15, peaked (he believes) in 1946, still recalls the disappointment when Darlington Victoria Rovers dropped him.

He was 45 at the time. "They reckoned they were adopting a youth policy," he says.

Bill was also a professional track cyclist - Spartan Wheelers after the war - and a boxer ("35 fights, 34 defeats") in the Pioneer Corps. Cycling, he says, was the most dangerous of his sports.

"There were some pretty spectacular pile ups, much worse than football. I'm sure that a lot of people only came to see the blood.

"I never seem to have any real injuries playing football, maybe it's because I don't put enough into it."

Tough as old boots? "It's interesting, it's physical and it means I can work up a bit of a sweat.

"They're good lads, good companions, and I feel no ill effects other than that it's sometimes a bit hard to get out of bed next morning. You get a few kicks but there's no malice; all the fouls are unintentional - I'll pack in when I feel I'm not contributing anything."

The five-a-side matches are at the Dolphin Centre in Darlington, followed by breakfast - full English v fruit cocktail - and a pint over the road in the Pennyweight.

On Monday they were level after an hour, went in search of a golden goal and finally trooped off after 75 frantic minutes. For once, Bill hadn't scored.

"We saw your photographer so didn't give him any decent passes," says Steve Holbrook. "He's getting a bit right footed now that he's 80; we only passed to his left."

Teammate Craig Morley, 34, plays with two screws in his leg after a fracture 18 months ago. "I avoid tackles more than Bill does. He's like a man half his age," says Craig, on the management team at Albany Northern League side Washington Nissan.

A retired Northern Gas executive, Bill lives in North Cowton, near Richmond, frequently goes fishing but has no plans to hang up his football boots.

So will we all be back drinking his post-match health in ten years time? Bill quaffs his pint and looks around the team mates less than half his age. "I just hope," he says, "that these lads will still be up to it."

District play through the rain

Whilst others ruminated at Riverside, the column's first cricket match of the season was at Richmond: Darlington v Darlington and District League, Randall Orchard Cup.

The District League hit 118. Darlington were about half way there - former County men Steve Chapman and Neil Pratt comfortably out of their class - when it began to bucket.

The match had already been once postponed. Abandonment until recently would have meant tossing a coin to decide the winner - no matter how close to a convincing conclusion.

A rule change ("It's my cup, I can change anything I like" said the eponymous Mr Orchard, cheerfully) meant that they could replay within a week.

Though the rain was wretched and the light lugubrious, the District League - facing ten wicket defeat - opted to continue. "It's the real spirit of cricket," said Randall, and in the shelter of the clubhouse we raised a glass to them.

Duck broken, the cricket matches come along like London Transport. We are invited to Slingsby, dear old Feversham League, on July 21 and the following evening to Leake CC, where the Walsh Cup final will be played.

The Walsh is one of the Northallerton and District Evening Cricket League's trophies, the league itself first won by Northallerton LNER in 1938 and now with eight teams including the rugby club and the memorably named Tickle Toby CD.

Leake's barely a dot of a place near the A19, though last time we were past there was still no sign of a cricket ground. Perhaps they were playing away.

If weather permits, there'll be much more of the joys of village cricket before the month is out.

Alan Archbold reports from the Durham Girls seven-a-side football finals at Peterlee that while the organisation was impeccable the spelling left something to be desired. Five finals and several substitutes meant around 100 trophies - and each one inscribed "Subsidary Cup."

Summer edition now available, the acclaimed Sunderland fanzine The Wearside Roar reports that manager Mick McCarthy is to be the unwitting co-star of a musical premiered in Dublin this autumn.

Based on the Roman legend of Spartacus and co-written by one of the brains behind Father Ted, it centres around the gladiatorial 2002 World Cup struggle between McCarthy - then the Republic of Ireland manager - and the singularly opinionated Roy Keane.

TWR is laid back about it - "but," the magazine adds, "we bet Mick is dying to see how he's portrayed."

On the day that the column reported Mad Frankie Fraser's appearance at Spennymoor Boxing Academy's presentation night, an interesting exchange took place on one of the football websites about alternatives to the penalty shoot-out.

Options included awarding the game to the side with fewest bald players, the side whose players had spat least on the turf ("as determined by television") and the team which in the judgement of Kirsty Allsopp had the most attractive kit.

Another correspondent suggested that the rival captains simply fight it out in the centre circle, prompting the response that Beckham against "some swarthy Mediterranean type with a blade down his sock" might seem a bit unfair.

The originator in turn replied: "I was thinking of having Mad Frankie on the bench and him replacing Becks with 30 seconds to go, taking the captain's armband.

"Despite him being 81, I know who my money would be on."

The question at the foot of Tuesday's column was also about Beckham and penalties. Keith Bond, among those who knew the answer, offers a complete list of England's other post-war failures from the spot.

The first was dear old George Hardwick, against Holland in 1946 - the main differences being that it was only a friendly, George didn't blame the penalty spot and England won 8-2.

The second, a year later, was by his Middlesbrough teammate Wilf Mannion.

Though we've missed 19 penalties in "ordinary" and extra time in that period, Beckham's against France was the first match in which we've failed from the spot and lost.

Ron Flowers of Wolves has scored most, six. Alan Shearer took six but hit the post in the 1997 World Cup, against Poland.

David Beckham has also scored five England penalties in ordinary play. Whether he ever scores a sixth is anyone's guess.

John Briggs in Darlington, meanwhile, sends from the Internet the "good news" that in readiness for the Saddam Hussain trial, Iraq is likely to bring back the death penalty. The bad news, the message adds, is that Beckham is going to take it.

...and finally

THE other England players who've missed post-war "competitive" penalties are Allan Clarke (v Malta, 1971), Kevin Keegan (Switzerland, 1975), Glenn Hoddle (USA, 1985), Gary Lineker (Brazil, 1992) and David Platt (San Marino, 1993).

Brian Shaw in Shildon points out that in 2000 Didier Deschamps and Marcel Desailly of Chelsea became the second and third players to have won FA Cup, European Cup and World Cup winners' medals.

Readers are invited to name the first. The column returns - from Tow Law, with luck - on Tuesday.

Published: 02/07/2004